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Qualia. What It Is Like to Have an Experience. Qualia Include the Ways Things Look, Sound, and Smell, the Way It Feels to Have A Q qualia. What it is like to have an experience. Qualia he likes, but a defender of a scienti®c approach to qualia include the ways things look, sound, and smell, the way (the point of view of the author of this entry) will prefer a it feels to have a pain, and, more generally, what it is like to de®nition of `qualia' that allows that science can investi- have experiential mental states. (`Qualia' is the plural of gate qualia, that qualia may turn out to be physical, and `quale'.) Qualia are experiential properties of sensations, even that we may discover aspects of introspective beliefs feelings, perceptions, and, more controversially, thoughts about one's qualia can be mistaken. Indeed, I do not see and desires as well. But, so de®ned, who could deny that that a scienti®c approach can rule out in advance that we qualia exist? could discover, empirically, that qualia are intentional, Although the existence of subjective experience is functional, or cognitive. So I prefer to de®ne `quale' as an not (or anyway should not be) controversial, `quale'Ð aspect of subjective experience that cannot be shown by a which is more clearly a technical term than `subjective priori or other armchair means to be intentional, func- experience'Ðis more often used by those who are in- tional, or cognitive. This is an epistemic rather than a clined to reject the common-sense conception of sub- metaphysical conception of a quale (see Block 2002). Im- jective experience. Here is a ®rst approximation to a portantly, there is nothing in the conception of qualia that statement of what is controversial: whether the phenom- I am advocating that is incompatible with the claim that a enology of experience can be exhaustively analysed in quale is a physical state, just as heat is molecular kinetic intentional, functional, or purelycognitive terms. Oppon- energy and light is electromagnetic radiation. An empir- ents of qualia think that the phenomenology of an ex- ical reductionist thesis about qualia is legitimateÐwhat is perience can be exhaustively analysed in terms of its not legitimate is an armchair reductive analysis of qualia representational or intentional content (`representation- (e.g. in functional, representational, or cognitive terms). ism'); or that the phenomenology of experience can be exhaustively analysed in terms of its causal role (`function- 1. Absent qualia alism'), or that having a subjective experiential state can 2. The inverted spectrum be exhaustively analysed in terms of having a state that is 3. Inverted Earth cognitively monitored in a certainwayor accompanied by 4. The knowledge argument a thought to the effect that I have that state. If we include 5. The function of qualia in the de®nition of `qualia' the idea that the phenomen- ology of experience outruns such intentional, functional, 1. Absent qualia and cognitive analyses, then it is controversial whether Qualia are often discussed with respect to certain thought there are qualia. experiments that purport to demonstrate the falsity of This de®nition of `qualia' is controversial in a respect representationism, functionalism, and cognitivist ap- that is familiar in philosophy. A technical term is often a proaches. locus of disagreement, and the warring parties will often One of these thought experiments involves `absent disagree about what the important parameters of dis- qualia'. If human beings can be described computation- agreement are. Dennett (1988), for example, assumes that ally, as is assumed by the research programme of cognitive it is of the essence of qualia to be intrinsic (in the sense science, a robot could in principle be built that was com- of atomic, unanalysable, and non-relational), private (in putationally identical to a human. But would there be any- the sense that any objective test would miss the target), thing it was like to be that robot?Would it have qualia? incorrigible (to believe one has one is to have one), and (See Block 2002, Shoemaker 1975, 1981, and White 1986.)If non-physical. Dennett says there are no qualia. Hence it had no qualia, the claim that the nature of qualia is to be the title of his paper, `Quining qualia'. (`To Quine', ac- found in their computational or functional role is mis- cording to the tongue-in-cheek Philosophical Lexicon, taken,andfunctionalismisfalse.Further,ifazombierobot www.blackwellpublishing.com/lexicon/, is `to deny reso- could have states that represent the properties of the lutely the existence or importance of something real or world that our experiences represent (shape, size, colour, signi®cant'.) Of course, Dennett is free to use `qualia' as etc.) then representationism is false. (Representationism 785 qualia is the view that the qualitative character of an experience and representationally the same but qualitatively differ- is identical to its representational content.) Some thought ent. (I assume that all parties can agree on which things experiments (Block 1980) have appealed to oddball real- are green, which things are red, etc.) izations of our functional organization, e.g. the economy There is a natural reply. Notice that it is not possible of a country. If an economy can share our functional or- that the brain state that I get when I see things we both call ganization, then our functional organization cannot be `red' is exactly the same as the brain state that you get suf®cient for qualia. Many critics simply bite the bullet when you see things we both call `green'. At least, the at this point, saying that the oddball realizations do total brain states cannot be the same, since mine causes have qualia. Lycan (1996) suggests thinking of these me to say `It's red', and to classify what I am seeing as the roles as requiring evolution and as involving the details same colour as blood and ®re hydrants, whereas yours of human physiology. Economies do not have states with causes you to say `It's green', and to classify what you the right sort of evolutionary `purpose', and their states are seeing with grass and Granny Smith apples. Suppose are not physiological. But the evolution stipulation is in- that the brain state that I get when I see red and that you compatible with the very plausible doctrine that qualia get when you see green is X-oscillations in brain area V4, supervene on the brain: that is, no difference in qualia whereas what I get when I see green and you get when without a neural difference. If we are ever able to manu- you see red are Y-oscillations in area V4. The functionalist facture a brain like ours, it will also lack evolutionary `pur- says that phenomenal properties should not be linked pose', but to the extent that it is physically just like our to brain states quite so `localized' as X-oscillations or Y- brains, it will serve as the neural basis of similar experi- oscillations, but rather to more holistic brain states that ence. On the idea of including physiological roles in our include tendencies to classify objects together as the same functional characterization of mental states, note that this colour. Thus the functionalist will want to say that my will make the de®nitions so speci®c to humans that they holistic brain state that includes X-oscillations and your will not apply to other creatures that have mental states. holistic brain state that includes Y-oscillations are just al- (Block (1980) calls this the chauvinism problem.) Further, ternative realizations of the same experiential state. So the this idea violates the spirit of the functionalist proposal, fact that red things give me X-oscillations but they give which, being based on the computer analogy, abstracts you Y-oscillations does not show that our experiences are from hardware realization. inverted. The defender of the claim that inverted spectra are possible can point out that when something looks red 2. The inverted spectrum to me, I get X-oscillations, whereaswhen something looks Imagine that we could `invert' colour processing in the green to me, I get Y-oscillations, and so the difference in visual system in one of two twins at birth. (See Palmer the phenomenal aspect of experience corresponds to a (1999) for a discussion of a variety of kinds of `inversion', local brain state difference. But the functionalist can parry some of which are more likely to be possible than others.) by pointing out that this difference has only been dem- If the twins grow up using colour terms normally, we onstrated intrapersonally, keeping the larger brain state might hypothesize that things they both call `red' look to that speci®es the roles of X-oscillations in classifying one the way things they both call `green' look to other, things constant. He can insist on typing brain states for even though they are functionally (and therefore behav- interpersonal comparisons holistically. And most friends iourally) identical. This inverted spectrum hypothesis of the inverted spectrum are in a poor position to insist on would be further con®rmed if the brain state that one typing experiential states locally rather than holistically, twin has on seeing red things is the same as the brain given that they normally emphasize the `explanatory gap' state that the other has on seeing green things (and (Levine 1993), the fact that no one has the faintest idea the same for other complementary colours)Ðassuming how to explain why the neural basis of an experience is supervenience of qualia on the physiological properties of the neural basis of that experience rather than some other the brain. The relevance of this version of the inverted experience or no experience at all.
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