From https://iep.utm.edu/qualia/
"Qualia are the subjective or qualitative properties of experiences. What it feels like, experientially, to see a red rose is different from what it feels like to see a yellow rose. Likewise for hearing a musical note played by a piano and hearing the same musical note played by a tuba. The qualia of these experiences are what give each of them its characteristic “feel” and also what distinguish them from one another. 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.

"The term “qualia” (singular: quale and pronounced “kwol-ay”) was introduced into the philosophical literature in its contemporary sense in 1929 by C. I. Lewis in a discussion of sense-data theory. As Lewis used the term, qualia were properties of sense-data themselves. In contemporary usage, the term has been broadened to refer more generally to properties of experience. Paradigm examples of experiences with qualia are perceptual experiences (including nonveridical perceptual experiences like hallucinations) and bodily sensations (such as pain, hunger, and itching). Emotions (like anger, envy, or fear) and moods (like euphoria, ennui, or anxiety) are also usually taken to have qualitative aspects."
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I have a lot of trouble even understanding the word. Near as I can tell, it's complete nonsense. What exactly is a "property of experience"? Or a "qualitative aspect" of an emotion? (And let's not get into Locke or any of his predecessors here, please.)

I bump into something: an experience. The experience has properties? What is the nature of the properties? Are they experienced? Are they part of the experience itself? Or part of something else not the experience itself; e.g., the experience of reflecting on the experience? And then do we reflect or experience the reflection, & etc., etc., etc.? Or I feel happy (or whatever): an emotion. Or is "emotion" simply a name for a certain kind of experience? And does one know of such things directly or mediately?If directly - immediately - then how? Or if mediately, then what actually and exactly do we know and how do we know it?

Or is qualia just a throwaway term for the throwaway notions of people who do not know what they're talking about? Clarity? Anyone?

Or is qualia just a throwaway term for the throwaway notions of people who do not know what they're talking about? Clarity? Anyone? — tim wood

I agree with you, but no less a leading light than Galen Strawson seems to support it , so I guess there at least a few solid arguments being put forth in its behalf.

I don’t think it’s very useful.

To me it has a confusing grammar. “Quale” is a noun, so it becomes a subject and we apply predicates to it, without it being worthy of such. One can search forever for what we are talking about and never find it, while the person, place, or thing we should be talking about is thrown out with the bath water.

I have a lot of trouble even understanding the word. Near as I can tell, it's complete nonsense. — tim wood

Really, I thought it was an incredibly simple idea.

Qualia is what a philosophical zombie doesn't have, any interior experience (likeness?) of existence.

I agree with you, but no less a leading light than Galen Strawson seems to support it , so I guess there at least a few solid arguments being put forth in its behalf. — Joshs

And I agree with you! When smart people talk about something, it usually means there is a something that they are talking about. But the question arises as to the nature of the something. Shepherds talk about sheep, mathematicians about numbers. But sheep differ from numbers. Sheep are in ways that numbers are not. E.g., sheep are spoken of descriptively: they always already are, and are described. Numbers are spoken of assertorically, constitutively, existing only as the referents of ideas, created in speech but not themselves independently existing. And as it happens, numbers make a lot of sense; they have been tested, so to speak.

And perhaps qualia is such an idea, nothing in itself but useful somehow in some way to some people for some reasons - a very obscure term of art making sense to them; the shorthand for that being that the devil is in the details. But not a term for general use, because (it seems to me) it does not have any meaning for general use.

Qualia is what a philosophical zombie doesn't have, any interior experience (likeness?) of existence. — Nils Loc

Like a table or a rock? I can agree there are differences between me and tables and rocks, but qualia seems to refer not to such differences but to properties and aspects of them. And the only use for such that I can discern is to benefit people paid by the word. But I am here to be corrected, my questions above pending....

Let's give the nonphysicalist what they want. Yes, there is such a thing as qualia. They contend that proves physicalism can't explain consciousness. So be it.

The question then is, can nonphysicalism explain qualia? I'd like to see them try. It's only fair to ask this of them.

It's the Switzerland problem. The Allies were happy that the Swiss were not siding with the Axis powers but the Swiss didn't give a damn about the Allies either.

I bump into something: an experience. The experience has properties? What is the nature of the properties? Are they experienced? Are they part of the experience itself? Or part of something else not the experience itself; e.g., the experience of reflecting on the experience? And then do we reflect or experience the reflection, & etc., etc., etc.? Or I feel happy (or whatever): an emotion. Or is "emotion" simply a name for a certain kind of experience? And does one know of such things directly or mediately?If directly - immediately - then how? Or if mediately, then what actually and exactly do we know and how do we know it? — tim wood

Asking what properties qualia has is no different from asking what properties an object has. You bump into a cup, what properties does that cup have? It has color, shape, and all sorts of other things.

You have an experience, you can then describe all the properties within it by listing properties you experience, like how you feel cold, anxious, tired, all the while seeing, hearing, and doing all sorts of things, all being a part of your single phenomenal state.

Under this analysis, all perceptions would be held unified under a single moment of consciousness, which is what you bump into. See, Kant's transcendental apperception: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendental_apperception

Qualia: what’s done when the good stuff has already been done.

Nothing to do with Dennett's "Quining Qualia"

Quining Qualia gives plenty of support for rejecting qualia, using a series of examples in which problems arrises when the idea is taken seriously. Have a read.

Some stuff of mine from the previous thread...

Qualia add nothing helpful to the conversation:

What is gained by talk of the-qual-of-the-flower that is not found in talk of the red flower? Nothing has
first-person, qualitative aspect of an experience. If a qual is the taste of milk here, now, why not just talk of the taste of milk here, now? The additional philosophical jargon is needless.

There's a slide going on here that I would avoid. It starts with the taste of milk and ends in nonsense such as disembodied sense-data... A large part of my objection to qualia is that they have fallen into being no more than neologised sense-data.

Qualia are neither private nor ineffable:

I make coffee for us; we each take a sip. You say it is too bitter for your taste; I say it's not so much bitter as nutty. Conversations such as this are a commonplace. It's understood that the liquid can taste quite different to different folk.

Talk of qualia serves only to obscure such conversation. "You can never know what the coffee tastes like to me"...well, yes I can; I know it tastes bitter. I can surmise that another coffee, even nuttier to me, might well be more bitter to you.

I know what the coffee tastes like for you

Qualia fail in so far as they deny that we can have conversations of this sort. Qualia are supposedly ineffable - we cannot explain them to others. The taste of coffee is not ineffable. Quite the opposite - folk build careers and indeed whole industries on the basis of talking about the very sort of thing that is supposedly beyond discussion..

Qualia are ill-defined:

I curried some 'roo the other day. Used a cinnamon stick, whole coriander and whole cumin seed roasted, fresh green garlic pulled that morning, some curry leaves fresh from the tree, whole cardamon pods, garam masala; cooked the meat first then made a paste with the spices, returned the meat, then some spuds and a couple of cups of fresh broad beans. Slow cooked the result for a couple of hours.

Each mouthful had several distinct tastes, sometimes the garlic, sometimes the 'roo, sometimes the cinnamon, each time in a different combination.

To describe a qualia of curry would be a nonsense. An utter failure to recognise the complexity of the experience.

Again, talk of qualia detracts from the conversation.

Oh, and a couple of teaspoons of peanut butter - mussaman style.

For good measure, here's a measure:

From the PhilPapers Surveys
Perceptual experience: disjunctivism, qualia theory, representationalism, or sense-datum theory?

Other 393 / 931 (42.2%)
Accept or lean toward: representationalism 293 / 931 (31.5%)
Accept or lean toward: qualia theory 114 / 931 (12.2%)
Accept or lean toward: disjunctivism 102 / 931 (11.0%)
Accept or lean toward: sense-datum theory 29 / 931 (3.1%)

ing what properties qualia has is no different from asking what properties an object has. — Hanover

If that were right, then there is no point in introducing them into the discussion.

Your reason for supporting the use of qualia is your odd insistence that we only ever say things about our perceptions, and never about the everyday objects that make up our world. It is a symptom of your failure to commit to reality.

And that's my reason for rejecting talk of qualia: it leads to bad philosophy.

If that were right, then there is no point in introducing them into the discussion.

Your reason for supporting the use of qualia is your odd insistence that we only ever say things about our perceptions, and never about the everyday objects that make up our world. It is a symptom of your failure to commit to reality.

And that's my reason for rejecting talk of qualia: it leads to bad philosophy. — Banno

And your problem is that you believe understandable philosophy is the goal as opposed to dealing with the reality that there are experiences of things, which means we have (1) experiences and (2) things, which means we now need to offer descriptions of the (1) experiences and of (2) the things.

It's just an unfortunate reality that reality is composed of two things and this pesky dualism can't be dispensed with simply because it leads to confusion within our philosophical systems, namely that we can best describe our (1) experiences, but not (2) things. That problem is most significant under your construct because the things you hold most obvious are the least obvious. Experiences are the most obvious, and, actually, the only thing we actually know...

For good measure, here's a measure:

From the PhilPapers Surveys
Perceptual experience: disjunctivism, qualia theory, representationalism, or sense-datum theory?

Other 393 / 931 (42.2%)
Accept or lean toward: representationalism 293 / 931 (31.5%)
Accept or lean toward: qualia theory 114 / 931 (12.2%)
Accept or lean toward: disjunctivism 102 / 931 (11.0%)
Accept or lean toward: sense-datum theory 29 / 931 (3.1%) — Banno

"Representationism, also called Representationalism, philosophical theory of knowledge based on the assertion that the mind perceives only mental images (representations) of material objects outside the mind, not the objects themselves. The validity of human knowledge is thus called into question because of the need to show that such images accurately correspond to the external objects. The doctrine, still current in certain philosophical circles, has roots in 17th-century Cartesianism, in the 18th-century empiricism of John Locke and David Hume, and in the idealism of Immanuel Kant."

https://www.britannica.com/topic/representationism

How does this survey result help your position?

Your problem is thinking that because we see the world in different ways that there must be different worlds. You would look at the duck-rabbit and see two things, not one. Like Descartes, you trap yourself in dualism.

which means we now need to offer descriptions of the (1) experiences and of (2) the things. — Hanover

Yes, I got this far. But what exactly is the description to the experience? If the qualia just are the description, then how are they properties of the experience?

From above:
"Qualia are the subjective or qualitative properties of experiences. What it feels like, experientially, to see a red rose is different from what it feels like to see a yellow rose."
To me this sentence is a hall of mirrors. I distinguish between the seeing and the experience of the seeing. To suggest that seeing one rose is different from seeing another rose implies that the speaker has some knowledge of these things, which he does not have - unless he is referring to some mere physiological reaction to seeing yellow or red light. But as to the experience, nothing, because there is nothing that can be known either before-hand or a priori.

He does talk about it, but it is out of the custom that has arisen in philosophy, it's not as if he loves the use of the term. Not implying that you are saying this.



"Qualia" simply highlights the qualitative aspects of life, those aspects which we experience directly and immediately and form part of our ordinary life. That (a few) people consider something as obvious as this as problematic, is embarrassing. Here Strawson is 100% correct, I know of no other idea in the whole of philosophy that shouldn't be less controversial than this. It's astonishing that it can be a cause of controversy.

If the term is troubling, then you can say "sensible properties", or "appearances", manifest reality, etc.

How does this survey result help your position? — Hanover

It shows that qualia are not widely accepted in the professional philosophical community.

Here's a better account of representationalism:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mental-representation/

I have been reading Daniel C Dennet on the concept of qualia. — Jack Cummins

It's the only place you'll ever read it. It's the sole preserve of a clique of modern academics and of no relevance to anything outside it. I would advise staying well away from it.

↪Hanover Your problem is thinking that because we see the world in different ways that there must be different worlds. You would look at the duck-rabbit and see two things, not one. Like Descartes, you trap yourself in dualism. — Banno

I don’t know that for Wittgenstein it makes sense to say that they are the same thing. What is relevant is how seeing something as a duck rather than a rabbit changes how we go on.

“ In describing this sort of phenomenon, there is a great temptation to talk of psychological states as if they were objects of some kind. For example, we might say that when we see it now as a duck, now as a rabbit, the external figure - the drawing - has not changed; what has changed is our internal picture - our sense-datum. And if this idea were generalized, it would lead to the very theory of sensory experience that is the target ofWittgenstein's philosophy of psychology - the phenomenalist notion that the objects of our immediate experience are the private, shadowy entities that empiricists call sense-data.”( Ray Monk)

The question to ask about changes of aspect is not: 'What changes?' but: 'What difference does the change make?'

A change in aspect can be a change in life.

Does the idea of qualia fuzz and blur the whole area of explaining life and the debate between materialism and idealism? — Jack Cummins

I don't know of any philosophers who want to use qualia to explain life or deal with idealism.

For Chalmers, it is the explanandum, and he leans toward ontological anti-realism (the belief that we don't have the means to decide idealism vs materialism).

What does the concept mean to you?

This .

I am asking to what extent is the concept useful or not? — Jack Cummins

As pointed out above (re: Dennett), 'qualia' as a concept doesn't add anything informative to neuroscientific explanations (conjectures, models) of cognition such as they are.

Does the idea of qualia fuzz and blur the whole area of explaining life and the debate between materialism and idealism?

Are you asking about the role of subjectivity (i.e. experience) in existence (re: "explaining life")?

Btw, what "debate"? :chin:

I have a lot of trouble even understanding the word. Near as I can tell, it's complete nonsense. — tim wood

:up:

Your reason for supporting the use of qualia is your odd insistence that we only ever say things about our perceptions, and never about the everyday objects that make up our world. It is a symptom of your failure to commit to reality.

And that's my reason for rejecting talk of qualia: it leads to bad philosophy. — Banno

:100:

↪Hanover Your problem is thinking that because we see the world in different ways that there must be different worlds. You would look at the duck-rabbit and see two things, not one. Like Descartes, you trap yourself in dualism. — Banno

:smirk: :up:

How does this survey result help your position? — Hanover

Even Dennett accepts qualia. He just wants to explain it in a particular way. I wouldn't pay much attention to surveys.

I just happened to come across a book in a charity shop today by Daniel Dennett, 'Consciousness Explained' it was written in 1991, so it may not be a representative of his current thinking. However, it has a whole chapter on ideas on qualia. I had not come across the idea until I started using this site and have seen it as area in between questions of perception and aspects of metaphysics of reality. So, I created this thread partly in my own understanding of this area in philosophy and, also with a view to how it stands with other people's understanding of how 'qualia' fits into their thinking. I also do read on neuroscience, because it may shed so much light on the mind, but, of course, philosophy is a bit different from psychology, with a much wider frame of reference, so my own questioning of 'qualia' is about the areas of existence which may go beyond psychological examination and what may be considered as metaphysical speculation.

I don’t know that for Wittgenstein it makes sense to say that they are the same thing. — Joshs

How many drawings are there in this post? I say one. And that seems to be the view taken in PI pp. 194-196. He does talk of three ways of seeing (would 'talking about' be better than 'seeing'?) the duck-rabbit: duck, rabbit and duck-rabbit.

So yes, a change in aspect can be a change in life.

I do indeed wonder if 'qualia' is 'a preserve ' of certain academics'. It is simply that on a daily basis of reading ideas in philosophy, I keep coming across the idea, and wondering what it may fuzz over or attempt to explain. I am questioning the concept and area, but do wonder about the usage of the term and, how it may be a whole way of academics 'glossing over' complex areas of philosophy, which they cannot really explain.

I definitely find that qualia is an aspect which is used to explain aspects of reality which cannot be explained easily by idealism, realism or materialism. So, when you ask what qualia means to me, it probably comes down to a complex area between metaphysics and phenomenology. It is a difficult, fuzzy area, but I do wonder if the term 'qualia' is used at times as a way of avoiding some of the most difficult questions in philosophy.

Don't get sucked into it. It's ridiculous that Dennett is even regarded as a philosopher. In one of his books, Darwin's Dangerous Idea:

Dennett writes about the fantasy of a "universal acid" as a liquid that is so corrosive that it would eat through anything that it came into contact with, even a potential container. Such a powerful substance would transform everything it was applied to; leaving something very different in its wake. This is where Dennett draws parallels from the “universal acid” to Darwin's idea:

“it eats through just about every traditional concept, and leaves in its wake a revolutionized world-view, with most of the old landmarks still recognizable, but transformed in fundamental ways.”

While there are people who would like to see Darwin's idea contained within the field of biology, Dennett asserts that this dangerous idea inevitably “leaks” out to transform other fields as well.

One of the subjects dissolved in Dennett's fantasy acid is philosophy itself. Stay away from him would be my advice. Or read this review. He's a fraud, a crank and a charlatan.

I am not really a big fan of Dennett. It was just that I came across his book, 'Consciousness Explained' (1991) while I was out and about today. I was more impressed by his writings than I expected I would be. Of course, he is a big name in philosophy, but I have wondered about the notion of 'qualia' for several months, so I thought it worth raising for critical thinking on a forum. It may be useful for many if the idea, and the perspective of Dennett, is looked at ans explored critically.

Of course. By all means read him critically. He's just one of my bogeymen.

The problem may be that in philosophy there are so many 'bogeymen' and it is the point where it is worth weeding through the 'trash' and getting to the important parts. Of course, each person has to decide this individually, but it may be that looking at certain concepts, like 'qualia', may be important in the process of demystifying areas explored by academic philosophers.