\u201cQualia\u201d is an unfamiliar term for something<\/i> that could not be more familiar to each of us: the ways things seem to us<\/i>. As is so often the case with philosophical jargon, it is easier to give examples than to give a definition of the term. Look at a glass of milk at sunset; the way it looks to you <\/i>\u2014the particular, personal, subjective visual quality of the glass of milk is the quale<\/i> of your visual experience<\/i> at the moment. The way the milk tastes to you then<\/i> is another, gustatory quale<\/i>, and how it sounds to you<\/i> as you swallow is an auditory quale<\/i>; These various \u201cproperties of conscious experience<\/i>\u201d are prime examples of qualia<\/i><\/i>. Nothing, it seems, could you know more intimately than your own qualia<\/i>; let the entire universe be some vast illusion, some mere figment of Descartes\u2019 evil demon, and yet what the figment is made of<\/i> (for you) will be the qualia<\/i> of your hallucinatory experience<\/i>s. Descartes claimed to doubt everything that could be doubted, but he never doubted that his conscious experience<\/i>s had qualia<\/i>, the properties by which he knew or apprehended them.<\/p>\n
The verb \u201cto quine\u201d is even more esoteric. It comes from The Philosophical Lexicon<\/i> (Dennett 1978c, 8th edn., 1987), a satirical dictionary of eponyms: \u201cquine, v. To deny resolutely the existence or importance of something<\/i> real or significant.\u201d At first blush it would be hard to imagine a more quixotic quest than trying to convince people that there are no such properties as qualia<\/i>; hence the ironic title of this chapter. But I am not kidding.<\/p>\n
My goal is subversive. I am out to overthrow an idea that, in one form or another, is \u201cobvious\u201d to most people\u2014to scientists, philosophers, lay people. My quarry is frustratingly elusive; no sooner does it retreat in the face of one argument than \u201cit\u201d reappears, apparently innocent of all charges, in a new guise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cQualia\u201d is an unfamiliar term for something that could not be more familiar to each of us: the ways things seem to us. As is so often the case with philosophical jargon, it is easier to give examples than to give a definition of the term. Look at a glass of milk at sunset; the [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":661,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-190068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-futurism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/661"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190068\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}