AUTHOR=Skokowski Paul 

TITLE=Sensing Qualia

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience

VOLUME=16

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/systems-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnsys.2022.795405

DOI=10.3389/fnsys.2022.795405

ISSN=1662-5137

ABSTRACT=<p>Accounting for qualia in the natural world is a difficult business, and it is worth understanding why. A close examination of several theories of mind—Behaviorism, Identity Theory, Functionalism, and Integrated Information Theory—will be discussed, revealing shortcomings for these theories in explaining the contents of conscious experience: qualia. It will be argued that in order to overcome the main difficulty of these theories the senses should be interpreted as physical detectors. A new theory, Grounded Functionalism, will be proposed, which retains multiple realizability while allowing for a scientifically based approach toward accounting for qualia in the natural world.</p>