Qualia: the subjectivity of our perceptions | Had you thought about it?

Surely with your friends or family you have discussed the color of a certain object more than once.Maybe you see it green and your friends brown or have talked about the pain caused by an injectable for example and some talk about it as something almost unbearable and for others it is hardly a nuisance.At the end of these conversations you will have realized that people perceive some things differently, even if they come from something external that is the same for one another .Philosophers have studied this phenomenon and have named it: Qualia.Join us in Science Daily Online to deepen this philosophical concept, Qualia: the subjectivity of our perceptions. Have you thought about it?

Qualia: had you thought about the subjectivity of our perceptions?

The qualia do always reference to the subjectivity of perceptions and therefore refer to consciousness.We understand as awareness "the immediate knowledge that the subject has of himself, his acts and reflections, and also the ability of human beings to see and recognize to themselves and to judge on that vision and recognition ».Without consciousness there would be no qualia.The understanding of the Qualia is one of the most important sections of the philosophy of the mind and many philosophers believe that their It is not possible to explain its existence by going only to neuroscience and cognitive science.

For Philosophy, the Qualia, in the singular "Quale", is the generic name taken by the subjective contents of the mind and correspond specifically to "qualitative sensations and ideas", an example of this are perceptions of concrete colors or feelings.

Stanford University, in its Encyclopedia of Philosophy tries to explain what Qualia are with an example.Ask the reader to imagine entering a store of paints and looks at a sample of bright and bright turquoise blue and then another sample of opaque brown is presented.I am sure that the personal experience will be very different when observing the turquoise sample that the opaque brown.This difference is due to the phenomenal character of the experience and it is because the color is experienced from a subjective side. If this phenomenal character of the experience is analyzed, it will be seen that in it the person is aware of certain qualities .These qualities, of the that we are aware when we analyze what we have felt and perform an introspection of the experience, are the "qualia".

Thus, the qualia can be defined as "the subjective qualities of individual experiences" , and it They give as examples "the redness of the red" or "the pain of pain." Although some current philosophers discuss it, they generally agree that for them to exist we need direct or sensory experience .they try to explain the emptiness that exists between the epiphenomenic qualities, which remain under the subjectivity of our perceptions, and the brain and also answer the question of how can physical brain processes have nonphysical properties.

If you take the concept of qualia broadly, practically no one denies its existence, but some philosophers argue that mental states have qualia, if qualia are intrinsic qualities of the bearers or how is their relationship with the physical world.These discussions are aimed at determining and understanding how consciousness works and its nature, being the center of the problematic «mind-body» philosophical relationship.

Daniel Dennett and the Qualia

The philosopher American Daniel Dennett, one of the most prominent philosophers of science in the field of cognitive sciences has focused a part of his research and reflections on qualia.He has identified and specified four properties that qualia must have.So, for him, the qualia are ineffable, intrinsic, private and directly apprehendable in consciousness .Let's see what each of these properties means:

• Ineffable. This means that "they cannot be communicated or learned by means other than direct experience".
• They are also Intrinsic , which means that "they are non-relational properties", that is to say, they do not change because of their experience related to other things.
• Dennett says that they are Private and thus indicates that «interpersonal comparisons of these are systematically impossible »and therefore you cannot expe rime the qualia of another person.
• And finally it tells us that they are " directly or immediately apprehendable in consciousness ".Which means that when we experience a quale, we know that we are experiencing a quale and we can extract all the information that is possible to know about it.

Focusing on the philosophical part of the qualia is certainly difficult, however it is extremely interesting to note that this experience we have all had of the qualia, when we give ourselves realize that our perceptions are subjective, has been studied by philosophy and is one of the central themes of the "philosophy of the mind."

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Before saying goodbye, we encourage you to leave us a comment telling us all your impressions.Do you know the existence of qualia? Have you thought about the subjectivity of our perceptions? Write us; We will be happy to read you!