Subjective Experience

A Subjective Experience is a mental process that models of mental experience states.

• Context:
  • It can (often) be preceded by Perceptional Input.
  • It can had by a Cognitive Agent such as a sniffing dog (Conscious Agent?).
  • It can be measured by a Subjective Experience Measure.
• Example(s):
  • “I feel hot.”
  • “I see violet marigolds.”
  • “This product feature is very convenient."
• Counter-Example(s):
  • an Abstract Concept.
  • “The temperature of this room is higher than the boiling point of alcohol”
• See: Mental Experience, Consciousness, Dreaming, Self-Awareness, Mental Calculation.

---

---

References

2012

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjective_character_of_experience
  • The subjective character of experience is a term in psychology and the philosophy of mind denoting that all subjective phenomena are associated with a single point of view ("ego"). The term was coined and illuminated by Thomas Nagel in his famous paper What is It Like to Be a Bat?

    Nagel argues that, because bats are apparently conscious mammals with a way of perceiving their environment entirely different from that of human beings, it is possible to speak of "what is it like to be a bat for the bat" or, while the example of the bat is particularly illustrative, any conscious species, as each organism has a unique point of view from which no other organism can gather experience.^{[citation needed]} To Nagel the subjective character of experience implies the cognitive closure of the human mind to some facts, specifically the mental states that physical states create.

2009

• (Howell & Alter, 2009) ⇒ Robert J. Howell, and Torin Alter. (2009). “Hard Problem of Consciousness." Scholarpedia, 4(6).
  • QUOTE: The hard problem of consciousness (Chalmers 1995) is the problem of explaining the relationship between physical phenomena, such as brain processes, and experience (ie, phenomenal consciousness, or mental states/events with phenomenal qualities or qualia). ...

1974

• (Nagel, 1974) ⇒ Thomas Nagel. (1974). “What is It Like to Be a Bat?". In: The Philosophical Review LXXXIII, 4.

1690

• (Locke, 1690) ⇒ John Locke. (1690). “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding - Book II: Chapter XXXII."
  • QUOTE: Though one man’s idea of blue should be different from another’s. Neither would it carry any imputation of falsehood to our simple ideas, if by the different structure of our organs it were so ordered, that the same object should produce in several men’s minds different ideas at the same time ; v.g. if the idea that a violet produced in one man’s mind by his eyes were the same that a marigold produced in another man’s, and vice versa.

---