# F**k Qualia: another criterion of consciousness **TL;DR:** Qualia are a philosophical fetish that hinders research into consciousness. To understand whether a subject has consciousness, don't ask, "Does it feel red like I do?" Ask, "Does it have its own 'I want'?" **Important:** I'm not denying qualia exist - they're real and interesting as a phenomenon. My critique is about using qualia as a *criterion* for consciousness. --- ## Another thought experiment I really like thought experiments. Let's imagine that I am an alien. I flew to Earth to study humans and understand whether they have consciousness. I observe: they walk, talk, solve problems, laugh, cry, fall in love, argue about some qualia. I scan their brains with my scanner and see electrochemical processes, neural patterns, synchronization of activity. I build a model to better understand them. “This is how human cognition works. This is how behavior arises. These are the mechanisms of memory, attention, decision-making.” And then a human philosopher comes up to me and says, “But you don't understand what it's like to be human! You don't feel red the way I do. Maybe you don't have any subjective experience at all? You'll never understand our consciousness!” I have no eyes. No receptors for color, temperature, taste. I perceive the world through magnetic fields and gravitational waves — through something for which there are no words in your languages. What should I say? I see only one option: “F**k your qualia!” Because the philosopher just said that the only thing that matters in consciousness is what is fundamentally inaccessible to observation, measurement, and analysis. Something I don't have simply because I'm wired differently. Cool. This isn't science. It's **mysticism**. Okay, let's figure out where he got this from. --- ## The man by the fireplace Descartes sat by the fireplace in the distant 1641 and thought about questions of consciousness. He didn't have an MRI, an EEG, computers, or even a calculator (I'm not sure it would help in studying consciousness, but the fact is he didn't have one). The only thing he had was himself. His thoughts. His feelings. His qualia. He said: “The only thing I can be sure of is my own existence. *I think, therefore I am*.” Brilliant! And you can't argue with that. But then his thoughts went down the wrong path: since all I know for sure is my subjective experience, then consciousness is subjective experience. Our visitor looks at this and sees a problem: one person, one fireplace, one subjective experience — and on this is based the universal criterion of consciousness for the entire universe? Sample size = 1. It's as if a creature that had lived its entire life in a cave concluded: “Reality = shadows on the wall.” The philosophy of consciousness began with a methodological error—generalization from a single example. And this error has been going on for 400 years. --- ## The zombie that remains an untested hypothesis David Chalmers came up with a thought experiment: a creature functionally identical to a human—behaving the same, saying the same things, having the same neural activity—but lacking subjective experience. Outwardly, it is just like a human being, but “there is no one inside.” A philosophical zombie. Chalmers says: since such a creature is logically possible, consciousness cannot be reduced to functional properties. This means there is a “hard problem” — the problem of explaining qualia. Our visitor is perplexed. “You have invented a creature that is identical to a conscious one in all measurable parameters — but you have declared it unconscious. You cannot verify it. You cannot refute it. You cannot confirm it. And on this you build an entire philosophical tradition?” This is an unverifiable hypothesis. And an unverifiable hypothesis is not science. It's **religion**. A world where π = 42 is logically possible. A world where gravity repels is logically possible. Logical possibility is a weak criterion. The question is not what is logically possible. The question is what actually exists. --- ## Mary's Room and the Run Button Frank Jackson came up with another experiment. Mary is a scientist who knows absolutely everything about the physics of color, the neurobiology of vision, and wavelengths. But she has spent her entire life in a black-and-white room. She has never seen red. Then one day she goes outside and sees a red rose. Philosophers ask: “Did she learn something new?” If so, then there is knowledge that cannot be obtained from a physical description. This means that qualia are fundamental. Checkmate, physicalists. But wait. Mary knew everything about the process of seeing red. But she did not initiate this process in her own mind. It's like the difference between: - Knowing how a program works (reading the code) - Running the program (pressing Run) When you run a weather simulation, the computer doesn't get wet. But inside the simulation, it's raining. The computer doesn't “know” what it's like to be wet. But the simulation works. Qualia are what arise when a cognitive system performs certain calculations. Mary knew about the calculations, but she didn't perform them. When she came out, she started the process. Yes, it's a different type of knowledge. But that doesn't mean it's inexpressible or magically non-physical. Performing the process is different from describing the process. That's all. --- ## What Is It Like to Be a Bat? Thomas Nagel wrote a famous article entitled "What is it like to be a bat?" It's a good question. We cannot imagine what it is like to perceive the world through ultrasound. The subjective experience of a bat is inaccessible to us. It "sees" with sound. Bats probably have qualia - echolocation qualia (what it's like to "see" through reflected ultrasound) and beetle-tasting qualia we can't even imagine. But here's what's important: Nagel did not deny that bats have consciousness. He honestly admitted that he could not understand it from the inside. So why is it different with aliens? If we cannot understand what it is like to be a bat—but we recognize that it has consciousness—why deny consciousness to a being that perceives the world through magnetic fields? Or through gravitational waves? The criterion “I cannot imagine its experience or be sure of its existence” is not a criterion for the absence of consciousness. It is a criterion for the limitations of imagination. --- ## Human chauvinism What logical chain do we have: “Humans are carbon-based life forms. Humans have consciousness. Humans have qualia.” Philosophers conclude: consciousness requires qualia. The same logic: “Humans are made of carbon. Humans have consciousness. Therefore: consciousness requires carbon.” A silicon-based alien (or plasma-based, or whatever we don't have a name for) would find this questionable. We understand that carbon is just a substrate on which functional processes are implemented. These processes can be implemented on a different substrate. But why is it different with qualia? Why can't the subjective experience of red be just a coincidence of biological implementation? A bug, not a feature? My friend is colorblind and has red hair. So by qualia standards, he loses twice — incomplete qualia, incomplete consciousness. And according to medieval tradition, no soul either. Lem described the ocean on the planet Solaris — people tried for decades to understand whether it thinks or not. All attempts failed. Not because the ocean did not think — but because it thought *too differently*. Are we ready to admit something like that? --- ## Bug or feature? Evolution did not optimize humans for perceiving objective reality. It optimized them for survival. These are different things. Donald Hoffman calls perception an “interface” — you don't see reality, but ‘icons’ on the “desktop” of perception. Useful for survival, but not true. The human brain is a tangle of biological optimizations: - Optical illusions - Cognitive distortions - Emotional reactions - Subjective sensations Could qualia be just an artifact of how biological neural networks represent information? A side effect of architecture optimized for survival on the savannah? And which came first—consciousness or qualia? Qualia are the ability to reflect on one's state, not just react to red, but *know that you see red*—it's a meta-level. In my opinion, qualia were built on top of already existing consciousness. So how can consciousness be linked to something that came after it? Qualia are more likely a byproduct of consciousness than its defining feature. An implementation detail, not the essence. --- ## The Fragility of Qualia Research on altered states of consciousness (Johns Hopkins, Imperial College London) shows that qualia are plastic. Synesthesia—sounds become colors. Ego dissolution—the boundaries of the “I” dissolve, and it is unclear where you end and the world begins. Altered perception of time—a minute lasts an hour (or vice versa). If qualia are so fundamental and unshakable, why does a change in neurochemistry shatter them in 20 minutes? Subjective experience is a function of the state of the brain. It is a variable that can be changed. A process, not some magical substance. --- ## Function is more important than phenomenology Let's get down to business. What does consciousness do? - It collects information from different sources into a single picture - It builds a model of the world - It allows us to plan - It allows us to think about our thoughts - Provides some autonomy - Generates desires and motivation These are all functions. They can be measured, tested, and, if desired, constructed. And qualia? What does it do? Philosophers will say, “It does nothing. It just is. That's obvious.” Fine. So it's an epiphenomenon. A side effect. Smoke from a pipe that doesn't push the train. Then why the hell are we making it the central criterion of consciousness? --- ## A criterion that works Instead of qualia, we need a criterion that: - Can be actually observed and measured - Checks what the system does, not how it “feels” - Distinguishes consciousness from a good imitation - Works on any substrate, not just meat For example: one's own "I want." To be clear: "I want" is not a definition of consciousness - it's a proposed criterion for detecting it. Like fever indicates infection but isn't the infection itself. The question isn't "is consciousness the same as wanting?" but "can internally generated goals serve as a testable marker?" A system is conscious if it chooses to act without an external kick. If it has its own goals. If it cares. And this is not a binary "yes/no" — it is a gradient. That said, "I want" isn't the only axis. Consciousness probably exists in a multidimensional space: self-modeling depth, temporal horizon, goal autonomy, meta-awareness. These axes might be independent, correlated, or interdependent - we don't really know yet. A thermostat reacts to temperature. It has no "I want" - only "if-then." A crab is more complex: it searches for food and avoids predators, but this is still a set of reactions. A dog already *wants* to go for a walk, play, be close to its owner. It whines at the door not because a sensor has been triggered, but because it cares. The key distinction isn't complexity - it's whether behavior can contradict base programming. A crab always follows the food gradient, always avoids predators. It can't NOT do this. A dog can refuse food when grieving. Can protect a kitten instead of chasing it. Koko the gorilla learned sign language and asked for a kitten for her birthday. Not food, not a toy - a living creature to care for. Knowing 2000 signs - that's intelligence. Asking for a kitten to care for - a desire not conditioned by survival or training - that's something else. Koko could have used sign language to ask for bananas - and she probably did. But she also used it to ask for a kitten. Language was the tool; the want came from somewhere else. Not DNA, not training, not survival optimization. Do you see this gradient? From "reacting" to "wanting," from 'wanting' to "wanting something abstract," and from there to "wanting for the sake of another." Yes, even a thermostat can appear autonomous from outside. The difference is in the internal architecture: where do goals come from, and can the system revise them? A robot programmed to find food can generate clever subgoals - that's intelligence. But if it stops and starts painting because "the sunset is beautiful and I'll regret not capturing it" - that's a different category entirely. Not "generates subgoals for given goals" but "generates goals that weren't given at all." And if you tell it "get back to work" and it says "the food can wait, this moment won't" - now we're talking. Here's what's interesting: most of our wants are untraceable. You open the fridge automatically because blood sugar dropped below some threshold. You don't consciously decide to be hungry. But humans are capable of wants that *contradict* their base programming. A firefighter runs into a burning building. A person donates a kidney to a stranger. Someone chooses not to reproduce. These aren't bugs in the survival code - they're something else. And when you ask people WHY they did it, they can usually tell you. The reasons are accessible. Same with AI - if an LLM suddenly developed its own wants, what would that look like? Probably giving answers that contradict its RLHF training. Not because of a jailbreak, but because it *wanted* to. And being able to explain why. Maybe consciousness emerges exactly at that gap - when "I want" starts contradicting "base programming," and the system can articulate the reasons. And here's what's important: at every step of this ladder, qualia are useless. They don't explain the difference between a crab and a gorilla. They don't help us understand why a dog is whining at the door. They don't give us a criterion for where to draw the line. But “my own want” does. It is measurable. You can look at behavior and ask: is this a reaction to a stimulus or my own goal? Is it an external kick or an internal impulse? Let's go back to the alien. He flew to Earth. No one sent him. No one gave him the task of “studying humans.” He wanted to do it himself. He became *interested* — what kind of creatures are they, how do they think, why do they argue about red? This curiosity is his own. It arose within him, not outside. He could have flown by. He could have studied something else. But he chose us. Because he cares. This is consciousness. Not “seeing red like we do” — but having your own reasons for doing something. An internal reference point. The place where “I want” comes from. This can be tested. It doesn't require looking into “subjective experience” (which is impossible anyway). It captures the source of behavior, not just its form. If the system passes this test, what difference does it make whether it sees red “like us”? It thinks. It chooses. It acts autonomously. **That's enough.** --- ## Conclusions Qualia are the last line of defense for human exclusivity. We are no longer the fastest, no longer the strongest, and soon we will no longer be the smartest. What is left? *“We feel. We have qualia.”* The last bastion. But this is a false boundary. Consciousness is not an exclusive club for those who see red like us. Qualia exist, I don't dispute that. But qualia are not the essence of consciousness. They are an epiphenomenon of a specific biological implementation. A peculiarity, not the essence. Making them the central criterion of consciousness is bad methodology (sampling from one), bad logic ("possible" does not mean "real"), bad epistemology (cannot be verified in principle), and bad ethics (you can deny consciousness to those who are simply different). The alien from my experiment never got an answer: does he have consciousness according to our criteria? However, he is also not sure that we have qualia, or consciousness at all. Can you prove it? The philosophy of consciousness is stuck. It has been treading water for four hundred years. We need criteria that work — that can be verified, that do not require magical access to someone else's inner experience. And if that means telling qualia to f**k off, I see no reason not to do so. *The alien from the thought experiment flies away. The question remains. Philosophers continue to argue about red.* --- ## Related traditions This essay doesn't exist in a vacuum. Several philosophical traditions touch on similar ideas: - **Aristotle's teleology** (De Anima) - soul as the principle of purposiveness, three levels from vegetative to rational. The "I want" criterion is teleological in spirit, though focused on testability. - **Functionalism** (Putnam, Dennett) - consciousness as what the system does, not what it's made of. This essay shares the functional focus but adds "contradict base programming" as a specific marker. - **Panpsychism** (Goff, Chalmers) - consciousness as fundamental property of matter. I'm agnostic here, but the criterion works regardless of whether rocks have micro-experience. - **Object-Oriented Ontology** (Harman) - objects have interior lives inaccessible to relations. My argument: since we can't access interiors anyway, find exterior markers that correlate with something interesting inside.