Phenomenal experience and science: Separated by a “brick wall”?

Abstract

Palmer's principled distinction between first-person experience and scientific access is called into question. First, complete color transformations of experience and memory may be undetectable even from the first-person perspective. Second, transformations of (say) pain experiences seem to be intrinsically connected to certain effects, thus giving science access to these experiences, in principle. Evidence from pain research and emotional psychology indicates that further progress can be made.