The Quest for Qualia

It takes a lot of skill and courage to see things from another person's point of view. All of us are naturally prejudiced. What feels so right inside you is naturally difficult to dislodge.

Why did Putin choose to attack the Ukraine? Historians for generations to come will continue to dissect this. We will never know with certainty how he sees the world. Because we are all inclined to judge others based on our own standards.

We are all products of our genes, upbringing and life experiences. The trauma you suffered as a child and shaped who you are today, is difficult for another person to comprehend. The books that I find so inspiring could be utterly boring to you.

We look at trees and see green leaves. We both agree that green is a cool and relaxing colour. But how can be sure that the green I experience with my senses is the same as the one that you are having? It is possible that what I see as 'green' is actually the experience of 'red' for you. There is actually no way to find out. I've been conditioned since birth to see the colour 'red' as cooling rather than something hot and fiery. The experience of the colour 'red' is exactly like how you feel when you see green. 

Philosophers call this qualia. Qualia is what your senses and mind perceive. It is the 'greenness' of leaves. We could agree on the frequency of green light mathematically, but you and I can never objectively compare these experiences.

Experience is always qualia-tative. It is what it is. Wavelength, amplitude, frequency--these are quantitative data which can never convey what we actually experience as a human being.

What I find fascinating is that despite the variety of human experiences, we actually could agree on a lot of things. If I tell you that I'm in love, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. Why? How could it be possible that we--two genetically different assemblages of biological cells that had been been subjected to different sensory experiences, nutrition and education conjure up within our internal worlds, something which we can agree as 'love'?  Is the qualia of love universal?

Or perhaps life and its associated experiences are not so complicated after all. Our common experiences could be an inevitable outcome of physical processes obeying physical laws. Just like how perturbations on the ocean would always take shapes which you would recognize as 'waves', and vapour condensing and clumping together into recognizable fluffy-looking objects in the sky, which we call 'clouds'. These are all natural formations, observable under similar conditions in any planet in the universe.

The qualia of love could be a natural state that arises when there's a natural affinity of needs between two biological systems. Life is nothing but the arisal of qualia. And all of human civilization, our art, culture and scientific achievements are part of this neverending quest for qualia.