QUALIA - “THE MOLYNEUX PROBLEM”
What defines art as art is the ongoing question we wrestle with. How do people react to it, and why do they react in the manner that they do? What senses do they use to experience art? What are they inwardly processing and projecting onto the artwork? Finally, what can, or can’t, they perceive? These are significant and ambiguous questions. Some of these queries can be answered to some extent by the theory of qualia. And if you research this concept, you might be able to potentially apply it to your work. At least in some indirect way.
The first time I heard about qualia was in a story about a girl called Molly. She was born blind. She never saw a shape or color in her life. For years, she carried around a die and a marble. She thought they brought her good luck. When she was older, the doctors performed corneal lens surgery, and she was able to see.
The die and marble were placed before her, and she wasn’t able to identify either one. She had never seen these objects before; she only had the internal experience of feeling and touching them. It sounds strange that the shapes weren’t obvious to her; she had carried these objects for years. If you are sighted, you would have never experienced this phenomenon. It shows that what we perceive internally versus externally can be very different. This is the age-old question of qualia and how we know what we know.
Qualia: n. ( sing. quale) 1. characteristics or qualities that determine the nature of a mental experience (sensation or perception) and make it distinguishable from other such experiences, so that, for example, the experiencer differentiates between the sensations of heat and cold.
Plate #124 - “Ute Lodge” whole-plate wet collodion negative.
Qualia are the subjective or qualitative properties of experiences. What it feels like, experientially, to see a red rose is different from what it feels like to see a yellow rose. Likewise, hearing a musical note played by a piano and hearing the same musical note played by a tuba. The qualia of these experiences are what give each of them their characteristic “feel” and also what distinguishes them from one another. Qualia have traditionally been thought to be intrinsic qualities of experience that are directly available to introspection. However, some philosophers offer theories of qualia that deny one or both of those features. (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
This is a very interesting topic as it relates to art and photography specifically. As I said above, the question we’re always asking is what makes art, Art? How do people respond to it and why do they respond a certain way? Qualia can start to answer some of these questions. And, if you study these ideas, you may be able to incorporate them into your practice, at least theoretically.
What is the qualia argument?
It rests on the idea that someone who has complete physical knowledge about another conscious being might yet lack knowledge about how it feels to have the experiences of that being. It is one of the most discussed arguments against physicalism.
Qualia as phenomenal character. Consider your visual experience as you stare at a bright turquoise color patch in a paint store. There is something it is like for you subjectively to undergo that experience. What it is like to undergo the experience is very different from what it is like for you to experience a dull brown color patch. This difference is a difference in what is often called ‘phenomenal character’. The phenomenal character of an experience is what it is like subjectively to undergo the experience. If you are told to focus your attention upon the phenomenal character of your experience, you will find that in doing so you are aware of certain qualities. These qualities—ones that are accessible to you when you introspect and that together make up the phenomenal character of the experience are sometimes called ‘qualia’. C.S. Peirce seems to have had something like this in mind when he introduced the term ‘quale’ into philosophy in 1866 (1866/1982, para 223). From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
INTROSPECTION
Introspection is the process by which someone comes to form beliefs about their own mental states. We might form the belief that someone else is happy on the basis of perception—for example, by perceiving their behavior. But a person typically does not have to observe their own behavior in order to determine whether they are happy. Rather, one makes this determination by introspecting.
When compared to other beliefs that we have, the beliefs that we acquire through introspection seem epistemically special. Though the term “introspection” literally means “looking within” (from the Latin “spicere” meaning “to look” and “intra” meaning “within”), whether introspecting should be treated analogously to looking – that is, whether introspection is a form of inner perception – is debatable. Philosophers have offered both observational and non-observational accounts of introspection. Following the discussion of these various issues about the epistemology and nature of introspection, the third section of this essay addresses an important use to which introspection has been put in philosophical discussions, namely, to draw metaphysical conclusions about the nature of mind. (IEP)
APPLYING QUALIA TO ART (PHOTOGRAPHY) - TRANSCENDENT ART
What does this all mean in terms of looking at and experiencing photographs? This is where words really do fall short. You can’t write about something like this very well. It’s a very personal, intimate experience that you “feel” more than you see.
Think of the feeling of love or the private pleasure of watching a sunset as examples of qualia that make their way into the domain of our conscious awareness. We try to describe them even if we can't. When words fail us, we turn to making photographs and prints, painting, sculpting, creating musical compositions, and a variety of other artistic mediums to express ourselves.
So, the preservation of the artist's own qualia must come first in their artistic endeavors. Inspiration comes suddenly and transcends time and space. It must be honored and kept in order for the location of its origin to be visited in the future, even if it will never happen again. I try to keep qualia at the forefront of my mind when exploring ideas for an image. I try to stay conscious of when I experience this and then act on it as quickly as possible. In the end, I know I only share a shadow of the qualia I experienced, but, to some extent, it is preserved in the images that I make. It is, in fact, second-hand qualia. That’s all it can ever be.
It’s up for debate whether or not some qualia ought to be retained. The question of whether art is successful or "good" is unaffected by whether it is enjoyable or unpleasant to experience. For instance, all it takes is a quick glance at one of Vincent Van Gogh's self-portraits for someone to feel what it feels like to be so depressed that they amputate their own ear.
Immortalize your qualia, that’s the goal. Transcended art is what qualia refers to-getting the closest we can to the most intimate experience in creating art and showing it the best way we know how. That’s the definition of qualia to me.
Plate #124 - “Ute Lodge” whole-plate toned cyanotype from a wet collodion negative.