Gonzalo asked:

I'm a student of International Relations in Argentina, and I'm also writing a thesis. My scheme is 'the
problem of qualia' and I would be so glad if you can give me some information about it.

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I wonder what qualia have to do with international relations?

'Quale' (plural 'qualia') is the name given to the subjective quality of conscious experiences, which is
held to be knowable only to the person whose conscious experience it is. I remember as a boy
wondering how I could be sure that what I called 'blue' was the same colour as what other people
called 'blue'. If we all subjectively experienced the colour of a clear sky differently it wouldn't matter so
long as we agreed what colour to call it. Similarly, the 'sharp pain' I feel when stabbed by a needle
might be the same or different from the 'sharp pain' other people feel when stabbed by a needle. That
doesn't matter, so long as we agree about the name.

Doesn't it matter?

If all that ultimately exists is physical matter, then there could be no room in the universe for qualia.
Some philosophers therefore consider the existence qualia to be a knock-down argument against
materialism. Materialism cannot be a true theory, they argue, so long as there is just one aspect of
the world that it cannot account for.

My own view is that qualia do not exist. There are such things as 'sensations of blue' or 'sharp pains',
but these things do not satisfy the definition of a 'quale'. Nothing could satisfy that definition, because
the very idea of a quale is incoherent.

Suppose, for the sake of reductio ad absurdum,that qualia do exist. My subjective experience of the
blue sky at this moment is a quale. I can agree with anyone who happens to be looking up at the
same sky that its colour is objectively blue. But no-one can ever know the 'blue' that I subjectively
know, the blue hidden away inside my own consciousness. Call it 'my blue'.

The question is, Do I really know this? How can I be sure?

In order to knowthat what is in my consciousness at this moment is 'my blue', it is necessary to be
sure that I am using the term 'my blue' consistently. The problem is I can only go by the way things
seem to me now, at this moment. If the 'I' that existed a few moments ago together will all my other
past 'I's subjectively experienced the colour of a clear sky differently it wouldn't matter so long as we
agreed what colour to call it.- You will notice that all I have done here is apply the very same
speculation about other people that I wondered about as a young boy to my own case. But in doing
so, I have revealed its intrinsic absurdity. Q.E.D.

Geoffrey Klempner