Tom Clark has presented, in his JCS article and numerous posts, an intelligible and systematic functionalist account of qualia. There is one crucial issue, however, that I don't recall his discussing. He states (20 Apr 96), "Qualia and functional brain states share some important properties. They both instantiate information about the world and the body, i.e. are representational..."
It has been argued by various people (e.g. Maturana and Varela, Walter Freeman, Gordon Globus) that brain states do not "represent" the world (including the body), but lets put this part to one side. I would like to ask Tom what is the basis for his statement that qualia represent the world?
The answer can *not* be: *experience shows qualia are representational.* We do not experience world *and* qualia re- presenting it; we experience the world. The red of a ripe tomato is on the surface of the tomato, not in my qualitative experience. The sound of the oboe comes from the oboe in the world; I can find no additional sensation. The green after-image appears just before the eyes when closed or located on a white sheet of paper with eyes open, not in consciousness. The pain when I hit my thumb with a hammer is in my thumb (which is part of the world), not in my mind. The dream world, in well-developed dreams, is a perfectly authentic (though somewhat bizarre) *world*. Dreams are an extremely interesting and suggestive case, but there is nothing in the *experience* of dreams that reveals qualia any more than in waking.
Qualia are never experienced; it is the world that we experience...world qualities, not mental qualia. We always find ourselves already thrown in a world of qualities, and never experience qualia which re-present that world. So Tom's claim that qualia are representational is, I think, an inference, and I would like to know the basis of that inference, which is crucial to his account of qualia.
If there are in fact no qualia, as some of us on the list believe, if the whole discussion of qualia is a colossal tar baby, then we still are not free from difficulty: the problem of qualia will have been merely relocated, for an account must be provided of world qualities, say, of color on the surfaces of objects rather than in consciousness (a problem which I believe to be more tractable).
So what is the basis for Tom Clark's claim that qualia are "representational," re-presenting the world (including the body)?
Gordon Globus
GGlobus@orion.oac.uci.edu
jcs-online
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