Galileo Misled Science for 400 years

Reviewing the book “Galileo’s Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness” By Philip Goff

This might be my favourite book about philosophy of mind that I have read. The title alludes to the shift that Galileo introduced in the history of science, and he was a big component of the scientific revolution. I tend to associate the latter more with Descartes and Bacon, but Galileo played an important part as well, and it was well argued here. More importantly, the author’s choice of Galileo fits perfectly with how he presents his case for science and consciousness in the book.

First, Galileo concluded that nature is mathematical and knowable, but it did so at the expense of taking consciousness completely out of the picture. He thought we could never put the mind into a materialistic and mechanistic worldview. The qualitative reality of subjective consciousness was completely out of our reach. This is quite relevant because we inherit this view, and it is what allowed mathematical physics to flourish. But likewise, we remain with the same “problem”, with consciousness being outside of a scientific framework.

Second, while he is known for advancing heliocentrism and Copernicanism, which made him a father of science, he actually did so philosophically, and not in a typical scientific manner. This is ironic because philosophy of consciousness is often dismissed because it is thought that science will provide the answers, and philosophy is irrelevant. Yet, the very foundation of modern science and the most important scientific paradigm shift was done philosophically.

Aristotle believed that the speed at which an object falls is proportional to its mass. This is of course very intuitive and was believed for over a thousand years. Galileo proved this wrong with a thought experiment. If heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones, let’s say we stick them together with a chain and drop them from a height. Does the heavier object fall faster than if not chained? From Aristotle’s perspective, yes and no. The fact that the heavier object is tied to the lighter one slows the heavy object down. But the fact that the heavier object is tied to the lighter one, it speeds up the lighter one.

But if they are chained together, they can be considered as a unit, and with a weight that is higher than both of them (lighter+heavier+chain). Therefore it means that the whole unit will be faster than the heavier object if dropped alone.

Because an object can’t be slowed down and sped up at the same time, Galileo concluded that this couldn’t be true, a typical deductive (philosophical) reasoning, and without any empirical method. Thus he claimed that all objects fall precisely at the same speed, regardless of weight. I found this fascinating, and I was both mindblown and annoyed that I never heard about this even once in my life.

Galileo aside, the author goes through the problems of accounting consciousness through a scientific and materialistic lens. The common view is either that consciousness is explained by the brain (which is perceived as the solution to outdated Cartesian dualism), or if you’re slightly more educated, that while consciousness cannot be accounted by the brain now, it will be in the future when neuroscience is better developed. Goff goes through these problems and describes them incredibly well. All of it can be understood quite well, and he writes assuming that the reader has no philosophical background at all.

I really appreciate this because this problem isn’t one that can be easily described to non-philosophers. When one claims that consciousness cannot be accounted for by the brain, people tend to view it as if it’s by default outside the brain, in some sort of magical or religious way. Even for highly intelligent and educated people, if they’re very embedded into a scientific background, understanding the nuance of consciousness can be tricky. This book I think is the perfect introduction for someone to start thinking about this problem.

While I was fairly familiar with philosophy of mind, and the book is intended as an introduction to non-philosophers, I still managed to learn quite a bit. For example, thought experiments that are a staple of the hard problem of consciousness, such as The Zombie Argument, or Mary’s room, are arguments that I’ve heard countless times before. Yet, Goff presented them brilliantly, with a lot of detail and nuances that I either forgot or never learned.

The book argues for panpsychism (more specifically, monist panpsychism influenced by Eddington and Russell in the 1920s) to solve the hard problem of consciousness. Panpsychism is the view that mind and matter aren’t distinct, but rather the same thing. Mind is matter, and the matter is mind. Consciousness didn’t just magically pop into the universe but was there all along. This is a very weird view when you first hear it, but it is very intellectually respectable once you learn about it. I don’t consider myself a panpsychist, but I’m very sympathetic towards it, and I seem to gravitate towards it more and more over time.

A good thing about this book is that even if you disagree with panpsychism completely, such a large portion of the book is dedicated to explaining what the problem is that it’s well worth reading even if you disagree with this particular solution. I also liked that the author connected many other things that aren’t typically covered, yet he links them to the problem of consciousness. I certainly wasn’t expecting quantum mechanics or time travel to be featured, but it is!

While it was one of my favourite books I have read lately, there were still a few things I did not like. I think he overly relied on Occam’s razor for some of the arguments, and I liked the last part of the book the least. It tried to tie panpsychism to environmentalist ethics, free will, and morality. I understand the arguments, but I wasn’t convinced and don’t think they are very strong. Not to mention irrelevant from a “metaphysical” standpoint of panpsychism being true or not. It doesn’t matter what conclusions it leads to, being favourable or not. I also thought that the book was lacking in arguing for and against the materialistic emergence argument. As flawed as it is, I think it is one of the strongest cases of materialism and was only touched on peripherally.

Overall it’s a fantastic book about one of the most interesting philosophical fields. I think it’s very fair to call it the biggest mystery in the universe, and if you know nothing about it, you’re missing out. And if you belong to the camp that you think philosophy is irrelevant, or consciousness is simply what the brain does, then you definitely need to read the book! While this book was meant for the layman, he also has written a book on the same subject for academics, which covers most of the same topics but goes a lot deeper into the arguments and details of it, called “Consciousness and Fundamental Reality”, which I definitely plan to read in the future.

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