Qualia: Why Our Experiences Are Unique (By Mr. Nathan Lasher)

(Disclaimer: The guest posts do not necessarily align with Philosocom's manager, Mr. Tomasio Rubinshtein's beliefs, thoughts, or feelings. The point of guest posts is to allow a wide range of narratives from a wide range of people. To apply for a guest post of your own, please send your request to mrtomasio@philosocom.com)

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Part I: The Data of The Mind

Qualia has different meanings if you get its many intricacies. It can be used to describe properties of sense-based data. In this case it is referring to all non physical things in a picture such as color or other attributes of the visual experience.

This would be like seeing a striped tiger. In this case I am referring to you being aware of the stripes without knowing exactly how many there are. Qualia in this case would account for you being able to know something exists without the basic principles of how we learn to understand things. You already understand there are stripes in a wayless way.

To typically understand something we must understand all the items basic components and how many there are. An exception to this would be the tigers stripped. We don’t need to understand quantity to determine something's quality. 

To further explain what the idea of sense data is, you don’t need to see a dog to visualize a dog in your mind. What it is referring to is the fact that people’s minds help them fully visualize something without needing to look too closely at it.

Your mind has already developed a picture of things Like a photographic memory vault.

Part II: The Subjectivity of Experience

Two individuals will have different visual experiences when they see something. Imagine a tall skyscraper. A security guard would have seen the building every day so its appearance is already constructed in the guards' mind. Due to experiencing one it will determine the visual experience the guard would have by visiting another building.

Similarly, a tourist would have an entirely different visual experience due to not being familiar with tall buildings. Example is a person from the Midwest who lives in a farming community and decides to visit New York City.

The tourist's visual experience would be way different than that of a local. There is a deeper meaning to the differences in experiences among people. Neuroanatomy is similar to a finger print. Each non related person would have different cognitive features. This means a person processes sensory data differently than other people who have the same experience.

As such, a person who processes sound differently might have a different experience at a Phil Harmonic Orchestra than someone who processes it differently. Our cognitive features determine how we process sensory data. The idea of qualia represents the intrinsic non representational properties. 

This primarily refers to non physical things and how we interpret them.

Sound would be another. Go to a country that doesn’t speak your native language and take a minute to just stand and listen to all the people talking. How you hear them is what qualia refers to. If you know a different language you process those sounds differently than someone who doesn’t know it.

Qualia as Personal

What this means is every experience is unique to the person. Blue is a descriptive word which can be different to different people. The qualia surrounding the philosophy of mind is what I will be trying to dive into in this article.

Qualia refers to the non physical properties of things. Anything that involves the processing of sensory data. Sensory data is a metaphysical aspect of philosophy. All real matter give off sensory data. It is how two objects communicate with each other.

The reason for people not understanding it revolves around people having different experiences and different sensitivity to this data.

Now, what I hope to achieve in this article is to explain qualia from a neurodivergent perspective. I process things a bit different than most people simply because of the genetics I was born with. 

Why qualia is such a huge area of conversation, is because nobody understands why sensory data can have different effects with different people. I believe I may have figured that out. There are two reasons why this is true. Different cognitive features means processing data differently among people.

The other side of things is the fact that humans have incredible abstract cognition going on. Your body is very good at memorizing sensory data. When you encounter the same sensory data again, your brain recalls your previous encounter with similar senses. Your brain is constantly evolving its ideas about stuff. 

Due to this constantly evolving nature, people are really set in their beliefs. A construct they have built up in their minds over their lifetime. Every person has different experiences so every person has different material to work with while trying to process that sensory data.

Part III: The Role of the Past

Historical memorization of sensory data occurs so that your brain won’t need to process it as hard when it encounters the same one in the future. This new encounter with the same sensory data allows your brain to update its knowledge on the item with a solid foundation to go off of.

This is why elderly individuals hate technology, well, some of them do. They have no historical experience with it so new things are difficult for them to process because they have nothing relatable to go off of. 

So, we can deduce that your history will also determine how you process sensory data. It isn’t just sensory data but entire experiences which your brain is constantly trying to absorb and add to your memory bank.

I am a genius thanks to my experiential intelligence. To add on photographic memory, I believe I understand why people have different experiences with qualia....

It is a matter of cognitive difference and historical experience. The other reason for the subjective nature of qualia is due to every person being different and having different histories to go off of. 

Qualia is an inescapable aspect of life. I believe history and different cognitive structures, resulting in sensory data being processed differently, is the real reason for subjective experience.

Part IV: Personal Reflections

I believe it took someone with bi-polar and autism experiencing life differently to really understand the subjective reality that is qualia. I process things incredibly different than most people. Though I am still human, so my experiences aren’t that subjective. 

Everyone has built their own system of preferences over their lifetimes. Your preferences will determine how you process reality and ideas. Emotions also come into play in reference to how we process things. Things which create a good emotion are often things we want to do. This subjective experience isn’t the same for everyone. As such, my love of golf is very subjective, or in other words, very specific.

Qualia refers to the things I will experience while out on a golf course. Things that make me happy yet aren’t true of everyone. It is based upon my preference of wanting to be out on a course all the time. 

Conclusions

The point of this article is to talk about what life is like for someone who processes things in a very illogical kind of way.

I now that I live in a world of qualia. I have a non-duality about myself and see the world so much more differently than most people.

Those characteristics which make up an experience yet aren’t the result of anything physical. It is an aspect of metaphysics which I feel people could do a better job of understanding.

Qualia is a matter of descriptive wording. Those things which make experience different to each person. You can’t define it in terms of an absolute. As it is subjective it is beyond a universal definition. Qualia can be said to be how humans interpret reality. Of course, interpretations are up to the person doing them.