SCIENCE (and common SENSE ) 41 



mirage data unacceptable. That is made perfectly plain by the treat- 

 ment of such data in science. For at last they do become scientific 

 data— precisely when scientists first conceive the hope of associating 

 these data in a determinist order with others in the general domains 

 of optics and meteorology. This hope being entertained (and since 

 gratified), mirage obser\^ations become data every bit as acceptable 

 as subject matter for science as the stick ("subjectively?") seen bent 

 in water, and phenomena of refraction more generally. 



What of the more genuinely subjecti\^e experiences of dreams, 

 hallucinations, apocalyptic revelations, and so forth? The criterion of 

 concurrence may seem permanently to rule them out of court: no- 

 body else is or can be a witness of my dream. However— though the 

 dream is not certifiable as fact— my report of a dream is so certifiable, 

 by the concurrence of multiple observers of me. Rejecting ( as "idle 

 superstition") the ancients' interpretations, modern common sense 

 refused to concern itself with reports of dreams amply recurrent 

 and, as reports, certified by the concurrence of witnesses. Reports of 

 dreams may be related to the wearing of a crown, and reports of 

 hallucinations to excessive use of alcohol, but beyond this common 

 sense seems unwilling to go— unwilling because unable: there seems 

 to be no detectable regularity in the reports of dreams, which come 

 sporadically and without recognizably necessary antecedents. Science 

 shows the same unwillingness as long as it shares the same incapacity. 

 But as soon as we conceive a possibility of ordering these reports of 

 subjective experiences they become acceptable subject matter. Thus 

 details in the reports of dreams, formerly rejected as meaningless, 

 become data of scientific interest to Freud and his followers. 



Consider a perfectly parallel case involving "physical" rather than 

 "mental" experience. About 50% of human observers report the taste 

 of p-ethoxy-phenylthiocarbamide as intensely bitter; the other 50% as 

 tasteless. My experience of the thiocarbamide is every bit as "real" as 

 my experience of a pointer moving across a graduated scale; but 

 there is a fundamental difference in the matter of concurrence. The 

 position of the pointer is certifiable as fact and the taste of the thio- 

 carbamide is not. But the reports of bitterness or tastelessness do 

 meet the criterion of concurrence and are certifiable as fact by the 

 concurrence of multiple observers of the tasters. What will be done 

 about such facts? As long as there is no prospect of involving them 

 in some regular pattern— essentially nothing. But interest flickers into 



