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QUALIA
An Aspect Of Sentience
A Human Mental Faculty
Old Version - 5, updated Tue, Mar 31, 2020 at 16:28:6, 6213 bytes - by relopez.
This article is for information and educational purposes only and is not
intended to give medical, legal or professional advice.
Qualia is an aspect of sentience which is that part of a sensation which we can only know by experience and refer to by example but which cannot be described, like the sensation of color, emotions, or the smell of a particular flower.
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INTRODUCTION
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QUALIA AND SENTIENCE
Sentience is that property which seems to distinguish humans from animals. It is the sapiens in Homo Sapiens. There seem to be at least three essential, foundational ingredients to sentience. One is the ability to predict, to visualize the future, to understand the consequences of our actions. The second is the ability to reflect, to put ourselves in different situations. This allows us to put ourselves in our own vision of the future and to explore it mentally, but it also allows us to put ourselves in someone else’s situation, to trade places with other people mentally. This property of reflectivity also allows us to recognize ourselves as distinct persons. By 18 months most human babies can recognize themselves in a mirror by rubbing a spot of paint off their nose while looking in mirror. Most animals cannot do this and that is why we find the reaction of cats and dogs to their own image in a mirror to be comical.
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Qualia is a third aspect of sentience. Qualia is that aspect of any sensation which is undescribable. For example, there is something in our experience of the color red which we cannot define. We can only say that red is the sensation we experience when we see certain objects which we call red. We experience every sensation, including pain, as a qualia. The same is true for our internal sensations, what we call emotions. When we talk about emotions, such as joy, love, fear, or excitement we are talking about the qualia associated with them. This may be an important component of self awareness and reflexivity since it allows us to more vividly imagine what another person is experiencing and to imagine what we may experience in the future. It may also be the key motive force for our actions, especially when they take the form of pain, fear or joy. It is possible that the impression that we have free will may also be an experience of qualia.
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It is not clear that animals experience qualia. Therefore, some psychologist do not believe that animals experience emotion the same way that we do. However, our reflexive ability to empathize causes us to automatically ascribe emotions to animals. We imagine what it must be like to be in their position and assume they feel what we would feel. This is a very strong and automatic impulse which allows animals to meet some of our need for companionship. However, the apparent lack of self awareness in animals argues that they experience sensations in a qualitatively different way than we do. We may love our dog, but it is unlikely our dog loves us in any truly significant way. He may love the treats we give them as an expression of our love, but it is unlikely that they love us the same way we love them.
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These three aspects of sentience, combine to create those properties associated with personhood. This includes our conscience and our ability to choose. Qualia is probably involved as a form of cost benefit analysis based on our emotions.
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QUALIA AND COMPUTERS
An interesting question which could help define the source of qualia is whether we can program qualia into artificial intelligence systems. If that were possible, then we could also programs emotions such as pain and pleasure. This question is also related to the question of whether or not animals experience true qualia or true emotions. It is instructive to postulate possible ways in which one could simulate or produce qualia in computer programs. There is really only one way to try to simulate qualia in a computer program and it is actually quite simple. It involves associating all red things with a common variable which ties all red things together. The question is whether this would actually produce the sensation we experience as red or if that sensation is produced from some higher, perhaps spiritual or transdimensional property which becomes associated with that sense perception; something akin to Plato’s ideas or forms. In that case, it means that neurons are somehow hard wired to tap into that esoteric transdimensional property. However, if it is possible to create qualia using computation, then one could conclude that qualia is based on association. This means that the essence of the color red for example, is that which is common between fire, blood, sunsets, roses, etc. The same would be true of all other qualia. Therefore, the difference between red and green is not some esoterical property but simply plants and leaves vs fire, blood, roses and sunsets.
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CHANGING OF QUALIA
An interesting experiment on qualia would be to create goggles which could interchange green and red to see if eventually the subject wearing the google began experiencing red as green and vice versa. Another interesting question would be whether we could make similar goggles which would allow the wearer to see into the ultraviolet spectrum the way birds do. The googles could squeeze the colors blue through ultraviolet into the colors blue through violet. Would violet then become a new qualia associated with ultraviolet? A limitation to such experiments would be the fact that some of our sense perception is hard wired. For example, even if we associated certain tones with various colors, it is doubtful that we would actually see them as that color. Nevertheless, the fact that words can elicit qualia in a limited way supports the idea that qualia is a product of association. The word RED, elicits the image of redness even though it is a figure drawn in black color. Furthermore, some people do report experiencing tones and even numbers as colors and the so called psychedelic drugs also seem to have a similar effect. However, this could also simply represent a miswiring of the neuronal connection to that transdimensional esoteric property.
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KEYWORDS
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SEE ALSO
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REFERENCES
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
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