I've had this talk with a friend and am confused when we have talked about Qualia. My definition of it is its a philosophical argument of "what is it like to be" such as whats it like to be say a cat?So I've been reading about Qualia and gotten more confused on the subject. I read the metaphysical conclusion is that it is a physical state. So is it a state of mind or an actual situation?Is Qualia a duality? Non physical Entities? I'd like opinions on this difficult topic :)thanks

Curious matter Zuzu.

I try to explain how I have got the concept of qualia once [a bit of time ago. so be patient].

I start from the matter of fact that we are a conscience in a brain which is surrounded by a factual reality [material universe which begins with the nerves and ends with the visible horizon].

Ok, which is the mean of contact of our mind with the surrounding universe?

The nervous system. In the brain with the unconscious parts of our mind, out of the brain with the body [internal sensations] and with the senses [which collect "data" from out of our organism].

in any case, what does the brain receive? Electric impulses of different kinds according to their origin and according to the center of elaboration in the brain which elaborates them.

The data coming from the hands reaches a center in the brain which manages the sense of the tact. Olfactory sensations reach the center of olfaction [where there is the olfactory memory, so important in social life].

So QUALIA are the characteristics of the incoming data + the characteristics of the elaboration of the brain. The result is the "color" of the sensation we prove.

But honestly I see these "qualia" as really subjective at the end of the process, so I doubt we can share the same qualias even about the same senation ...

thats really interesting so each of us may see "green" in a differing way?of course i understand each person feels pain in their own way so thats probably subjective.does this mainly have to do with subconcious or is Qualia a concious thing too?thanks for explaining :)

:) yes, that's the amusing thing about perception. There is an objective factual reality we perceive. We do get the reality in its objective aspect [my eyes and your eyes watching an apple will send to our brains the image of an apple and our perception will be "there's an apple on the table!"].

But there is a level of subjectivity in the elaboration of the perception, so that the color of that apple can be red for me, but dark red for you, but sure, once again we will perceive that is red, that's sure.

The difficulty is that we get also the concepts with different "shades".

How do I perceive the concept of "love"? How do you perceive it?

There is a certain subjectivity also in this.

So, we understand "qualia" also through some other "qualia" ...

In fact it's not easy at all to define this concept of "qualia" in all its aspects.

I guess that the concept of quale/qualia is much more complicated than subjectivity only. What about experience? Physical and non-physical perception and so on?

At least there is a great deal of mental work for philosophers. :)