The
apparent existence of ‘qualia’ seems to make it impossible to describe
and explain all psychological phenomena using the standard methods and
assumptions of natural science. Anyone hoping for a scientific psychology must
somehow either assimilate these qualia into the natural world of particles and
fields – and nothing else! — or show that they do not really exist . Neither
alternative seems plausible. Michael Tye’s Consciousness, Color, and Content
is entirely devoted to solving this enormously difficult problem of qualia.  

Well, what are qualia?
Simply, qualia are those properties of things, or of our experiences of things,
that constitute what the world looks and sounds like to us. There is something
it is like for us to consciously perceive the world around us; we do not
merely – one could say blindly — record the information we receive. The
properties that constitute the quality of our experience, the
what-it-is-like-for-us to have the experience, are qualia. Mailboxes look blue; their blue look is a
quale. So is the sound of a trumpet. A fine wine is of no value to one who
cannot have the appropriate taste qualia. What a headache feels like is a
quale.

To further explain what qualia
are, while indicating something of their importance to the non-philosophical
readers of this publication, consider the phenomenon of derealization. In derealization, what the world looks
like to someone is oddly changed from normal; the affected
individual is not having hallucinations, he sees what is really there,
but he sees everything as…somehow – different. This is not to say
only that the individual feels differently about what he sees, although
he does; rather, what he sees itself appears somehow different to him. I
think we have all had at least brief, mild episodes of derealization,
especially when in the grip of strong emotion. When we are very anxious, or
very depressed, our world looks different: colors are less saturated,
borders sharper, volumes more, or less, ‘full’. (I think works of art such as
Sartre’s La Nausee
or Munch’s Geschrei portray such experiences.) In these cases, it can be said
that the perceiver continues to see the real world — she could still describe
it correctly — but her qualia have changed.

When you put on sunglasses, you may continue to
perceive the same world, but your qualia change; the world looks different to
you, what it is like for you to look about you has changed. If someone
unknowingly grew up with sunglass lenses implanted in her eyes, the world would presumably look different to her than
it does to us, but her overt behavior
would presumably be the same as without the lenses. Indeed, it seems you could
have blue qualia whenever I have yellow qualia, so that the qualia you and I
have when we are looking at blue and yellow objects are reversed, even though
no overt behavior on your part or mine could reveal the fact. Stretching this
line of thought, can we not readily conceive of ‘zombies’, creatures that
behave exactly as we do, but who have no qualia: they chat and tell jokes, eat
and drink, solve crossword puzzles just as we, they even get married and raise
children, but they have no qualia, there is nothing it is like for them
to be alive, inside they are — dead. The lesson of zombies seems to be that
the existence and nature of qualia is independent of our
behavior and bodily states: in principle, either could exist without
the other.

We return to the topic of the pathological qualia of
derealization. Given the fact that in certain pathological states, the objects
we perceive seem to have different perceptible properties, and given that this
is an important aspect of the emotional experience, the phenomenon cries out
for scientific investigation. Indeed, psychology will provide an incomplete
account of our mental life until it can encompass qualia.

But there appear to be serious obstacles to the
scientific study of qualia. To see this, recall the zombies mentioned just
above. To be a zombie is to be a complete human being who ‘merely’ lacks
qualia. But to say that it is possible for there to be a zombie is to say that
the rest of what makes us what we are, including our brains, fails to determine
what our qualia are. But if this is so, how could we study qualia? Qualia would be too isolated from everything
to be explained by anything. 
Recall that first person reports of qualia are not much evidence, since
the reports could issue from a zombie, or from someone whose qualia are
reversed from ours. This is not the old dualist claim that qualia are not, in
fact, products of brain activity, but it is the claim that we could not develop
any scientific theory of qualia: If it
is possible for creatures, molecule by molecule, behavior by behavior,
identical to ourselves to lack qualia,
then there can be nothing about us or our world that explains qualia.

This sets the stage for Tye’s work. He wishes to naturalize
qualia; i.e., he wishes to show that qualia can be studied scientifically
as just another part of the natural world, embedded in the causal relations
that unify the one physical universe. Tye’s strategy is to identify qualia with
the representational features of the associated experience. How things
look to us, the ‘phenomenal’ properties of perceptible things, Tye maintains,
is nothing but a function of what is being represented by our
perceptual experience. To explain a
bit, objects of experience have representational properties in the same way
that words and thoughts do. When we speak of green qualia, we are actually referring
to how our perception of grass represents the grass, in roughly the same
way that the word ‘dog’ represents dogs. One speaks of the
’representational content’ of sentences, of what they say. Just so, the
phenomenal properties of perceived objects are the representational content of
the perception, what the perception ‘says’ about what is out there. To see
qualia in this light is to specify their nature in a way that places them
firmly in the natural world: qualia are defined by their function, that
function being to represent the world of the one who has them. Being the bearer
of such a function is as natural, as accessible to scientific study, as being a
voltmeter, something that bears the function of representing the properties of
currents. The entire book is an effort
to elaborate and defend this proposal.

A large literature has developed around Tye’s thesis
of ‘representationism’, and this book is Tye’s reaction to it. The argument is
long and, I venture to say, often ‘tortured’. Some might call it ‘scholastic’.
However, if we are to rationally decide to accept or reject the proposal, we
must engage in such work.. Nevertheless, I must warn the potential reader that
this is very much a book for professional philosophers; and it demands
considerable effort and patience.

Time will
judge the viability of representationism. If it proves acceptable, it will be
important: for one thing, we will be able to use it to scientifically study the
pathological qualia of derealization. After all, representation is the central
function of the mind.

© 2002 Alan N. Sussman

Alan N.
Sussman received his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Chicago. He has
published a few papers, including one in The Journal of Philosophy. He taught
philosophy at various colleges and universities in the US and Africa. At
present he teaches part time at Truman College, Chicago. His philosophical
interests are primarily in philosophy of mind.

Categories: Philosophical