“We don’t see the actual colors of objects. Instead, the brain adjusts colors for us, based on surrounding lighting cues, to approximate the surface pigmentation. In this example, it leads us astray, because what we are actually looking at is a false image made up of surface pigmentation (or illumination, if you’re looking at this on a screen).”
Cultural concepts and the colloquial language of vision do not map very neatly onto the subjective experience of vision. Nor does the subjective experience of vision map neatly onto the wavelengths of light striking the opsins of the retina.
For example, we can describe the color of pixels with RGB values. We might call these “light grey” or “dark grey,” if we saw them in the MS Paint color picker. This is a measure of the wavelengths of light striking our opsins.
However, when we view the Checkerboard Illusion and look at squares A or B, the shadow pattern causes a different pattern of neurotransmission than if we looked at those squares alone in MS Paint. That different pattern of neurotransmission results in a different qualia, and hence different language to describe it.
Understand that qualia is a fundamentally biochemical process, just like a muscle contraction, although we understand the mechanics of the latter somewhat, while we understand qualia hardly at all. Likewise, the subjective experience of a ‘you’ thinking, remembering, and experiencing this illusion is a qualia that is also happening along with the qualia of vision. It’s like your brain is dancing, moving many qualia-muscles in a complex coordinated fashion all at once.
We can refer possessively to our bodies without risking the homunculus fallacy—saying “my brain” is OK. Since qualia are a physiological process, we can also therefore say “my qualia.” Both are synonyms for “this body’s brain” and “this body’s qualia.” “Me” simply means “this body.”
Just as we can say “I am seeing” or “I am thinking,” we can say “I am experiencing” when we have a qualia of being a homunculus distinct from but experiencing our senses. All of these phrases could be translated as “This brain is generating qualia of seeing, thinking, experiencing.”
This helps show that the homunculus fallacy is baked into the language. While in fact, the brain is doing all the seeing, thinking, and experiencing, we have normalized using language that suggests that a homunculus is doing it. Drop the “I am,” shift to “this brain is,” and it magically vanishes.
Since we don’t have a qualiometer, it seems important to be wary of creating language to describe qualia, recombining it symbolically, and then imagining that the new combination describes “real qualia.” For example:
“I am experiencing the A and B squares as different colors” is a pretty commonsense qualia.
“I am experiencing myself experiencing the A and B squares as the same colors” is less convincing. What does it mean to “experience yourself experiencing?” Is this a real qualia, or just a language game?
The reason this matters is that, in theory, there is a tight connection between biochemical processes and particular qualia. If we were good enough at predicting qualia based on biochemistry (akin to how we can predict a protein’s shape based on the mRNA that encodes it), then we could refute somebody’s own self-reported inner experience. With a qualiometer, someone could know your inner world better than you know it yourself, describe it more accurately than you can.
Finding a practical language that avoids the homunculus fallacy has more problems than reflecting concepts accurately. It also needs to content with people’s inherited language norms, exceedingly poor ability to describe their inner state accurately in words, and need to participate in the language games that the people around them are playing.
Overall, though, I think the simplest change to make is to just start replacing “you” with “your brain” and “you are” with “your brain is,” while jamming the word “qualia” in somewhere every time a sensory word comes up and using precise scientific terminology where possible.
“Your brain doesn’t generate a one-to-one mapping from the actual wavelengths of light striking its eyeballs’ opsins into vision-qualia. Instead, your brain adjusts color-qualia based on surrounding lighting cues, to approximate the surface pigmentation. In this example, it generates a color-difference-qualia even though the actual wavelengths are identical, because what the brain is actually looking at is a false image made up of surface pigmentation (or illumination, if your eyes are looking at this on a screen).”
Cultural concepts and the colloquial language of vision do not map very neatly onto the subjective experience of vision. Nor does the subjective experience of vision map neatly onto the wavelengths of light striking the opsins of the retina.
For example, we can describe the color of pixels with RGB values. We might call these “light grey” or “dark grey,” if we saw them in the MS Paint color picker. This is a measure of the wavelengths of light striking our opsins.
However, when we view the Checkerboard Illusion and look at squares A or B, the shadow pattern causes a different pattern of neurotransmission than if we looked at those squares alone in MS Paint. That different pattern of neurotransmission results in a different qualia, and hence different language to describe it.
Understand that qualia is a fundamentally biochemical process, just like a muscle contraction, although we understand the mechanics of the latter somewhat, while we understand qualia hardly at all. Likewise, the subjective experience of a ‘you’ thinking, remembering, and experiencing this illusion is a qualia that is also happening along with the qualia of vision. It’s like your brain is dancing, moving many qualia-muscles in a complex coordinated fashion all at once.
We can refer possessively to our bodies without risking the homunculus fallacy—saying “my brain” is OK. Since qualia are a physiological process, we can also therefore say “my qualia.” Both are synonyms for “this body’s brain” and “this body’s qualia.” “Me” simply means “this body.”
Just as we can say “I am seeing” or “I am thinking,” we can say “I am experiencing” when we have a qualia of being a homunculus distinct from but experiencing our senses. All of these phrases could be translated as “This brain is generating qualia of seeing, thinking, experiencing.”
This helps show that the homunculus fallacy is baked into the language. While in fact, the brain is doing all the seeing, thinking, and experiencing, we have normalized using language that suggests that a homunculus is doing it. Drop the “I am,” shift to “this brain is,” and it magically vanishes.
Since we don’t have a qualiometer, it seems important to be wary of creating language to describe qualia, recombining it symbolically, and then imagining that the new combination describes “real qualia.” For example:
“I am experiencing the A and B squares as different colors” is a pretty commonsense qualia.
“I am experiencing myself experiencing the A and B squares as the same colors” is less convincing. What does it mean to “experience yourself experiencing?” Is this a real qualia, or just a language game?
The reason this matters is that, in theory, there is a tight connection between biochemical processes and particular qualia. If we were good enough at predicting qualia based on biochemistry (akin to how we can predict a protein’s shape based on the mRNA that encodes it), then we could refute somebody’s own self-reported inner experience. With a qualiometer, someone could know your inner world better than you know it yourself, describe it more accurately than you can.
Finding a practical language that avoids the homunculus fallacy has more problems than reflecting concepts accurately. It also needs to content with people’s inherited language norms, exceedingly poor ability to describe their inner state accurately in words, and need to participate in the language games that the people around them are playing.
Overall, though, I think the simplest change to make is to just start replacing “you” with “your brain” and “you are” with “your brain is,” while jamming the word “qualia” in somewhere every time a sensory word comes up and using precise scientific terminology where possible.
“Your brain doesn’t generate a one-to-one mapping from the actual wavelengths of light striking its eyeballs’ opsins into vision-qualia. Instead, your brain adjusts color-qualia based on surrounding lighting cues, to approximate the surface pigmentation. In this example, it generates a color-difference-qualia even though the actual wavelengths are identical, because what the brain is actually looking at is a false image made up of surface pigmentation (or illumination, if your eyes are looking at this on a screen).”