Rama states the common conception of qualia (from Frank Jackson): we can know all of the neurological facts about color and yet still learn something when we actually see the color itself. Yet he's also clearly a reductionist in that he thinks that physiological research is where it's at in explaining these qualia.
Rama ties qualia to the notion of self; he follows a Higher Order Theory of consciousness: he thinks that being aware and reacting to something ("access consciousness," is Ned Block's term for this) is not sufficient for having an experience with qualia in it, and that the missing element is self-consciousness, i.e. awareness of the awareness, which is something that only comes with the ability to objectify part of ourselves, which is tied to language use.
This raises a problem regarding animals: not having language, they would have no conscious feelings of pain. Contra Nagel, there is nothing at all that it is like to be a bat. This seems counterintuitive, as lots of animals can clearly suffer, contra Descartes's view that they're just acting out clockwork with no inner life. However, there is an alternative: Some part of what we mean by qualia, what we mean by suffering, could be unconscious.
Typically, a philosopher arguing against behaviorism doesn't distinguish 3 and 4. Thus, if an animal feels pain, it has qualia, and so is conscious. A higher-order theory of consciousness (which says 5 must always go with 4) would then imply that animals can't feel pain, though they may jerk away (1) or even register that there is something to be avoided and so avoid that thing in the future (2). I suggest that 3 and 4 are separable: an animal can actually feel pain without having qualia (phenomenal consciousness) of this pain. Note that unconscious pain seems to occur in humans.
This points to a problem with the term "qualia." It involves me obtaining some actual, fine-grained information about the "feel" of what's being experienced (e.g. is this pain a sharp pain or a mind pain? Is it more of a burning or a stinging?), but also is by definition phenomenally conscious, so by just talking about qualia you're sneaking in the theory that this fine-grained information about pain that goes into "what it's like" to be in pain must be conscious.
I am inclined to agree with Wes here, it does seem there are states of experience that preclude much self. I mean, there may be self there, but I am not aware of any self as such (thus begging the semantic nature of "self" in such contexts).
However, the interesting aspect of Ramachandran is to try to address the question differently. Crick and Koch were moved to separate the self and qualia issues not in a small a part because there were a lot of philosophically minded people 10 years ago demanding we do such (mine was one of several voices doing this then… just peeps mind you). However, making the semantic distinction doesn't preclude then applying diverse methodologies to its continued study, and as most instants of experience about which we can acquire verbal reports do find a self in operation, there is surely much to be milked here.
So for example, it may be that QUALIA are not dependent on SELF, but perhaps a case can be made that SELF is dependent on QUALIA. Okay, that is interesting and may tell us something important about both. In particular, it points to what might be a legitimate property of QUALIA, namely that they are holistic or integral or individual or atomic in some sense.
I'm actually more interested here in seeing whether a higher order theory could be coherent than whether it's actually true. I'm thinking it would be fun to read some of these H.O.T. papers for a future episode… (David M. Armstrong is the big name in this; I also very briefly skimmed something by William Lycan (http://www.unc.edu/~ujanel/HOPHOT.htm), who interestingly makes a point of saying that he only means HOP to distinguish which states are conscious and which aren't, not to provide an explanation for consciousness (he thinks he does this elsewhere, in a "theory of perception").
I don't understand why something like the "I" in "I see that I see" would be a necessity. "There is a seeing that there is seeing" seems to me to work just as well.
That "I" is an agent seeing is presumed, but "I" could be just some of the content of seeing without an agent to see apart from seeing alone.
that "there is seeing"– without involving an "I". Again, that an "I" claims to see, could be part of what seeing sees, and no agent involved in seeing.
I see no necessity to the "I". So I say the "I" involved in seeing Qualia is there by definition, and without necessity. For one may argue that in fact there is only seeing: appearances and thoughts and sounds etc. arising and that there is no "I" that sees, and that any "I" or "me" is part of the content of what arises.
And seeing itself is not separate from the arising–seein is arising, one may argue, as there is no seeing if nothing arises, and so we may say there is no seeing, only arising and what arises.
is this whole scheme , and any scheme, part of content?- and isn't then that previous phrase , that scheme just a part of content of arising? Is it all just self referencing like circles within circles?
Is there no way to find out what causes all this? –wait, that's a scheme too, and so is saying "that's a scheme! Help, where am I?
Is the lesson, just to give up all this imaging and speculating and face the unknown?
HA! —Oh wait, where did I go?