“No, not my girlfriend’s name”, said the rabbit.
“Then what is it? ” asked the Turtle.
“Well, let me explain. Qualia are phenomenal or felt qualities.
The singular form of the noun is quale.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about”, said the turtle.
“All right”, said the rabbit. “Relax. When you hear, for example,
a sound, or taste a certain food, feel pain, or see a color,
You experience qualia.”
“Wow”, said the turtle. “This is amazing.”
“Are you sarcastic now? ” asked the rabbit.
“Why? ” said the Turtle.
“Because now you remind me a Moliére character
who was surprised to discover that he spoke all his life in prose
without knowing it.”
“So, what if I see a color? “, inquired the Turtle.
“Well, when you see a definite blue color, for example”,
said the rabbit, “it is obvious to you that what you see is blue.
It appears to you as blue and not yellow or red.
You experience it as an indubitable and irreversible vision of blue.”
“But I can lie and say I see red”, said the Turtle.
“Of course, you could lie”, said the Rabbit, but that would not
alter the reality of your quale, would it?
Blue remains blue even if you call it red. “
“And how do qualia happen? ” asked the Turtle.
“Perceptions are quite mysterious processes”, said the Rabbit.
“In any case, seeing a specific color
is a direct neural representation
that automatically reaches the brain’s color centre
in the occipetal lobe. However, similarly to other
qualia, when the sensation of seeing a color ends,
it recedes into the past, it vanishes and becomes unknowable
to consciousness as immediate, firsthand experience.”
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