The Structure of Experience

In this chapter, the qualitative view is outlined and shown to avoid the problems facing representationalism. The qualitative view is defended as a ‘pure paint’ view and distinguished from the ‘partial paint’ views of Block and Peacocke. The structure of experience is acknowledged. ‘Intentional objects’ are explained, and the dangers of equating them with elements of experience are exposed. The idea that mental ‘paint’ might ‘point’ is discredited.

Qualia realism and representationalism

The article deals with the problem of naturalistic explanation of an essential feature of all conscious mental states – the phenomenal character. The conception of qualia realism can be considered as one of the options for a non-naturalistic explanation of this phenomenon. Nevertheless, it is believed that the phenomenal character of experience can be explained in terms of representational content that are more acceptable to naturalism. As a rule, in these discussions, qualia are identified with the non-representational properties of experience – mental paint. The author analyzes in detail the relationship between the concepts of “qualia” and “mental paint” in the key work of G. Harman. It is shown that Harman’s argument against qualia realism fails. He defined qualia in terms of the mental paint conception, which contains consequences that replace the original thesis of qualia realism. To attack the foundations of qualia realism in a more relevant way, the author develops A. Kind’s idea of the epistemic dimension of qualia. Kind points out that since the philosophers arrived at the question of the existence of qualia by considering the plausibility of functionalism, they were so focused on metaphysical considerations that they forgot that this phenomenon is connected in the first epistemic dimension. On the basis of this, a new version of the argument from transparency of experience versus qualia realism was proposed. The argument demonstrates that the qualia realism fails the test of introspective analysis of perceptual experience. Qualia turn out to be theoretical objects that do not fulfill their prescribed explanatory function. This undermines the foundations of metaphysical arguments against the reductionist approach to consciousness, since they proceeded from the assumption of the existence of referents of the concept of “qualia”. The variant of the explanation of the phenomenal character of experience in terms of representationalism also faces internal problems. In this regard, the author offers the option of direct realism, since it is well compatible with the transparency thesis and is generally consistent with the naturalistic attitudes of the representationalism.

Colors and Things

How many colors are there? Quoted numbers range from ten million to a dozen. Are colors object properties? Opinions range all the way from of course they are to no, colors are just mental paint. These questions are ill-posed. We submit that the way to tackle such questions is to adopt a biological approach, based on the evolutionary past of hominins. Hunter-gatherers in tundra or savannah environments have various, mutually distinct uses for color. Color differences aid in segmenting the visual field, whereas color qualia aid in recognizing objects. Classical psychophysics targets the former, but mostly ignores the latter, whereas experimental phenomenology, for instance in color naming, is relevant for recognition. Ecological factors, not anatomical/physiological ones, limit the validity of qualia as distinguishing signs. Spectral databases for varieties of daylight and object reflectance factors allow one to model this. The two questions are really one. A valid question that may replace both is how many distinguishing signs does color vision offer in the hominin Umwelt? The answer turns out to be about a thousand. The reason is that colors are formally not object properties but pragmatically are useful distinguishing signs.

Stop Caring about Consciousness

The best empirically grounded theory of first-personal phenomenal consciousness is global workspace theory. This, combined with the success of the phenomenal-concept strategy, means that consciousness can be fully reductively explained in terms of globally broadcast representational content. So there are no qualia (and there is no mental paint). As a result, the question of which other creatures besides ourselves are phenomenally conscious is of no importance, and doesn’t admit of a factual answer in most cases. What is real, and what does matter, is a multidimensional similarity space of functionally organized minds.