This is a deep question that sits at the intersection of psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy. And although it sounds abstract, it connects directly to leadership, empathy, and communication — because every human interaction is, in essence, an attempt to bridge two subjective realities.
From a scientific standpoint, subjective experience can’t yet be fully measured, only correlated. Modern neuroscience uses tools like fMRI, EEG, and machine learning to map patterns of brain activity that coincide with reported mental states, but it doesn’t tell us how those states feel internally. We can compare activation patterns, reaction times, or emotions expressed behaviorally — yet we can’t confirm that “my red” looks or feels exactly like “your red.”
Psychologically, we rely on intersubjectivity — shared language, emotion, and context — as our best approximation of a common reality. In therapy, leadership, or coaching, this is what empathy really is: learning to understand another’s internal state well enough that communication feels aligned, even if the underlying experience can never be identical.
So yes, it’s scientific in the sense that we can observe, model, and correlate conscious states — but not yet objectively equate them. For now, our bridge between subjective worlds remains partly empirical and partly relational.
In my work combining psychology and leadership coaching, I often see how powerful it is when people realise this: you don’t need identical experiences to connect deeply — you just need awareness that your perspectives differ, and the curiosity to meet halfway.
If you’d like to explore how these principles apply to communication, leadership, or emotional intelligence in practice, I’d be happy to discuss further.
