There Is No Science Of Introspection

Even a deeply, consistently introspective person has not seen any sort of electrical signals, neurons, or other particles or material phenomena by looking within their mind.  Their introspection focuses on their consciousness and its contents: thoughts, psychological feelings, attitudes, mental imagery, and so on.  No amount of analyzing one's thoughts yields perception of whatever neurological activities might be occurring behind those thoughts.  It does not even matter how aware one is of scientific hearsay and concepts associated with contemporary neuroscience; looking within one's mental faculties illuminates one's consciousness and not any scientific laws or information about the external world.  Introspection has nothing to do with science.

There can thus be no such thing as the "science of introspection," even if there are scientific phenomena that occur behind introspection.  The distinction is actually metaphysically and epistemologically vital.  What is at stake in understanding the objective distinction?  Those who do not grasp the basic difference fall prey to neurological reductionism: they misunderstand the blatant nature of consciousness and equate it with something that actually occurs behind the scenes of consciousness.  Such a fundamental, easily avoidable error will almost certainly spill over into other aspects of their lives and worldviews.  One of the most severe and blatantly false errors it could feed into is the objectively false notion that science grounds all or most knowledge of reality.

Some fools might flare up in frustration upon encountering this, likely from happenstance conversations with others and not due to their own philosophical initiative, as well as from a subjective sense of appreciation for science.  Their lack of intelligence and philosophical consistency may keep them from believing or admitting that introspection and the scientific method are entirely separate, despite whatever background correlations there might be, but they rely on introspection to even think about their own neuroscientific reductionism of consciousness!  At any time, they could simply contemplate the matter without assumptions or emotionalism and see that the mind which metaphysically grounds their own perceptions is more philosophically primary than science could possibly be.

The former provides absolute certainty and deals exclusively with the contents of one's consciousness, whereas the latter provides no certainty whatsoever beyond one's sensory perceptions and deals exclusively with the physical world or perceptions of the external world outside of one's consciousness.  Thus, on a metaphysical and epistemological level, the two are almost entirely different!  Moreover, introspection is more philosophically foundational and important than science in other ways.  The mind must exist for the senses to perceive, but the senses cannot be active apart from the mind.  This would be true even if all epistemological limitations surrounding science were removed (limitations like not knowing if correlations signify true causation, not knowing if the external world is as it is perceived, or if scientific laws will or have changed).

Science cannot be conducted without a mind to do the observing and an external world to be perceived--or perceptions of an external world.  Even if scientific facts about an external world exist in the absence of human minds, the scientific method purely hinges on the minds who use it.  The mind of an individual is always before them as long as they perceive anything at all, from emotions to particular thoughts to dreams to sensory perceptions.  Whatever scientific laws govern the material world must be sought after by using the mind and the senses together.  It is just that the only one of the two that is required for the other to even function is the mind.