Интересные цитаты

'Qualia' is a philosophers' term of art denoting those intrinsic or monadic properties of our sensations discriminated in introspection. The quale of a sensation is typically contrasted with its causal, relational, or functional features, and herein lies a problem for functionalism. The quale of a given sensation - pain, say - is at best contingently connected with the causal or functional properties of that state; and yet common intuitions insist that said quale is an essential element of pain, on some views, the essential element. Functionalism, it is concluded, provides an inadequate account of our mental states.0

There is more to consciousness than the reflexive  character 'in this very experience ... ', or the apperception  therein of one's current experience. For part of  what makes an experience conscious - what brings it  to life-is its 'phenomenal' quality, 'quale'.  Qualia are traditionally defined as the 'raw feels' of  sensations, of experiences such as pains, tickles, dizziness,  etc. But this notion needs to be generalized. Not  only sensations, but all consciousness mental states  have qualia. 11  The phenomenal character, or quale, of an experience  is the subjective character of the experience, how  it 'appears' in consciousness: as we say, what it 'feels'  like, or simply what it is 'like', to have that type of experience.  Sensations have such qualities: compare  what it is like to taste a red Bordeaux wine, to taste  Haagen-Dazs chocolate ice cream, to smell the jasmine,  to smell the sea air, to feel dizzy, to feel  nauseous. (In these cases focus on the pure sensation  involved, for instance, the pure taste of the wine apart  from recognition of its varietal or vintage or region of  origin.)

Each living being must interact with its environment  in order to survive. For living beings,  vital contact between organism and environment  must always be maintained—in the face of all the  risks of breaking away, in a manner of “continuous  discontinuity,” so to speak. We can call this  principle of sustaining contact the “Subject” of  life in the precise etymological sense of subjectum,  which designates what lies at the base of  all living behavior. In so far as the “Subject” can  be effective only as long as the organism continues  to live, it certainly belongs to this organism,  but it by no means resides inside of it. Its place of  being is between the organism and the environment,  therefore in a certain sense outside the organism.  What we are referring to here with the term  “organism” is not limited to a single individual

But now, in inner awareness there is a more   complex form of self-awareness. Not only am I aware   of myself by virtue of the egocentric structure 'I...'.   But in inner awareness I am aware of my passing experience   by virtue of the reflexive structure 'in this   very experience [I see this frog]', and part of what I am   so aware of is myself, subject of the experience0