Belief in Qualia as Properly Basic (Version 2)

 Belief in Qualia as Properly Basic (Version 2)

This is an edited and updated version of my post "Belief in Qualia as Properly Basic" [https://ghostlightphilosophy.blogspot.com/2021/03/belief-in-qualia-as-properly-basic.html] 

Introduction

Arguments from eliminative materialists try to claim that qualia do not exist because they cannot fit within a behaviouristic framework of mind. They observe that the issue of qualia strengthens the mind-body problem which undercuts materialistic and behaviouristic explanations of mind. Attacks on qualia have grown in recent years as they have tried to be reduced to mechanical neurological interactions (Dennett, 1991 , Dennett, 1998) or reduced to feedback of emotions (Solms, 2021). Here, I want to articulate my view that belief in the real existence (where real existence means that they exist in exactly what we think they are) of qualia can be defended as properly basic. I will first outline what properly basic beliefs are and then defend my view that the existence of qualia can be defended as such. Finally I will respond to four anticipated objections to my argument.

1 – What are basic beliefs?

Basic beliefs are a key part of foundationalism in epistemology, as they form the very ‘foundation’ of the belief system that foundationalists hold. These are the very axioms of a belief system and do not depend upon justification of other beliefs but on something outside of the realm of belief. The justification for these is non-propositional, meaning that no propositional attitude is needed to justify them. The agent does not need to have sufficient external justification for their basic belief because they operate at the very foundation of their belief system. This makes an external justification or grounding impossible since the external justification would become more basic than the basic belief. You can use external evidence to reinforce the truth of a basic belief but not to ground them. For example, 2+2=4 is considered a basic belief. It cannot be grounded in the fact that when I put 2 marbles and 2 books in a box that there are 4 objects in the box, but this can be used to reinforce the truth of the basic belief that 2+2=4. It is perfectly rational to hold basic beliefs without them being based on other beliefs or propositions.

Basic beliefs are usually broken into three categories…

1.       Ones which are directly evident to the senses. For example, sense experience.

2.       Ones that are incorrigible (necessarily true simply in virtue of being believed). For example, logical truths or mathematical axioms.

3.       Ones that are self-evident. For example, ‘I exist’.

Qualia would fit more into groups 1 and 3 rather than 2 but they can also fit within the incorrigible category, as I will explain later.

From this and my research, what follows is my checklist for whether a belief is basic and then we can compare the justification for qualia to this list…

·         Form the axioms or foundations of a belief system.

·         Do not depend upon external or propositional justification.

·         Are self-evident.

·         Are directly evident to the senses.

·         Are incorrigible.

2 – When do basic beliefs become properly basic?

A properly basic belief is simply a belief that is held on good epistemic warrant and is one which you are warranted to believe. That’s all really. Properly basic simply means that it is a justified basic belief, but again the justification does not come from any external source or relation to another propositional belief. In the checklist given at the end of section 1, the last three criteria are what make a belief go from basic to properly basic. Therefore, if any of the last three criteria are met in conjunction with the first two, the belief is properly basic.

3 – What are qualia?

Qualia are hard to define but easy to identify once experienced. There are many different definitions given in the literature. One is simply “phenomenal character”. Another is “properties of sense data”. A third is “intrinsic, non-representational properties”. And a fourth is “intrinsic, nonphysical, ineffable properties”. What all of these have in common is that they can characterise qualia as including…

·         Perceptual experiences (seeing red, hearing glass smash, tasting chilli, smelling farmyards and feeling a cactus thorn).

·         Bodily sensations (feeling an itch, feeling a muscle spasm, feeling a pain, feeling dizzy, etc…)

·         Felt reactions (feeling delight, lust, love, fear, etc…)

·         Felt moods (feeling elated, depressed, bored, jealous, calm, etc…)

All of the above examples are counted as qualia.

In addition, in his 1998 essay ‘Quining Qualia’, Dennett says that for qualia to have any real existence, they must have the following four properties…

1.       Being ineffable (too great or extreme to be described in words).

2.       Being intrinsic (belonging naturally and directly to something or someone).

3.       Being private (only accessible from the 1^st person perspective).

4.       Being directly or immediately apprehensible in consciousness.

For example, the quale of experiencing the redness of an apple. It is too great to be described in words. I can write a whole book on what the redness feels to me through using words, but it will not capture in any sense how it felt to me. There is an extra dimension to their reality which cannot be articulated and understood by any reader. This makes it ineffable. The redness of the apple as a quale would be intrinsic in the fact that it would only be accessible to the perceiver. I could not in principle access your quale of the redness because if I did it would become my quale and not yours anymore. The privateness of the redness also follows closely from this. The redness of the apple as a quale must also be directly or immediately apprehensible, meaning that I must be able to directly/immediately become aware of and understand my quale of the redness.

From my research, I have deduced a definition of qualia which I think best encompasses the truth of their experience and the criteria outlined, is…

Qualia are introspectively or directly accessible, private, phenomenal aspects of our mental lives.

Running from Nagel’s “What is it like to be a bat?” essay, qualia also give us the knowledge of ‘what it feels like to…”.

When I say that qualia are “introspectively or directly accessible” I mean that through using introspection, you can be directly aware of them. In addition, some qualia will be directly accessible in your meta-consciousness (what is often called higher order consciousness). You do not, and cannot need, a scientific experiment or third person observer in order to give you any extra epistemic justification for the reality of qualia. Qualia being defined as “private” necessarily follows on from this but I want to highlight this point because it is important. As mentioned before when outlining the redness of an apple, I by definition cannot access your qualia or know how the redness of the apple felt to you. If your qualia were transplanted into me and I experienced it, it would no longer be your qualia but my qualia. All experiences coming through our dissociative boundaries get altered or impinged upon in some way and no two impingements will be exactly the same. Therefore, I cannot ever know what the redness of an apple, or any qualia, feels to you. This makes them “private”. The “phenomenal aspects of our mental lives” characterises what makes our minds so distinct from matter. Qualia cannot be given a quantitative description, or even be described in common language where the reader would gain any knowledge about how X feels. The idea of the “phenomenal aspects” simply refers to the component parts of mind.

Now I have given an overview of what qualia are and the definition of qualia I am sticking to [Qualia are introspectively or directly accessible, private, phenomenal aspects of our mental lives], I will now get on to defending my basic thesis that belief in qualia can be defended as properly basic, contrary to eliminative critiques of qualia from Dennett, Frankish and the Churchlands.

4 – Why belief in qualia is properly basic.

So can introspectively or directly accessible, private, phenomenal aspects of our mental lives (qualia) be justified as having real existence in a properly basic manner? I will argue that they can.

As I briefly articulated in my post titled “The Illusion of Time”, the proper way to beginning to understand consciousness is what I call the White Mind state. This is a state where we remove all inferences and models we use to make sense of things from our minds, and stay right in what are directly and immediately aware of. We need to remove all explanatory models which rely on inferences, such as materialism (since the idea of matter is an inference we use to make sense of sense experience). We should only keep the things which are so direct and immediate it is impossible to doubt their reality to our senses. Sense experience, qualia and consciousness are the only things left when you are in the White Mind state. Sense experience and qualia are just experience at the end of the day, and our meta-conscious awareness gives us the knowing and introspective awareness of this experience. Therefore, all there is on the White Mind state is experience and the knowing of experience.

The White Mind state is absolutely necessary to understanding the true nature of consciousness because it allows us to understand how it operates and presents itself to us. None of this information can be gained through MRI scanners or neuro-mapping. The raw feels and experiences of consciousness can only be known through introspection. Therefore, the White Mind state is absolutely necessary in order to get a complete picture of the true nature of consciousness.

Where do qualia fit in to the WM (White Mind) state? Remember that qualia are “introspectively or directly accessible, private, phenomenal aspects of our mental lives.” When we are in the WM state, all we have is sense experience, qualia and consciousness.

Is this not begging the question you may ask since I assume that qualia are part of the WM state? No it is not because we now only need to look at the definitions. In the WM state, are there introspectively or directly accessible, private, phenomenal aspects of our mental lives? Yes, that is entirely what composes us in the WM state – experience (phenomenal aspects of mental lives which are directly accessible and private) and the knowing of experience (introspection and the awareness of the experience espoused just before). So, when we get ourselves into the WM state by removing unnecessary inferences and models, the realty of qualia becomes self-evident. It is a lunatic’s game to deny the reality of qualia when the most basic aspect of our being is analysed. The only thing which has bred so much scepticism around qualia is unnecessary explanatory models such as materialism.

But can this be defended in a properly basic way? I will now refer back to the checklist of what must be fulfilled for a belief to be properly basic…

·         Form the axioms or foundations of a belief system.

·         Do not depend upon external or propositional justification.

·         Are self-evident.

·         Are directly evident to the senses.

·         Are incorrigible.

The first two criteria mut be filled jointly in order for the belief in qualia to be basic and then at least one of the last three in order for it to graduate as properly basic. The more criteria that are met, the stronger the properly basic justification becomes.

In the WM state, are qualia espoused above the formation of the axioms or foundations of our belief system? Yes! This is because they constitute the most fundamental aspects of our consciousness – the most basic aspect of ourselves. All other models (such as materialism) are formed within consciousness. Any theory which accounts for consciousness must start with consciousness in order to explain it and in order to start with it you need to see what it is actually composed of. Since we always start with consciousness from an epistemic standpoint, and qualia make up our consciousness, qualia do epistemically function at the very foundation of the belief system we make up. Again, it is only unnecessary explanatory models that remove qualia from this cherished position in the epistemic landscape. Both epistemically and ontologically, qualia are the literal basis of any theory of consciousness. Any theory which begins with matter and tries to reduce mind to matter is trying to reduce consciousness to an abstraction made within consciousness in order to explain itself. Any theory which violates the WM state will miss out on crucial self-evident, directly and immediately accessible aspects of consciousness. Therefore, any behaviourist account of consciousness, will be at the very least incomplete and at worse, wholly false.

Next, do qualia not depend upon external justification to believe in their existence? Yes! It would be impossible for them to have an external justification which is more certain than qualia which could offer as an epistemic grounding for them. It would be like building a house on a sandcastle. Therefore, the first two criteria have been met and belief in qualia is at this point basic at least.

Matching the third and fourth points to this – qualia are self-evident upon a close reflection of consciousness and are directly evident to the senses of our consciousness. What is not more self-evident and directly evident to the senses than the raw feeling of redness or the raw feeling of pain? All the phenomenal aspects of our mental lives are self-evident to anyone with a mind and are directly evident to our senses. This matches the third and fourth criteria, graduating the basic belief to properly basic already.

But are they incorrigible? It would mean that they cannot be corrected or doubted, and are true simply in virtue of being believed. Now one objection – the illusions and hallucinations objection – could be levelled against this by arguing that we can be mistaken about the content of our experience and qualia, but (1) I will deal with this in section 5 and (2) it is not relevant anyway. Whether what we believe the content of the qualia to be is correspondent to reality or not, the fact that we are having qualia experience and a phenomenal aspect of our lives shows that the mere existence of qualia is incorrigible. We could doubt whether the content of qualia is known, but we first need to know that we are experiencing qualia before we can doubt their content. The basic fact that we experience qualia is undeniable. One cannot experience qualia and yet rationally doubt their existence or try to correct the fact that they exist. So yes, the existence of qualia is incorrigible.

This to me seems to satisfy all the necessary components for something to qualify as a properly basic belief. We have good first-hand epistemic warrant to believe in the reality of qualia. Therefore, belief in qualia is indeed properly basic.

5 – Responses to four anticipated objections.

No doubt my argument will have certain responses and objections. I wish to answer the main four I am anticipating in order to further defend my thesis.

5A – Qualia do not exist.

This will be the most popular objection I am anticipating to my thesis that belief in qualia can be properly basic. Eliminativists such as the Churchlands, Dennett and Frankish argue that consciousness is simply an illusion created by the brain. The brain plays tricks all the time and qualia is just another one of them. Therefore, they all argue that qualia do not exist in any real sense. However all arguments against the existence of qualia are violations of the White Mind state. They have to rely on the unnecessary explanatory abstraction and inference of materialism and then argue that materialism is primary and that combinations of matter which produce brains go on to produce the illusion of consciousness. All of Dennett’s (1991, 1998) arguments against qualia explicitly assume the truth of the explanatory models of both materialism and behaviourism – both I heavily dispute. (I will be making a blog post critique of behaviourism in the future).

But why shouldn’t people violate the White Mind state? Is introspection and direct and immediate experience really enough to tell us about the true nature of consciousness? Yes. Introspection is the most privileged access we will ever have to the mystery of consciousness. Any behaviouristic account of consciousness is only looking at the 3^rd person observable effects of consciousness, therefore it will necessarily be watered down and at best, incomplete. How can this be more privileged to knowing the true nature and qualitative dimensions of consciousness which are so self-evident to all of us? A dogmatic attachment to unnecessary explanatory models will not get us closer to truth.

In short, any argument against the real existence of qualia is assuming either (1) materialism, (2) behaviourism or (3) both materialism and behaviourism. Doing either of the three is a violation of the White Mind state, or some will take the direct approach and violate the White Mind state explicitly. Therefore, all arguments saying that qualia do not exist are epistemically invalid.

5B – There are no properly basic beliefs.

This objection mainly comes from anti-foundationalists such as coherentists. They claim that there are no foundational beliefs such as basic beliefs. One alternative view is to say that beliefs form some kind of “web” (Quine, 1970) although Quine held that logic and mathematics were at the center of the web, acting as the pseudo-foundation of the web of belief. However, I hold that even anti-foundationalism falls back into foundationalism in the following way. Anti-foundationalists believe that their ‘web of belief’ or system of coherent propositions is the grounds for their knowledge of whether a new proposition is true. This is, in my opinion, their properly basic belief. This axiom forms the foundation of their belief system, it does not depend upon external justification, and is self-evident from looking at their very system. Anti-foundationalists cannot doubt that a true proposition is one which coheres with other propositions. This is their properly basic belief. This objection will need to be considered in more detail though I think that the majority of philosophers hold some kind of properly basic belief (logical truths or mathematical axioms are the most popular choices). In the White Mind state, consciousness, qualia and sense experience would replace logic as the most properly basic beliefs, or under anti-foundationalism, they would be what is at the center of the new ‘web of belief’. In short, every epistemic worldview has some properly basic belief that almost serves as their dogma. There is no escaping this.

In addition, to say that there are no properly basic beliefs is to say that consciousness as a medium is no more epistemically primary than anything else. It functions no more crucially within a coherent web of belief than any other proposition or fact. However, all facts, beliefs and propositions are contained within our consciousness when forming the coherent web of belief. Therefore, consciousness as a medium, and all of its related self-evident contents, must function at a more epistemically primary position than other things. Therefore, even under anti-foundationalism, it cannot be doubted that consciousness is epistemically primary, or properly basic under both systems of justification.

5C – Issues with illusions and hallucinations.

The issue of illusions and hallucinations can be put against this argument in the following way. Since we know that sometimes we have illusions and hallucinations with regards to the content of our sense experience (for example an oasis in a desert or a broken straw in a glass of water), we could therefore be equally deceived about the existence of qualia itself. It would just be another one of the brain’s tricks. However this objection holds little weight because even if we are being deceived about the contents of our qualia, it is undeniable that there are qualia. The White Mind state reveals this to us perfectly through direct and immediate ideas.

Let’s take a look at Dennett’s famous ‘alternative neurosurgery thought experiment’ to illustrate the point. Dennett’s argument was as follows…

One day you find yourself awake after neurosurgery to find that your qualia have been inverted. For example, the grass now appears red and the night sky appears white. It follows that you should be immediately aware that something had gone terribly wrong during the surgery. However, Dennett argues that it would be impossible to distinguish as to whether the neurosurgeons have inverted your qualia or just inverted a connection to memories of past qualia. Therefore, we cannot know whether there has been a change in your “immediately apprehensible qualia”. It is clear to see that this does not undermine belief in qualia for the following reason. It might be hard to distinguish between which the true content of the qualia but it does not follow that qualia do not exist. All Dennett has illustrated here is that the inverted spectrum is indeed possible. Nowhere does it follow that qualia do not exist. We could be, in theory, deceived about the content of our qualia and whether we have had ours inverted also, but the conclusion of “Therefore qualia do not exist” does not follow from Dennett’s thought experiment.

The objection may seem stronger with hallucinations because with those we experience something that doesn’t actually exist in the real world. However this seems to be assuming some kind of indirect materialist style realism. Idealism on the other hand would say that sometimes inner experience and memories can impinge in an extrinsic manner onto your dissociative boundary and Markov blanket, and this impingement from the inside can recreate in low resolution a hallucinatory image. The image is in your mind as we would usually diagnose it to be but it is more real then in any indirect materialist style realism. Just like how visual cortex stimulation can create involuntary mental images, extrinsic impingement can also do this under idealism. In short, whilst the exact content of our qualia could be up for debate, there is no doubt that there are qualia and we experience them directly and immediately.

5D – The justification for qualia given here is not properly basic.

The final objection I am anticipating is that my justification given the White Mind state is not actually properly basic because you need to experience the qualia in order to know that they exist. The objector may say that belief in qualia depends on an external justification, mainly the very experience of them. However the objector here is misunderstanding what ‘external justification’ means. The term ‘external’ refers to another belief or proposition that you would use in order to justify belief in a new proposition. This occurs on either a foundationalist account or coherentist account of justification. When justifying our belief in qualia, we first start out with a belief in them because we experience them and then our justification for our belief doesn’t rely on another distinct external proposition. It relies on the self-evident, direct and immediate nature of qualia. We might be deceived about their specific contents (5C) but it is undeniable that qualia exist. The justification is entirely basic and leads to a properly basic belief in qualia.

6 – Conclusion

Here, I have presented by thesis that belief in qualia (introspectively or directly accessible, private, phenomenal aspects of our mental lives) can be justified as properly basic based on the White Mind state and the nature of properly basic beliefs. I have also considered four possible objections to my view and offered responses to them. Therefore I believe that belief in qualia can be properly basic, which serves as a defeater to any eliminativist or illusionist argument against their real existence.