# Scientific qualia
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-qualia/1019346
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [June 8, 2025, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-qualia/1019346 "2025-06-08T23:05:36Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@EnolaStraight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EnolaStraight)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2025, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-qualia/1019346/1 "2025-06-08T23:05:36Z")
In this old thread of mine:
[Audio-visual perception - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/audio-visual-perception/682565)
I posted the question of 'do we all perceive the same way".
It was explained to me this idea is in fact a philosophical concept known as Qualia…going pack as far as John Locke.
Apparently, qualia can now be scientifically tested.
[Scientists Measure Qualia for First Time – It was thought to be impossible](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCD2A_bhDTI)
Does this mean this field of study is no longer philosophy, but science?
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [June 9, 2025, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-qualia/1019346/2 "2025-06-09T00:22:01Z")
Not if you read the comments, which overwhelmingly say that the studies did not prove any such thing.
> [3:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCD2A_bhDTI&t=180s) NO, that is incorrect conclusion to draw from the experiment. The experiment didn’t measure qualia. It measured brain activity. There is every reason to ASSUME that similar brain patterns are a consciousness experiencing the same/similar qualia. There is no PROOF that the similar brain patterns aren’t mapped to DIFFERENT/UNIQUE qualia.
> Hard disagree here. Philosophers have never tried to claim that physiologically the experience of red is different brain to brain. In fact, everyone assumes the processing of red would look the same physiologically. The hard problem of conciousness is that we don’t know what red feels like or looks like for each different concious subject that experiences it. We all process red in the same way, yet it evokes different emotions/feelings/sensations in all of us. They are no closer to answering the question of “why does it feel like something to see red”. They have simply said “look! This is your brain when you see red!” This is not qualia in any sense of the word.
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### Author:  [@EnolaStraight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EnolaStraight)
#### Post date: [June 9, 2025, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-qualia/1019346/3 "2025-06-09T01:16:31Z")
_Huh._
Could…_any_…such scanning/mapping technology, even theoretically, be considered “evidence” of qualia measurement?
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [June 9, 2025, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-qualia/1019346/4 "2025-06-09T04:52:42Z")
> [@EnolaStraight](#):
>
> Apparently, qualia can now be scientifically tested.
> [Scientists Measure Qualia for First Time – It was thought to be impossible](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCD2A_bhDTI)
>
> Does this mean this field of study is no longer philosophy, but science?
They did not measure qualia. Video title is misleading crap.
This thread is probably of relevance:
> [@Sabine Hossenfelder - anti-science?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sabine-hossenfelder-anti-science/1009449):
>
> Professor Dave has made a video criticizing Sabine for increasingly publishing anti-science and anti-establishment rhetoric, on her site, and in her articles for The Guardian and in her book. It starts out very civil but later he points out ways he thinks she is being dishonest and even lacking integrity. The reason for making this thread is two-fold: We were discussing Sabine as a tangent in [this thread](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yeah-but-why-is-c-the-speed-limit-of-the-universe), so it seems this tangent now merits its own thread. Both professor dave and Sabine are …
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### Author:  [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)
#### Post date: [June 9, 2025, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-qualia/1019346/5 "2025-06-09T12:57:47Z")
I saw that video. It’s not measuring qualia. It’s measuring brain activity in response to sensation. The fact that there are correlations between different human brains with regards to similar stimulus gives no information about what each human brain is actually perceiving. Imagine a hybrid AI made of silicon and biological matter. Would an FMRI scan of the activity of that system give any idea if it experienced qualia or the nature of the qualia if it did?
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### Author:  [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)
#### Post date: [June 9, 2025, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-qualia/1019346/6 "2025-06-09T12:59:21Z")
I’m going to say no. Because measuring the state of a system isn’t the same as knowing what that system perceives. That might actually be fundamentally unknowable.
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### Author:  [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)
#### Post date: [June 9, 2025, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-qualia/1019346/7 "2025-06-09T13:32:14Z")
Though we may not yet be able to measure qualia differences in humans, I think we can point to the parsimonious nature of evolution to make an educated guess that there are no significant differences. To wire my brain so 650-nanometer light feels “red” while yours secretly feels “green” would demand extra developmental rules, extra fail-safes, and a lifetime of calibration. Evolution hates that kind of overhead. Ockham’s razor says, _same hardware, same survival pressures, same subjective experience_. Evolutionary parsimony makes significant qualia differences highly improbable, but not strictly ruled out.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [June 9, 2025, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-qualia/1019346/8 "2025-06-09T13:37:19Z")
If “qualia” even exist at all, then matching brain patterns implies matching qualia, because the mind, and all that goes with it, is an emergent property of the brain.
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### Author:  [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)
#### Post date: [June 9, 2025, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-qualia/1019346/9 "2025-06-09T14:29:14Z")
I’m not an expert on this, but haven’t we been using neural stimulation and recreational drugs to affect qualia for a long time?
The subjective experience of music changes on recreational drugs that mimic neurotransmitters. The subjective experience of pain changes on opiates or THC.
Recreational drugs like candyflipping (LSD + MDMA) will send you to subjective heaven, and drugs like salvia will send you to subjective hell. This is fairly consistent too in the sense that MDMA tends to produce similar subjective experiences among people, and those subjective experiences are different than the subjective experiences you have under things like ethanol or salvia.
Neural stimulation can cause people to see colors or smell odors that aren’t present.
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### Author:  [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)
#### Post date: [June 9, 2025, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-qualia/1019346/10 "2025-06-09T14:29:20Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase (quoting youtube)](#):
>
> The hard problem of conciousness is that we don’t know what red feels like or looks like for each different concious subject that experiences it. We all process red in the same way, yet it evokes different emotions/feelings/sensations in all of us.
I just want to push back against that random youtube comment.
_Part of_ the hard problem of consciousness is that we can’t know other entities’ first-person experiences, so I can’t know that you and I see red the same.
But the problem remains even if we could somehow know we all see red the same\*. We don’t know how brains make these experiences; that’s the central problem. And there is also the (related) description problem; even if we knew all hawks see UV the same, does that help with imagining what UV looks like?
\* Actually red is a poor choice for these examples, because humans have different genes for the L-opsin pigment, responsible for detecting red light. It probably makes little to no difference in how we see red (and claims of tetrachromat humans remain somewhat tentative, and certainly nothing like a species with 4 pigments that hardly overlap in sensitivity range), but it’s the end of the spectrum that is less likely the same for all humans.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [June 9, 2025, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-qualia/1019346/11 "2025-06-09T14:33:35Z")
> [@Mijin](#):
>
> We don’t know how brains make these experiences; that’s the central problem.
But now, thanks to work like this, we are starting to learn how brains make these experiences.
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### Author:  [@redpoint5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/redpoint5)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2025, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-qualia/1019346/12 "2025-06-10T07:38:34Z")
First tiny steps, perhaps, but by no means proof we experience stimuli in the same way.
The fact that individuals vary so much in many various ways suggests that our experiences are somewhat dissimilar.
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### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2025, 9:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-qualia/1019346/13 "2025-06-10T09:55:54Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> If “qualia” even exist at all, then matching brain patterns implies matching qualia, because the mind, and all that goes with it, is an emergent property of the brain.
Exactly this. Assuming “qualia” exist in the first place, if we understood them well enough we’d be able to identify them with the right sort of scanning device because we’d know what to look for. The issue isn’t that the mind is some magic thing scientific instruments can’t analyze; the issue is that we don’t _understand_ the details of how the brain works well enough to know what the heck we are looking at most of the time.
Well that, and the practical difficulty of getting a close enough look at a brain in operation without cutting it into pieces and making it _stop_ operating.
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### Author:  [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2025, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-qualia/1019346/14 "2025-06-10T15:12:33Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#):
>
> Recreational drugs like candyflipping (LSD + MDMA) will send you to subjective heaven, and drugs like salvia will send you to subjective hell. This is fairly consistent too in the sense that MDMA tends to produce similar subjective experiences among people, and those subjective experiences are different than the subjective experiences you have under things like ethanol or salvia
I beg to differ, somewhat. Salvia Divinorum can turn “bad” but all my experience with it has been good. DMT has been mixed, good and bad, but always interesting. I have had a terrible bad trip on MDMA. Never on LSD, though on some huge doses things got sketchy.
Who has not had what we refer in South Africa the experience of “mal dronk”… the sad, crying, feeling sorry stage shortly before passing out after excess alcohol use? But alcohol is still in widespread use.
I’m of the opinion that the “qualia” are too ill-determined for this thread to be really meaningful, and that is mirrored in real life.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2025, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-qualia/1019346/15 "2025-06-10T22:17:48Z")
> [@redpoint5](#):
>
> First tiny steps, perhaps, but by no means proof we experience stimuli in the same way.
Yeah, the word “starting”, in my post there, was doing a lot of heavy lifting. We’re very far from done.
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### Author:  [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2025, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-qualia/1019346/16 "2025-06-30T21:11:35Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> If “qualia” even exist at all, then matching brain patterns implies matching qualia, because the mind, and all that goes with it, is an emergent property of the brain.
Sounds like begging the question to me. “Mind is an emergent property of the brain” is a claim, not a conclusion. And while it may be a _justifiable_ claim, it doesn’t help us understand what those minds experience, which is what “qualia” is all about. It’s self evident that qualia exist, because people experience things. “I think, therefore I am.” (Your mileage may vary, but I doubt it.)
By definition, they can’t really be studied or understood scientifically. Science by nature is objective. Qualia, by definition, are subjective. Frankly I fail to see how that gap can be crossed. The concepts inhabit two entirely different domains.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2025, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-qualia/1019346/17 "2025-06-30T21:14:07Z")
When I say “I am experiencing something”, what I mean is “the matter that makes up my brain is existing in some particular configuration”. That’s it. That’s what understanding, and thought, and knowledge, and memory, are.
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### Author:  [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2025, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-qualia/1019346/18 "2025-06-30T21:34:06Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> When I say “I am experiencing something”, what I mean is “the matter that makes up my brain is existing in some particular configuration”. That’s it.
I can guarantee that’s not what most people mean by it. People have been experiencing things since long before brains and matter were even heard of. _My dog_ experiences things, too (seemingly, at least – hard to confirm for myself, however).
That’s my point. No amount of studying test tubes of brain chemicals and neurons under microscopes, or whatever, will tell you what it _feels like_ to kiss a pretty girl. You actually have to _kiss a pretty girl_ to know. Or pick any other example, if pretty girls aren’t your thing.
Hence the title of the OP, “Scientific Qualia” sounds like an utter oxymoron to me.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2025, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-qualia/1019346/19 "2025-06-30T22:34:17Z")
> [@DrCube](#):
>
> I can guarantee that’s not what most people mean by it.
Yup. What most people mean by it is absolutely nothing, since they’ve never given the matter any serious thought.
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### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2025, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-qualia/1019346/20 "2025-07-01T04:56:35Z")
> [@DrCube](#):
>
> By definition, they can’t really be studied or understood scientifically. Science by nature is objective. Qualia, by definition, are subjective.
The only reason we can’t study most subjective experiences is that we have neither sufficient understanding of the brain, nor good enough scanning equipment. But _given_ those things we could certainly study subjective phenomena. There’s nothing magic about subjective experience, it’s just another function of the brain.
If subjective experiences can’t be studied then they aren’t real, and I _know_ they are real because I have them.
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