Qualia, the subjective experiences that paint our world with vibrant hues of consciousness, remain a profound mystery. Explore the depths of this enigma, as we delve into the philosophical debates and scientific inquiries surrounding these elusive phenomena.
Qualia are the subjective or qualitative properties of experiences.
Paradigm examples of experiences with qualia include perceptual experiences (including nonveridical perceptual experiences like hallucinations) and bodily sensations (such as pain, hunger, and itching).
- Qualia have traditionally been thought to be intrinsic qualities of experience that are directly available to introspection. However, some philosophers offer theories of qualia that deny one or both of those features.
References and Further Reading
Block, N. 2007
- Consciousness, Function, and Representation
- A useful collection bringing together Block’s impressive body of work in philosophy of mind on issues relating to functionalism, qualia, and consciousness.
- 2003 – “Mental Paint.” In Martin Hahn and Bjorn Ramberg’s eds., Reflections and Replies: Essays on the Philosophy of Tyler Burge, 165-200. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 2003
- “Inverted Earth.” In James Tomberlin’s ed., Philosophical Perspectives 4, Action Theory and Philosophy of Mind, 53-79. Atascadero, Calif.: Ridgeview. Reprinted in Block 2007, 501-510
- 1994 – “Qualia.” In Samuel Guttenplan’s edition of “A Companion to Mind, 514-520.” Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1994
- 2001 – “Intentionalism Defended.” Philosophical Review 110: 199-240. A helpful characterization of the issues surrounding representationalism (which Block calls representationism) and a defense of a qualia realist view he calls phenomenism
- The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory
- 1996
- The Nature of Consciousness
- An anthology collecting much of the classic work on consciousness. Although the book is technical, the most technical sections can be skipped without losing the overall argument
The Hard Problem of Consciousness
One of the most fundamental questions about the mind concerns its relationship to the body and how it relates to the brain
- Descartes argued for a dualist view in his Meditations on First Philosophy
- Most philosophers today endorse some form of physicalism
- For some aspects of consciousness, it is relatively straightforward to see how they can be accommodated within a physicalist picture
- The hard problem of consciousness relates quite closely to what Joseph Levine had previously referred to as the explanatory gap
- Solving the problem of attention, for example, simply awaits the empirical identification of a relevant neural mechanism
- What kind of mechanism could account for qualia?
Eliminativism about Qualia
Some philosophers deny that qualia exist
- Eliminative materialism merely makes a prediction about what will happen once we increase our neuroscientific knowledge
- There are no properties that meet the standard conception of qualia (that is, properties of experience that are intrinsic, ineffable, directly and/or immediately introspectible, and private)
- This would call into question the idea that they have any kind of direct or special access to private properties of their experience
Qualia and Functionalism
The contemporary debate about qualia was framed in large part by discussions of functionalism in the late 1960s and early 1970s
- Functionalism defines pain in terms of the causal role it plays in our mental life: causing avoidance behavior, warning us of danger, etc., in response to certain environmental stimuli
- As plausible as functionalism may seem, it has long faced the charge that it is unable to account adequately for qualia
- To show this, opponents of Functionalism have mounted two different kinds of arguments:
- Those aiming to show that two systems might be functionally identical even though only one of them has any qualia at all
- (2) those aiming to prove two systems are functionally identical but have vastly different qualia
Naturalistic Dualism
This is David Chalmers’ approach to the hard problem.
- Because he believes that we can account for phenomenal consciousness within a solely natural framework, he adopts what he refers to as naturalistic dualism.
- This view posits the existence of properties-qualia-that are ontologically independent of any physical properties.
- The world still consists in a network of fundamental properties related by basic laws, and everything is to be ultimately explained in those terms. All that has happened is that the inventory of properties and laws has been expanded. (Chalmers 1996, 127-8)
Qualia and Physicalism
For the inverted qualia argument, the generalization is straightforward. Just as we can conceive of Abby and Norma being in functionally identical states, it does not seem implausible to suppose that their brains might be physically identical to one another.
- If so, then just as qualia escape functional explanation, they also escape physical explanation. The fact that they are conceivable is taken to show that there is a metaphysically possible world in which they could exist.
Qualia and Representationalism
Weak representationalism makes a claim only about supervenience: The qualitative character of our mental states supervenes on the intentional content of those states (that is, if two experiences are alike representationally, then they are alike phenomenally).
- Strong representationationalism attempts to explain what qualitative character is.
- In support of their theory, representationalists often invoke the transparency thesis: According to this thesis, experience is alleged to be transparent in the sense that we “see” right through it to the object of that experience, analogously to the way we see through a pane of glass to whatever is on the other side of it.
