The Idiosyncrasy Principle: A New Look at Qualia.
Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science November 1, 2022 DOI: 10.1177/17456916221082118 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Keywords | Consciousness Idiosyncrasy Individual differences Numerosity Qualia |
| Key points | Proposes that the "idiosyncrasy principle" and numerosity can provide an objective method to study qualia, enabling the characterization of individual transfer functions between physical properties and subjective experience. |
Abstract
In the study of consciousness, qualia, the individual subjective experience, is neglected. It remains impenetrable because the objective perspective used for scientific investigations misses its subjective nature. In 1974, Thomas Nagel suggested that studying qualia requires an "objective phenomenology method" whose goal would be to describe the subjective character of experiences in an independent manner. We introduce a corresponding theoretical and experimental framework based on the "idiosyncrasy principle." Accordingly, subjectivity depends on the idiosyncratic composition of physical properties to qualia. This allows conceptualizing an idiosyncratic transfer function between the world and its representation. The main challenge in delineating such a transfer function is to come up with an objective measure for another person's perspective. Numerosity, as opposed to other perceived contents of the physical world, allows reporting subjective experience in an objective manner. On the basis of this unique attribute of numerosity, we suggest a tentative neurocognitive research plan aimed at delineating such idiosyncratic transfer functions, permitting one person to adopt the perspective of another and linking qualia to its mechanism.