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Qualia is said to be a counterargument to the pure physicalist worldview: even though I can perfectly see everyone else as pure philosophical zombies with smart neuron systems, I, the one writing this question, is an undeniable evidence of existence of qualia.

My question is, is there any physicalist interpretation of qualia? In other words, is it conceivable to manipulate my first-person viewpoint with physical means?

Limb replacement is a useful analogy here: the feeling of my hand is part of my first-person experience, but if it's chopped off and a new one is put on by surgery, I have no problem viewing my old hand as a pure physical entity with no relation to my qualia.

Similarly, it should be conceivable to gradually attach parts of another brain onto mine, and then gradually cut off parts of my original brain. After this process, "I" should be "inhabiting" another brain and body, and looking at my old brain and body. As such, qualia is not only transferrable, but probably mergeable and splittable as well, thus nonexistent ontologically.

Is there any existing concepts or thought experiments that share a similar idea?

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    Closely related: Why is the existence of qualia considered an argument for dualism and against materialism? Commented Jan 30, 2025 at 21:07
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    A physicalist interpretation of qualia would be nonsense. What might be possible, and would be extremely interesting, is an explanation of qualia (physical, scientific, material or whatever). Commented Jan 31, 2025 at 16:58
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    "In other words, is it conceivable to manipulate my first-person viewpoint with physical means?" The most plausible explanation of qualia is that they result somehow from what the rain does, which seems to qualify as a manipulation with physical means. Commented Jan 31, 2025 at 17:00
  • Are all spectrometers of the same build "experiencing" the same wavelength of light identically? Yes. Now all you have to answer is whether you think that humans are "built sufficiently similarly". Commented Apr 27 at 5:37

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Under (reductive) physicalism:

Qualia, to the extent that it exists, corresponds to some collection of brain activity.

  • When you're problem solving, that corresponds to activity in the frontal lobe.
  • When you're processing sensory information and navigating, that corresponds to activity in the parietal lobe.
  • When you're listening or reading, that corresponds to activity in the temporal lobe.
  • Etc.

And there's all the brain chemicals which each have their own effects.

When parts of one's brain gets damaged, the corresponding function is lost or impaired.

If there's some medical condition causing certain brain chemicals to not be released or absorbed appropriately, the corresponding effects are reduced.

We can take substances to induce certain conscious experiences, often by making the brain generate certain chemicals or consuming such chemicals directly (e.g. recreational drugs, but also many types of medicine).

We know all of this through empirical observation. And all of this is entirely expected and in line with consciousness being physical, i.e. reducing to brain activity. It's much harder to explain with "non-physical" consciousness.

it should be conceivable to gradually attach parts of another brain onto mine

...

qualia is not only transferrable, but probably mergeable and splittable as well, thus nonexistent ontologically

Hypothetically, sure.

Some people may find this idea uncomfortable, but being uncomfortable with something doesn't mean it's not true. One might be uncomfortable with the idea that there are starving kids in Africa, but that doesn't mean it's not true.

Related answers of mine:

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What are called qualia are not the elements of conscious experience itself but conceptualizations of those elements. Qualia are ideas. So as far as you admit a physicalist interpretation of thought you also admit such an interpretation for qualia. That's my opinion. You also seem to notice qualia only when you think about them, right? Are you familiar with psychological studies on cultural differences in perceived color hues? Apparently, there are cases of people of certain cultures not being able to distinguish two closely related colors because they have only one word for them both. They report no difference in qualia, and it's correlated with conceptualization. That should be a clue that qualia are actually conceptual contents and nothing more.

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