The most direct test would be this:
"Do you have qualia?"
But you'd have to use naive subjects who haven't philosophised themselves into ignoring their own experience.
A little more indirectly, people without qualia would profess puzzlement at the very idea, and argue that there is no such thing. If they are philosophers, they will write articles on the incoherence of the concept. If they are psychologists, they will practice psychology on the basis that mental phenomena do not exist. If they are teachers, they will see the brain as a pot to be filled, not the mind as a fire to be ignited. Those who do have qualia will be as tenacious on the other side.
Nothing that those who do have qualia say about qualia will make sense to those who don't, and those who don't will have no difficulty in demonstrating that it is nonsense. Those who do have qualia will be unable to explain them even to each other, since they know no more about what they are than they know about how thought happens. All of their supposed explanations will only be disguised descriptions of what it feels like to have them.
Looks pretty much like our world, doesn't it?
Looks pretty much like our world, doesn't it?
It does. If psychologists came out with a study that 1 out of 10 people don't experience qualia, I would feel rather certain that I was one of those out of 10 that don't experience it. Just like WrongBot, I think. However, my actual expectation is that we are all the same at that level of brain organization, and wonder what aspect of my experience people are labeling 'qualia'.
Above, Orthonormal wrote,
Seeing red doesn't mean seeing something with a little XML "red" tag attached,
Actually, this is ...
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