Questions tagged [qualia]
Qualia refers to the phenomenal character of subjective experience.
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Which signs indicate consciousness in other beings?
There are arguments confirming and denying that animals have consciousness. Some arguments say that not even all humans have consciousness, e.g. small babies.
Which observable signs do exist that ...
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Can conjoined twins share a mind?
A unique recent case of conjoined twins having a neural bridge connecting their brains raises some philosophical questions concerning mind sharing and the mind-body problem. From the article by ...
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Could somebody clarify why people believe qualia are incompatible with physical models of the mind?
I see claims that qualia are evidence against physicalism, and I've never understood why.
If the brain is capable of thought at all -- which is a premise of physicalism -- I see no reason why ...
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How is subjective experience of color mapped to the visible spectrum?
Kevin Warwick had a sonar sense implanted and could sense whether an object was close or far. Evidence is accumulating that our brains can make sense of "foreign" information like sonar (consider the ...
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Is the person in the mirror an example of a philosophical zombie?
Consider the following situation:
You are in a room that has a mirror as one of its walls.
You assert/commit to that you are conscious and have qualia.
You look at the mirror, and you observe your own ...
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Is it possible to imagine a color one has never seen before?
We can easily imagine any color we have seen at some point in life (e.g., white, black, rainbow colors). But what would it take one to understand and "see" a new color?
P.S.: There are more colors ...
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What is it called when perception of a thing is replaced by an pre-existing abstraction of that thing?
Going through life, I often replace actual perception of the world with my pre-existing knowledge. If I see a car, for example, I might shortcut my understanding of it as "that is a car," ...
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How can you support the idea of qualia as distinct from neuronal firing when you only experience one thing?
Physicalists are people who equate brain states with mental states. There are people in this category; and yet there are many people who do not hold this view. Such people hold that there is an ...
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What exactly is the persuasive power behind Jackson's "Mary's Room" argument?
The knowledge argument (also known as Mary's room or Mary the super-scientist) is a philosophical thought experiment proposed by Frank Jackson in his article "Epiphenomenal Qualia" (1982) and extended ...
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Why is the existence of qualia considered an argument for dualism and against materialism?
Qualia is the term to used describe actual subjective experience and sensation, as opposed to mere knowledge and information.
The concept is best described by Frank Jackson's color blind scientist ...
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Are the experiences of the "flow of time" and of "cause and effect" qualia?
Physics and biology have no answer why or how we personally experience the color red and we say that the experience of the color red is a quale.
Physics also has no answer why or how we experience ...
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Should "meaning", as we experience it, be considered qualia?
By qualia - assume as defined in [wikipedia]:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia, give or take ( up to you )
By "meaning as we experience it", perhaps I could just say "meaning", but i want to ...
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How can illusionists about phenomenology think consciousness is explainable through science when science seemingly inquires into phenomonology?
I think I understand that the SEP has Dennett denying the existence of qualia (1) as phenomenal character. "According to illusionists (Dennett 2019, 2020; Frankish 2016; Kammerer 2021), conscious ...
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How do epiphenomenalists make sense of discussions about qualia?
Epiphenomenalists believe that mental events have no causal effect on the physical. They may differ in what they consider "mental events" but it seems all of them would consider qualia / phenomenal ...
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Modern research on the subjectivity of sense-impressions, species, and Aristotelian conceptions of the world?
In my research on the Philosophy of Data, I've found some remarkable similarities between some peoples' conceptions of data and the Aristotelian idea of Species, the particles of experience/sense-...
