Piet Hut

In 2024, Piet Hut laid out the foundations of his new research program, FEST (Fully Empirical Science and Technology). He chose an unusual format: a log written as a serial blog on the online publishing platform Substack, echoing the style of ship’s logs or the feuilleton novels once printed chapter by chapter in newspapers. This way of writing invites readers on an expedition into uncharted territory, yet in the comfort of watching a meal being prepared in an open kitchen. The unfolding series quickly attracted a lively audience, first through word of mouth and later through talks and interviews—most recently with an invitation to launch the inaugural Fathom the Mind podcast by the Center for Contemplative Research.

By rejecting the old assumptions that scientists can only use their minds to study matter, or that mind must be reduced to matter, FEST makes room for an open-minded study of consciousness. As a pilot project, it explores the possibility of unifying our knowledge of reality at its deepest levels.  At its heart, FEST proposes a rigorous science of mind, as disciplined as natural science as a whole, which has been so successful in studying matter. The first step is to use the mind itself as a natural laboratory for direct experiments. Just as Galileo needed a basis of empirical observations before proposing a foundation for modern physics, any science of mind must take into account the rich observations preserved in contemplative traditions across cultures—traditions that extend rational inquiry into deeper, nondual dimensions of experience. In this analogy, theory corresponds to view and experiment to practice, terms familiar to contemplatives. What has been missing is a self-governing peer community independent of religious structures, and resistant to schisms. If such an international and intercultural community could be nurtured, as natural science has been for four centuries, then a science of mind should be possible. Until now, such efforts have never been attempted on a significant scale. FEST aims to spark that effort in collaboration with people from all walks of life.

Hut's long-term vision is bold: that an independent science of mind could one day connect naturally with natural science, the current science of matter, in a unification not unlike the most recent unifications in physics: that of electricity and magnetism, of space and time, and of reality and virtuality in quantum mechanics. For this to be possible, he based his program on the core elements of natural science, namely starting with working hypotheses, being fully empirical, being overseen by a self-governing community of peers applying great efforts to avoid schisms, while using the mind as a laboratory to study the mind.  In all this, FEST follows the way that natural science was kickstarted by using knowledge from the Greeks, who in turn borrowed Babylonian databases; in the case of FEST the treasure trove of writings and surviving oral traditions of contemplation.