MD quality and qualia

hello all,

david chalmers, an australian philosopher who lives in arizona, works in consciousness research. chalmers' work has been an intractable problem for materialists who wish to reduce consciousness to the electrochemistry of the brain. this is because chalmers points out that, for instance, the experience of seeing the colour green and a particular wavelength of electromagnetic radiation that corresponds to 'green' in the visual spectrum are not the same thing; nor is a particular pattern of neural firing in the visual cortex the same as the sensation of 'greenness'. although this sounds like stating the bleeding obvious, chalmers point - that the felt experience of something is not the same as a physical explanation of how the brain and sense organs functioned during that experience - is now known as 'the hard problem of consciousness'. (of course it isn't a problem at all; rather it is a very nice example of MoQ in action.) chalmers labels these immediate, irreducible experiences 'qualia' - the quality of the experience. is this not a perfect fit? - a nice entry point for the MoQ into academic philosophy perhaps.

anyone else have thoughts on this?

gav