Qualia or pure perception. What substance or element is it composed of?
When there’s sense organs + sense objects + sense consciousness then we call these combination as sense contacts.
They are typically listed as 18 elements themselves. 6 for each of them.
Consciousness is where the mind knows it.
For one who’s sleeping, the sense organ ear exist, the sense object sound can exist, but the sense consciousness of ear consciousness typically don’t arise for heavy sleepers, until the alarm goes off, and sometimes people even sleep through alarm clocks. The suffering of living in a scheduled monastery with early morning activities.
2 Likes
I don’t think it exists. Jay Garfield deals with qualia in Buddhist philosophy as well as concepts of the given. He has written books on it now.
2 Likes
In your first post, did you mean to imply that qualia is the same as pure perception? because qualia is not pure perception. It is the subjective, phenomenal, mind-experience-state. What it is, its usefulness, and which sensations and perception should have qualia is continually debated.
Qualia and mind in Indian Buddhism
Hope this is helpful.
The Buddha does phenomenology, not metaphysics.
1 Like
That’s how consciousness arises (dependent upon sense-organs), but that’s not the “elements” that our phenomenal or subjective experience is composed of, right?
Thank you, I will check it out
Thank you, I’ll take a look
I don’t think its possible to do phenomenology without reaching or implying towards certain metaphysics.
I dunno what you’re going for. It is possible to overcomplicate simple things by proliferation and it’s just thoughts building on thoughts.
Simple consciousness is directly known.
The Buddha didn’t speak about “qualia”. He did use a number of terms which might be rendered as “qualia”, but this is probably a highly contentious matter, given the theological significance of the term
Typically, proponents of qualia theories take them to have intrinsic natures. Therefore they are made out of themselves, other qualia or parts of qualia.
The notion of “substance” has fallen out of favour since modern neuroscience refuted dualism.
1 Like
I don’t think science has refuted dualism.
You’re right. I should’ve said "most scientists and philosophers take empirical science to have refuted dualism on account of the arguments from mental causation, the causal closure of the physical, and the combination problem for pansychism.
1 Like
As I understand in my limited understanding There is no concept of qualia in the EBTs. In modern philosophy Qualia refers to the supposed phenomenal character of consciousness “the redness of red”. 2 classic papers are “Epiphenomenal Qualia” by Frank Jackson where he outlines a famous thought experiment about a neuroscientist called Mary who has grown up in a black and white room, and another is “What is it like to be a bat” by Thomas Nagel.
In my opinion, there is no concept of qualia in the EBTs nor is it necessary and in fact qualia in terms of buddhas teachings as I understand in a limited way …this would be identification or appropriate or I making (ahankara) of sense impressions, so it may be qualia as exists in modern philosophy is a sort of vipalesa… an mis perception born of ignorance (appropriating sense impressions and reifying them into some special internal object that is “me” or “mine” unique to my subjective experience… and not seeing the emptiness, anicca and anatta of them)
1 Like
I thought this would map qualia to eye consciousness. Merely learning about what colour is, is different from directly seeing colour.
1 Like
This is a huge topic in philosophy and there are people who have spent years on it and there’s even professional careers. David Chalmers and Andy Clark are competent speakers if you are interested in philosophy. The question was on Qualia and the EBTs
Just to answer your Q though you could set up the room so that Mary sees colour but never smells roses. In fact we are Mary with respect to many things, maybe someone has not tried Durian before or Feijoa. The claim is Mary learns a new non-physical fact about the world “what the redness of red” is like. To buddhas teachings the idea of “fact” and “physical/non physical” these are all questions and concepts from modern philosophy that may bare very little resemblance or relevance to understanding the teachings of the buddha from the ebts.
This sort of determining what we actually mean by the words we are talking about is called conceptual analysis and is a field called “analytic philosophy” that became dominant in the 1950s after Wittgenstein and Gilbert Ryle is basically the territory of most academic professionalized philosophy departments.
I remember Bhante Sujato in his introduction courses on suttas frequently cautioning early on from assuming anything in the EBTs is talking about philosophical concepts we are familiar with and encouraging us to deeper imaginative empathy … these were written in a world 2500 years ago, there’s devas, mind made bodies, lots of different things
Reading in general is a practice of empathy that stretches our imagination to other people’s minds. Are we reading suttas to find fuel for existing concepts and views or reading to change our mind? Why should we assume it has something to say on Qualia? And the uniqueness of the sort of way the mind changes from the buddhas teachings is freedom from suffering.
1 Like