Making sense of qualia
Bernd Lindemann 1
20.05.2016
[email protected]
Summary: In the philosophy of mind qualia are commonly known as conscious
'raw feels', indescribable as well as, notably, without function. Our focus is on
qualia as intrinsic or quality-properties of unspecified mental objects. A quale is a
property without its property-bearer, not attached to an object. Why are such freefloating qualities functionless? There is a simple answer to this question.
A quality-property, as one among several related properties, co-constitutes its
mental object, thus enabling it to fulfil its function. However, the unattached quale
as a single quality-property without its relata cannot constitute a functional object.
It needs a complete object with all its related properties to fulfil a function. Thus
for a quale as a single property a function cannot be expected, nor functional reducibility to neuronal and physical base. Hence qualia are not a disturbing metaphysical exception to an otherwise reducible mental world. Rather, by conceiving
a free-floating quality we have made it a torso, functionless and not reducible. But
we can complement the torso with further properties to receive a perfectly functional and reducible mental object.
Science and philosophy are in want of an all-embracing system of explanations, covering macrocosm and quantum-world as well as the mental domain and human culture. Reductive physicalism, surprisingly, may fill this gap,2 as even mental states are reducible to neuronal (physical)
base.3 However, there are difficulties, one of which will be tackled here:
Among the mental items and properties to be reduced is a disturbing exception. Seemingly
without task, it is therefore not functionally reducible.4 That is the conscious 'raw feel', the
quale. The lack of task-orientation of qualia is the topic of the present text.
1 I am indebted to Antonio R. Damasio for comments.
2 Physical events obey physical laws only. Physicalists hold that everything can or will be explained in physical
terms, everything supervenes over the physical. In particular the mental can be reduced to (is explained by)
physical mechanisms (reductive physicalism).
3 Lindemann, B., Mechanisms in World and Mind. 2014, Exeter, UK: imprint academic. 152 pages.
4 e.g. Kim, J., Physicalism, or something near enough. 2005, Princeton: Princeton University Press. 186 pages.
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Let us first specify some concepts relevant for the discussion of qualities and qualia:
Percept: Phenomenal, consciously experienced mental aspect of a sensory object. Generally there
are percepts based on outer senses like vision, hearing etc., and also, associated with them by
synchrony, body-percepts, the feelings.
Property and object: Substance theory specifies an underlying property-bearer (substance),
an object which owns its set of properties, thus accounting for their compresence (for
their togetherness relation). A property enables its object to exist or act in a certain way. Note
that it is the object which acts, not a single property. The property is abstract (a predicate), its
owner real or abstract. Properties describe quantity (extrinsic, relational) or quality (intrinsic, not
changed by relation). Quality-properties referring to quantity-properties make sense only in their
combination, they form a mutually related pair. Properties of a feeling include duration, intensity
(quantity), degree of arousal, pleasantness and flavour (quality).
Function: The physiological role which an object plays in its organism. This requires a mechanism acting to specifications. What is vestigial (plays no role) can be disregarded without loss of
expected function.
Data: A neuronal datum consists of 1. an extrinsic, variable part denoting quantity (intensity,
spike frequency) and expressible as a number or an analogue value, and 2. an intrinsic, fixed part
denoting contextual qualities expressible in symbols. For instance, the first part could be “100”
and the 2nd “miles per hour”. The parts are strongly related in that they are about each other.
Quality-property of mental objects: Quality is an intrinsic property, one among all other properties of a mental object. It allows a mental state of conscious awareness (experience) about, for instance, a percept, what this object 'feels like'. Body-percepts were chosen as an example of mental objects.5 Like in the structure of data the quality-property relates to a quantity-property and
provides contextual information about it, allowing an evaluation with respect to bodily well-being
(body-status). Body-percepts temporally coincide with outer-sense-percepts (see Figure 1) and allow the evaluation of these, too, by application of the quality-information and its related quantityproperty to the outer-sense-percepts. (Inherent is the assumption that body-percepts are influenced by outer objects and circumstances.)
Qualia as properties unattached to an owner: A quale is a single quality-property without other,
related properties and unattached to an object, to a property-bearer. It is free-floating. A quale can
be experienced. Since it takes several properties to fulfil a function, qualia remain functionless
torsos until they are complemented with further properties, completing the object and playing a
role in it as a quality-property.
Mental state: A process of experiencing function and properties of a mental object. The object or
property-bearer may be a thought, feeling, percept, scene etc.
Emotion: Experience of brief intense feelings and their communication by stereotyped inherited
signalling (mimic expression, etc.).
Experience: To be phenomenally aware of the multi-modal 6 scene playing on the inner 'theatre
of consciousness'. 7
5 Body-feelings will be acute or remembered. Feelings other than body-feelings are left out of consideration for
the moment. It may suffice to focus on one example of qualia.
6 With contributions from several sensory modes, like vision, hearing, olfaction etc.
7 Baars, B.J., In the theatre of consciousness: The workspace of the mind. 1997, Oxford: Oxford University
Press. 193
2
To supervene over...: To exist in virtue of...
Perspective dualism: The first perspective is that of an experiencing agent, the Self. It is mental,
private, subjective, phenomenal and supervenes over physical base (the hypothesis of physicalism). The third-person perspective is that of an objective investigator observing neuronal or
physical events.8
Neural correlate:9 The objective neuronal process, over which a mental phenomenon supervenes. A mental correlate is the experienced mental phenomenon arising from a distinct neuronal
process or pattern of activity.
Phenomenal consciousness: The private, 1st-person conscious experience, a mental state of sentience. Belongs to the mental perspective of perspective dualism.
Metaphysical illusion: Viewed from the neuronal perspective the metaphysical stance of the mental is an illusion, as claimed by reductive physicalism.
Figure 1: Snapshot of outer-sense and body-sense input and evoked mental events. The
broken horizontal line is the perspective divide, separating the neuronal (below) from the
mental domain. They are related by supervenience. Body-feelings and their quality-properties are labelled red. They arise from patterns of body-sense spike activity interwoven with
effects of chemical messengers like hormones and transmitters. Evaluation of scenes takes
place by applying the evaluation of a body-percept to the synchronic outer-sense percept.
8 For roots of perspective dualism and the mind-body problem, see René Descartes, Franz Brentano, Ludwig
Bertalanffy and Thomas Nagel's 'dual aspect theory' e.g. Nagel, T., The view from nowhere. 1986, New York:
Oxford University Press. 244 pages. See page 28.
9 Crick, F. and C. Koch, A framework for consciousness. Nat Neurosci, 2003. 6(2): p. 119-26.
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The concept of qualia
Qualia, the phenomenal, qualitative aspects of mental experience, were introduced by C.I.
Lewis in 1929.10 In the philosophy of mind they are today seen as the controversial “tipping
point between physicality and the metaphysical”.11 A quality may be the property of a mental
object, a quale is a quality unattached to any object, it is 'free-floating', a torso. Yet a quale
permits its specific quality, for instance perceived redness, to be experienced.
Qualia are possibly contingent, further “unobservable in others and unquantifiable in us”. They
are usually found to be ineffable, intrinsic, private and consciously directly apprehensible.12
'Indescribable' was probably the most curious of these properties. For how a mental Self-agent
feels when having a headache or tasting a wine or being a bat remains a mystery to others.13
Qualia are also called 'raw feels'.14 They appear to be without task or function.15 Their study
promises insight into the making of mental objects and mental experience.
We recall that mental states allow the experience of functional mental objects with their attached intrinsic and extrinsic properties. Qualia are unattached, they are the intrinsic or
quality-properties of no object at all. Here 'mental state' implies consciousness in the phenomenal or 1st-person perspective, including privacy and ineffability. 'Intrinsic' means a property which is fixed, like a name or a dimension. The property may have a related 'extrinsic'
property, e.g. a variable number. Such is the case in the structure of data, where intrinsic and
extrinsic properties relate to each other. In particular, the quality-property provides contextual
information about the quantity-property. Without the latter the information would not make
sense, it were an incomplete datum.
Body-feelings: To discuss a quality-property in depth, let us choose body-percepts as instances
of mental objects. Then quality (intrinsic) and quantity (extrinsic) properties are owned by body-percepts. Relating to each other, the two properties form the flavour-intensity pair of bodyfeelings which arise in the first-person experience A feeling's neural correlate is the pattern of
body-sensory input activity, over which it supervenes (Figure 1). The activity pattern evokes
the feeling experience, leaving its indescribable subjective impression. This 'flavour-quality',
now, has a marker-function, symbolizing the quality of bodily well-being, as will be discussed.
Private but guessable, a biological argument: Various authors stress that quality-properties,
and in particular qualia, are private (not objectively knowable and ineffable), contingent (could
be otherwise) or without obvious function (not task-oriented). However, how certain can we be
about qualia if they are subjective and ineffable? By way of example, I like to shed doubt on
the strict privacy of qualia, using a biological argument. Suppose the basic organisation of
qualia, like that of many other mental phenomena, were inherited, therefore similar or equal in
related individuals. Then your qualia experience is not entirely unknown to others but similar
10 Lewis, C.I., Mind and the World Order. Outline of a Theory of Knowledge. Dover, New York 1991 (Nachdr.)
ISBN 0-486-26564-1 ed. 1929, New York: Charles Scribner's sons. 121 pages
11 See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia
12 These properties seemed contradictory to: Dennett, D.C., Consciousness explained. 1991, Boston, MA: Little
Brown.
13 Lewis, C.I., 1929, l.c.
Nagel, T., What is it like to be a bat? The Philosophical Review, 1974. 83(4): p. 435-450;
Heckmann, H.-D. and S. Walter, eds. Qualia. 2001, mentis. 524 pages.
14 when taken as unprocessed or incomplete for lack of an extrinsic relatum (see below).
15 Kim, J., Physicalism, or something near enough. 2005, Princeton: Princeton University Press. 186 pages
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or equal to that of members of your species. To them the common qualia are known by own experience and are at least guessable in others. Even though they are not communicated, “I know
how you feel.”
Could qualia be otherwise? Further, are the intrinsic qualia, is their flavour arbitrary? Qualia
have to be distinguished, that is the important feature. Yet a particular flavour may need to be
just so because its neuronal genesis and its further processing requires the corresponding pattern of body-sensory input. This apart, qualia might be otherwise as long as they are discernible.
Reduction
is the attempt to understand an explanandum or macro-event from micro-processes and their
laws at a lower system level. Here the term is used in the sense of explanatory reductions of
science. Single-level reduction: Explaining a system behaviour at level n with a mechanism or
a set of micro-properties at level n-1, below. Multi-level reduction: Ranging over several system levels, in the end down to physical base, it amounts to a skipping of intermediate explanations, thereby hindering comprehension.16 Reduction is a 3rd-person endeavour, even though
associated with the subjective experience of comprehension. Mental phenomena cannot be reduced to neuronal base within the 1st-person perspective, the perspective must first be changed
to 3rd-person. Post-Reductionism, applied to the mental, maintains that reduction generally is
not possible because the reduction base is incomplete and the mental more than a physical system.
Function: The role played by an object in the organism is its function. In biological evolved
systems, everything that makes a difference does so because it fulfils a function. This also
means that everything mental (M) makes a difference by supervenience over the neuronal (N),
since the role played by M must be the role played by its realizer N.
What has no function and does not contribute to a function is vestigial, does not make a
difference, can be disregarded. (Examples are epiphenomena and pseudogenes (never
expressed) and non-coding regions of the genome, provided such objects really play no role.)
Thus qualia either have a mental function, then they are reducible to N-base, or they contribute
to a function or they can be disregarded.!
Functional reduction: Jaegwon Kim proposed a general strategy of reduction by function.17
(a) The functional causal role of a mental macro-property M is identified.
(b) A neuronal micro-property N is identified as realizer of M. It has the same causal role.
This may be a process with many interacting components.
(c) If reductive explanation M → N is successful, functional reduction is complete.
For Kim the mental is not immaterial. Therefore, Kim can attribute causal role and function to
mental processes. Then he can compare or equal mental to neuronal causal role, task and function.
In my understanding the mental is immaterial in the way abstracts are immaterial. Then it cannot have a causal role or function (which requires a material process). It cannot be 'saved' from
16 See l.c. Lindemann, B., Mechanisms in World and Mind. 2014. Chapter 4.
17 Kim, J., Physicalism, or something near enough. 2005, Princeton: Princeton University Press. 186 pages.
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being causally powerless. Rather, the mental is an experience of the causal role and function
presumably of a material neuronal process (the process itself being subjectively invisible,
'transparent'). Then functional reduction means:
To seek the neuronal process (3rd-person perspective) which is mentally experienced by
the 1st-person Self-agent as the specified causal role, task or function.
Further, it is expected that bottom-up manipulability holds, i.e. interruption of the neuronal
process will abolish the mental experience.
Given this outcome, the functional approach can yield a defensible hypothesis of reducing the
mental explanandum to a neuronal mechanism. Of course, when applied to a particular case,
this will require much detailed neuro-mechanistic experimentation and recursive bottom-up
modelling.
Any macro-property or -phenomenon without functional role cannot be functionally reduced.
The question is, whether the qualia have a function and thus a neuronal base for functional reduction. This is (in my view rightly) denied by Jaegwon Kim who concludes that intrinsic
qualia are not task-oriented, therefore not functionally reducible. Thus they appear to constitute
the irreducible residuum of an otherwise functionally reducible mental world.18
But why are qualia as intrinsic quality-properties surprisingly without task or function? To clarify this point, it is helpful to take another look at the structure of data.
The neuronal perspective
Intrinsics are incomplete: A neuronal datum consists of 1. an extrinsic, variable part (A) denoting quantity (intensity, spike frequency) and expressible in numbers. It answers the question
'How much is there of quality B?'. And 2. of an intrinsic and fixed part (B) expressible in symbols. It provides contextual information on quality-issues, answering questions like 'What,
where, when is intensity A?'.19 Generally quantity and quality properties are strongly related.
They refer to each other, forming an inseparable pair. Only the combination of both properties
can play a role as a neuronal message. The intrinsic part alone would be an incomplete proposition, providing contextual information relating to an unspecified extrinsic property.
Streams and patterns: Several streams of multi-modal input continuously bombard our outer-sense neuronal centres (Figure 1, left side). In addition, parallel streams of information arise
from our body (right side), signalling its functional state.
A display of the rapidly changing body-sensory information would plot on the abscissa nerve
fibre kinds according to their location of origin and on the ordinate the spike activity arising
from that location. Thus the abscissa posts quality information and the ordinate quantity information, forming a constantly updated activity spectrum or pattern.
Hence body-sense input is based on an activity-pattern provided by many neurons. In this population, too, quantity-property (A) and quality-property (B) relate to each other. The quantity-property answers the question 'How is intensity distributed in the pattern of quality B?' and
18
It is remarkable that not items such as design, agency or dignity are considered irreducible, but 'raw feels'.
19 See l.c. Lindemann, B., Mechanisms in World and Mind. 2014. Chapter 5.
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the quality-property answers questions like 'What, where, when is activity-pattern A?'. So much
about the 3rd-person perspective.
The mental perspective
We now cross the perspective divide, entering the 1st-person or mental world. I suggest that the
distinction about quality and quantity properties of neuronal objects applies to mental objects
(like percepts, feelings) too, because the quality-quantity pair can be mentally experienced as
properties of feelings. Hence the quality-property, the topic being feelings, answers the question 'What does intensity pattern A feel like?'
Coming back to our question about qualia, it appears that a quale, as an unattached intrinsic
quality torso, can still be experienced by contributing information about what an unspecified
input would feel like. However, the quality is to be completed with its related extrinsic complement to form a flavour-intensity pair of properties which may have a function in a feeling experience.
Qualia as markers: Therefore, let us take qualia as incomplete but essential intrinsic properties
of e.g. experienced body-feelings. Notably, feelings are not without task or function. Antonio
Damasio,20 assigned a marker-function to body-sensory states. By their temporal association
with synchronic outer-sense percepts (my wording) the markers (or symbols) help to avoid the
unpleasant, the unbecoming scene and seek the pleasant, becoming scene. Damasio pointedly
described the functional role of evaluated feelings as guides to our behaviour.21
Evaluation: Body signals are in the mental world registered as our conscious body-percepts,
the feelings. The quality of a body-feeling may be rather detailed, allowing a multitude of input
patterns to be distinguished as different intensity-flavours. Any such pattern marks a bodystate, which can be consciously remembered.
While outer-sense-percepts and body-percepts may both rapidly change, they can be associated
by their synchrony, their coincidence in time. Thus the quality and other properties of bodypercepts, derived from the neuronal pattern reflecting particular body-sensations, may be associated with synchronic outer-sense-percepts and scenes. The evaluation of a body-percept is
thus applied to an outer-sense percept and its scene.
By this transfer of properties of feelings the scenes are experienced as, say, pleasant, neutral or
dislikeable. This makes sense if body-feelings can be influenced by sensory objects and circumstances. Then conscious behaviour will close a feedback loop which aims to seek the
pleasant and avoid the unpleasant.
Unresolved residuum
A mental state is a process of experiencing properties and function of a mental object. The ob20
21
Damasio, A.R., The feeling of what happens. Body and emotion in the making of consciousness. 1999, New
York: Harcourt Brace & Co. 386 pages. See p.55. Kim did not refer to this work.
In 1999 Damasio dealt with feelings and emotions, qualia he mentioned in passing without assigning a
function to them. More profoundly Damasio dealt with qualia in 2010: Damasio, A.R., Self comes to Mind.
Constructing the conscious Brain. 2010, London: Vintage Books. 368 pages, p.253-263.
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ject or property-bearer may be a thought, feeling, percept, scene etc. Jaegwon Kim, following
David Chalmers, distinguished two kinds of mental states:22 1. Those of 'similarities and differences', where quality-properties and their relata are attached to objects and 2. The intrinsic
qualia sensu stricto. In the former, qualities co-constitute functional objects, which are reducible. The latter, however, being a single property without attached relata, have no object and
no function. To Kim they “cannot be captured within the physical domain”, they are a functionless unresolved rest of an otherwise physically reducible mental world.
However, functionless qualia are no surprise: They are single quality-properties, while it takes
an object with all its properties to act in a functional way. Single quality-properties as such cannot be expected to function, they are torsos without the power to act. For by conceiving a freefloating quality we have made it a torso, functionless and not reducible. Yet we can complement the torso with further properties to receive a perfectly functional and reducible mental object.
When paired with their extrinsic relatum and all other properties can intrinsic quality-properties co-constitute a functional object. They provide information about what a given input, in
our example a body-sense input, 'feels like'. Thereby quality-properties have a role in the constitution of feelings, while body-feelings, in turn, have a role in the evaluation of outer-sense
percepts, as discussed. It appears that there is no unresolved rest. In brief:
A set of properties constitutes an object which fulfils a function. A single quality-property, a
quale, cannot be expected to act, function or constitute a functional object. Qualia do not function, yet they may play a role as quality-properties providing information, if complemented
with related properties.
Example: An intrinsic quality-property provides information about the feeling of, e.g., sensory
input. Complemented with its extrinsic relatum and other relata, this information (on the bodystatus in our example) is an essential constitutive property of feelings. These are mental objects
acting in a functional way.
What are subjective feeling-experiences good for? In case of body-feelings (right side of Figure
1) for the discrimination, classification and evaluation of outer-sense-percepts and scenes (left
side). This may occur by application of properties of body-feelings to synchronic outer-sense-percepts and scenes.
Why are qualities conscious properties? Because evaluation of scenes and the mental processing which follows evaluation requires consciousness. Conscious processing deals with
'novel' scenes, saves events in autobiographic memory, provides experience and execution of
Self-agency, insight into processes (understanding), simulation, prediction, accumulation of
knowledge, use of language etc.
22 Chalmers, D.J., The conscious mind: In search of a fundamental theory. 1996, New York: Oxford University
Press. 414 pages. p.11; J. Kim, l.c., pages 6, 162, 172.
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Conclusion
We choose a body-feeling to exemplify a mental object. Its quality-properties result from the
neuronal pattern of body-sensory input over which the body feeling supervenes. I suggest:
1. The intrinsic or quality-property of a body-feeling refers to an extrinsic or quantity-property. The two form a mutually related pair, they make sense only in combination.
2. Together with their extrinsic complements, qualities provide information about what the
body-sensory inputs 'feel like'.
3. This also classifies outer-sense percepts and scenes: Qualities, by synchrony with outer-sense-percepts, may be applied to these, evaluating them with respect to bodily well-being.
4. Qualia as single, unattached properties cannot be expected to fulfil a function, to act in a
functional way. Function requires objects marshalling all their properties.
5. Qualia do not constitute the unresolved rest of an otherwise physically reducible mental
world. For we can complement the qualia with further properties to receive a perfectly
functional and reducible mental object.
Hence the hypothesis of a general reductive physicalism holds, qualia are not a disturbing exception. They need not be 'left out', qualia make sense.
Affiliation:
Bernd Lindemann
Prof. i.R.
Dept. Physiology, UdS
06841-62349
[email protected]
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