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Questions tagged [qualia]

Qualia refers to the phenomenal character of subjective experience.

Qualia are the phenomenal character of subjective experience and constitute a central topic in the philosophy of mind and especially the mind-body problem, involving such questions as what qualia are, what kinds of things have them, and how, if at all, they can be explained.

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How have deaf (or blind) people who hear (or see) for the first time changed philosophers' understanding of qualia?

Here's how the physicist David Deutsch (2011) describes qualia: Consider the following thought experiment. You are a biochemist with the misfortune to have been born with a genetic defect that disables the blue receptors in your retinas.…
user8677
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What makes our senses qualitatively different from each other?

What exactly makes our experience of sight different from, say, our experience of smell? What gives rise to these as distinct types of qualia? If vision, olfaction and the rest are each a dimension of qualia, how many such dimensions are possible?…
kartik_subbarao
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Qualia and the Myth of the Given

I have a problem understanding Sellar's opinion about Qualia. On the one hand he denies the existence of the given in "Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind" but on the other hand he speaks about the given while describing a pink ice cube in…
Amit Hagin
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What does "non-representational features" mean in a SEP definition of qualia?

In the SEP article on Qualia - 1.(2) qualia are defined as intrinsic, consciously accessible, non-representational features of sense-data and other non-physical phenomenal objects that are responsible for their phenomenal character. What does…
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Could the Qualia of differring subjective impressions be compared?

Suppose some time in the future Humanity is able to map and mind-upload Human Brains, and that advances in AI had progressed to the point where it could be used to "experience subjectivity", Could the Qualia of differring subjective impressions be…
TomDot Com
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Why does a philosophical zombie need to have qualia to see colours?

Can a philosophical zombie, who has no qualia, see colours? At least he has eyes to perceive colours, then why does he need to have qualia to see colours?
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What are qualia, the feeling on the skin of heat from a fire, or the fire itself?

What are qualia, the feeling on the skin of heat from a fire, or the fire itself? Or something else? I'm asking because I'm trying to work out if it makes sense to say that causing a phenomena is qualitative, rather than the phenomena itself. As I…
user35584
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What makes something 'better'?

How is Shakespeare's work superior to Twilight? How is String Theory superior to some random dude's "theory of everything"? How is a Van Gogh better than what is termed 'kitsch'. An answer that I do not want is something like "color choice, form,…
anonymous anonymous
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Have our needs changed?

With our evolving civilization, it is fairly easy to show that we act in the world in more complex ways on a daily basis; the world is more complex. Have our real needs changed? Have our felt needs changed or, are they just new applications of…
Willtech
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