(I.1) Qualia has been defined as individual instances of subjective, conscious experience. Examples of
qualia include the perceived sensation of pain of a headache, the taste of wine, the color of an evening sky, the smell of a
skunk, the emotion of anger. That is, qualia is a subjective nimbus of the mind resulting from the sensory input from
observations of the objective world.
(I.2) A characteristic of all qualia is that they are ineffable. They cannot be described by language or physical expression. That is
to say, qualia are beyond our capacity to communicate them. Only a thingor action for which qualiacan be
experienced can be described. An example, the color of the apple you see on the table is red. Red is what your mind perceives
it to be but cannot describe with language. You can only say that you subjectively perceive the apple to be what you call the
quale of you call "red" and can only assume that another person has the same quale for what they call the
quale of "red".But being subjective, we can never know and almost certainly a color blind persons
qualeof red is quite different because their sensory system for color is quite different.
(I.3) The characteristics of qualiaare transmitted to the brain from the outside world through our neural system. We
sense color, for example, because of specialized light-sensing cells in our eyes called cones. One type, L-cones, sees the reds of
strawberries and fire trucks; M-cones detect green leaves, and S-cones let us know the sky is blue. The signals from these sensors are
transmitted through axon cells in the neural network to the brain where they are processed into the qualiaof colors. White light
which includes all colors in the visible spectrum results in the absence of the qualia of color at all even thought light of all
colors is present. Likewise, absence of light in the visible spectrum of light results in the absence of the qualia of color at
all.
Weave no visualawarenessof qualiaof light outside the visible range of electromagnetic radiation enough though it is
present. We cannot see radio waves or x-rays. We can, however, observe the effectthey cause aand experience the qualia of pain
caused by physical exposure to invisible light in the range causing sunburn. In the case of wavelength longer than that visible with the
human eye, we have the microwaves produced in microwave ovens that causethe atoms in certain kinds ofmatter, including , most
importantly, water, to jiggle back and forth to produce the effectof friction within the atoms which in turn is the causeof
the effect of an increase of temperature and energy. Look as hard as you might, you cannot see the microwaves because your eyes send
no sign to the brain when exposed to them. As such, you will never be visually consciousness of them. But stick your hand in a microwave
oven and turn it on and you will quickly experience the qualia of pain as the microwave oven roasts your hand.
On the other end of the visible spectrum of electromagnetic radiation we have ultraviolent waves for which also can never have visually
consciousness of their presence in the environment. But lay on the beach on a sunny day and soon the ultraviolet radiation absorbed by your
skin begins to damage the skin cells causing them to become inflamed with what we know as sunburn. As a result, you experience the qualia
of pain from a sunburned skin and you place your consciousness of it your memory in your brain and hope to recall that memory to apply
sunscreen to your skin to keep the ultraviolent radiation for which you have no direct sense of and therefore no consciousness of, from
resulting in sunburn and causing the qualia of pain in your brain again. But, alas, recall of unus memory is inconsistent.
And, finally, shut your eyes and attempt to recall the color blue in the sky. The best that you can do is recall that the sky is blue but
the qualia of the blue in the sky is absent. You can only recall that the sky was a color described by the word token blue in the English
language. It is the same as if someone told you the sky was caeruleum in Latin. No qualia of blue is produced
in either case. As noted previously all qualia are ineffable.
(I.4) The qualia of emotions are the result of sensory exposure to the environment, either directly through observation and
indirectly through media including written and vocal language, images, sounds and smells. The qualia of emotions cannot be evoked by things
or actions for which the brain has no knowledge, either directly or indirectly. You can have neither love nor hate someone you do not know
exists. You have neither like or dislike for a food you have never seen, smelled, felt or tasted. You experience neither the beauty nor the
revulsion of music you have never heard. The qualia of emotions are always linked in some way the physical environment around unus.
The qualia of emotion for the same thing or action may be very different for different person as the result of biological determinism
having produced different knowledge and memories for each person in time past. That is, the actions and things evoking qualia are not
universal. As an example, some find actions evoking the emotion of pain for others, evokes pleasure in themselves and purposefully inflict
those actions upon themselves to evoke the emotion that ensues. The unanswered question is whether the emotion evoked is pain or pleasure
or both.
Why the effect of that cause is different for different people remains unknown but we do know that sensory inputs associated with both pain
and pleasure activate the same neural mechanisms in the brain. And most, if not all, emotions have opposites: love and hate, joy and
sadness, sympathy and contempt, satisfaction and dissatisfaction, trust and skepticism, and many others.
Because emotions are an ineffable nimbus, it is impossible to know if the qualia of any one emotion produces the same sensation in all
persons. We can only know the actions of each person associated what the word token they use for the emotion they experience.
(I.4) No evidence exists that qualia exists outside the brain. No evidence exists that qualia is experienced by other than living
organism with brains.
(I.5) No evidence exists that qualia is a transcendent aspect of is somehow apart from unus and possibly other living things. But,
should it exist, qualia is an unknowable aspect of reality. Of what we cannot know, we must not speak.
All knowledge that we can ever possess we acquire through qualia experienced in time past. We can only know what we can know.
Qualia are the phenomena of the subjective perceptual representations of the outside world in our mind resulting from mental processes conducted in the brain on objective sensory data of which it has awareness. Qualia present as private conscious feelings of sensation that we are unable to communicate to others through language. Qualia are limited to what our sensory receptors can be detect.