Qualia: The real thing (by guest blogger Keith Frankish)
What is the explanandum for a theory of consciousness? The traditional view is that it is the qualia of experience, conceived of as ineffable, intrinsic, and essentially private properties -- classic qualia, we might say. Now classic qualia don't look likely to yield to explanation in physical terms, and physicalists typically propose that we start with a more neutral conception of the explanandum. They say that we shouldn't build ineffability, intrinsicality, and privacy into our conception of qualia, and that what needs explaining is simply the subjective feel of experience -- the 'what-it-is-likeness' -- where this may turn out to be effable (yes, there is such a word), relational, and public. Call this watered-down conception diet qualia. Though rejecting classic qualia, physicalists tend to assume that it's undeniable that diet qualia exist, and go on to offer reductive accounts of them -- suggesting, for example, that experiences come to have diet qualia in virtue of having a certain kind of representational content or of being the object of some kind of higher-order awareness.
Drawing a distinction between classic qualia and diet qualia (though not under those terms) is a common move in the literature, but I'm suspicious of it. I'm just not convinced that there is any distinctive content to the notion of diet qualia. To make the point, let me introduce a third concept, which shall I call zero qualia. Zero qualia are those properties of an experience that lead its possessor to judge that the experience has classic qualia and to make certain judgements about the character of those qualia. Now I assume that diet qualia are supposed to be different from zero qualia: an experience could have properties that dispose one to judge that it has classic qualia without it actually being like anything to undergo it. But what exactly would be missing? Well, a subjective feel. But what is that supposed to be, if not something intrinsic, ineffable, and private? I can see how the properties that dispose us to judge that our experiences have subjective feels might not be intrinsic, ineffable, and private, but I find it much harder to understand how subjective feels themselves might not be.
It may be replied that diet qualia are properties that seem to be intrinsic, ineffable, and private, but may not really be so. But if the suggestion is that they dispose us to judge that they are intrinsic, ineffable, and private, then I do not see how they differ from zero qualia. They are properties which dispose us to judge that the experiences that possess them have classic qualia -- in this case by disposing us to judge they themselves are classic qualia. If, on the other hand, the suggestion is that diet qualia involve some further dimension of seeming beyond this disposition to judge, then I return to my original question: what is this extra dimension, if not the one distinctive of classic qualia?
In short, I understand what classic qualia are, and I understand what zero qualia are, but I don't understand what diet qualia are; I suspect the concept has no distinctive content. If that's right, then the fundamental dispute between physicalists and anti-physicalists should be over the nature of the explanandum -- classic qualia or zero qualia -- not the explanans. The concept of diet qualia confuses the issue by leading us to think that both sides can agree about what needs to be
Footnote: This shows just how easy it is to be confused about qualia, even when it comes to the real thing.