🍎 Qualia Explained – Can We Scientifically Test Subjective Experience? 🔬🤔
Can we design an experiment to determine whether qualia—the supposedly ineffable, subjective qualities of experience—really exist? In this episode of Zoomposium, we speak with one of the most influential philosophers of mind of the last century, Daniel C. Dennett, about one of the most debated concepts in consciousness studies. Dennett provocatively argues that the very notion of qualia may be incoherent. Philosophers disagree deeply about what qualia even are. In experimental demonstrations, participants are exposed to rapidly changing stimuli—yet often fail to notice significant visual alterations. When asked whether their qualia changed during those unnoticed shifts, audiences split: some say yes, others say no. They share the same perceptual situation—yet cannot agree on how to describe it. For Dennett, this suggests that the problem may not require a new experiment—but conceptual clarification. If we cannot coherently define qualia, how could we empirically test for them? The conversation touches on eliminativism, the multiple drafts model of consciousness, naturalism, and whether subjective experience can ultimately be explained in functional and neuroscientific terms. Is consciousness a user-illusion? Is the self a constructed narrative? And what would count as evidence against that view? A challenging and thought-provoking dialogue at the intersection of philosophy, neuroscience, and cognitive science. 📽 Interview: https://youtu.be/M2qiVz95ZYk 📎 Information: https://philosophies.de/index.php/2023/12/25/naturalistic-view/
