LA CALIDAD DE VIDA Y LAS NECESIDADES PERCIBIDAS

To provide background for the puzzles, I will first review the reasons why the external world probably does not qualitatively resemble the world presented in experience, starting with the familiar case of colors.2

6.2.1 Color properties

In ordinary visual experience, we seem to be directly acquainted with simple, intrinsic, vivid color properties. Following Chalmers (2006, 49-50), we can call these properties edenic color properties.3 Many of us naively assume that external objects instantiate edenic colors. But there are powerful arguments against this view.4

2_{Throughout this chapter, I use the term “presented” because our experience has a presentational phe-}

nomenology: we seem to be directly acquainted with objects and their properties. In using this term, I do not mean to deny the possibility of falsidical experiences.

3_{This term derives from the following fable: in the Garden of Eden, objects instantiated primitive colors.}

But then we ate from the “tree of the knowledge of science” and the “tree of illusion.”

4_{See Cohen (2009, 65-67) and Maund (2012, section 6.2) for overviews of arguments against edenic (i.e.,}

“primitive”) colors. Note that edenic colors should be distinguished from other properties we might identify with colors, such as dispositional, microphysical, or relational properties. The arguments below only threaten the claim that external objects instantiateedeniccolors; they do not threaten realist views on which colors are identified with something other than edenic properties.

Initial doubts are raised by the fact that objects sometimes seem to have different colors at different times, even though we do not think the object itself has changed. In addition, we learn from science that our color experience is the result of a long, complex causal chain. Both these facts suggest that edenic colors may not be the real cause of our color experiences.

But the strongest reasons to doubt edenic colors are (i) theargument from incompatible experiencesand (ii) theargument from science. As for (i): it seems that subjects could have incompatible color experiences of the same object without there being reason to think that anyone is suffering an illusion. For example, suppose roses look red to humans but green to Martians. There would be no reason to think that either party was mistaken in their perceptions. One could insist that there is a fact about which color isreallyinstantiated, but it is more plausible to say that there are no edenic colors at all.5 _{As for (ii): we know from}

physics that different properties cause our color experiences in different circumstances. So, contrary to how it seems in experience, there is not a single intrinsic property of redness common to all red things.

6.2.2 Spatial properties

Next consider spatial experience. Just as objects seem to instantiate primitive colors, so too objects seem to instantiate primitive spatial properties. For example, some objects appear primitively square-like or primitively spherical. Objects seem to stand in primi- tive (relative) distance relations. More generally, objects seem to populate a vast three- dimensional Euclidean spatial arena. We can say that objects appear to haveedenic spatial propertiesand appear to populate a three-dimensionaledenic space.6

The same reasons for skepticism about edenic colors also apply to edenic space. Initial

5_{In fact, we don’t even need thought experiments. According to Neitz & Jacobs (1986), there are}

experimentally-detectable differences between the color experiences of males and females.

doubts are raised by spatial illusions and by the recognition that our spatial experience is the result of a complex causal chain. These facts suggest that edenic spatial properties may not be the actual cause of our spatial experiences.

And just as with colors, doubts about edenic space are supported by (i) the argument from incompatible experiences and (ii) the argument from science. As for (i): it seems that an object could cause incompatible spatial experiences without there being reason to think that anyone suffers an illusion. For example, suppose objects causing a square experience for humans systematically cause a 2:1 rectangle experience for Martians. Just as before, one could insist that there is a fact about which shape is really instantiated, but it seems more reasonable to say that no edenic spatial properties are instantiated at all.7

As for (ii): edenic space is incompatible with results from fundamental physics.8 _For

example, we experience space and time as independent dimensions of reality, each with its own qualitative nature. But from special relativity, we know that the division of spacetime into spatial and temporal dimensions depends on the observer’s state of motion. For a second example: the space presented in our experience seems Euclidean. But we learn from general relativity that external space has a Riemannian geometry.9 Together, (i) and (ii) lend support to the following claim: external space probably does not qualitatively resemble the space presented to us in experience.10

The arguments ahead will not require the reader to accept this last claim; they only require that it beepistemically possiblethat external and manifest space diverge. Nonethe- less, it is useful to mention the actual discrepancy between external and manifest space

7_{For further discussion of this type of case, see Thompson (2011, 176-181).} 8_{See Thompson (2013, 170) for discussion.}

9_{Some philosophers, such as Ney (2012), think that quantum mechanics also challenges our ordinary}

conception of space. But since this point is contested, I’ll not discuss this issue here.

10_{Note: this claim is very different from the claim that space is not metaphysically fundamental. Recently,}

some philosophers of physics (such as Ney (2012, 546)) have discussed the possibility that 3D space is (in some sense) derivative from the state of an underlying infinite-dimensional configuration space. But this issue about fundamentality is independent of the issue of whether external space is edenic. To say that edenic space exists non-fundamentally would be just as wrong as saying that edenic colors exist non-fundamentally.

because it helps make the possibility of such divergence seem less strange.

6.2.3 Functional identification

Given these threats to the manifest image, what is the status of our ordinary judgments like ‘The chair is red’? One option would be to conclude that such judgments are simply false. But few philosophers today adopt this line. This is because, even if the world does not contain edenic properties, it doescontain properties with a similar enough role to uphold our ordinary judgments. For example, we might functionally identify redness with what- ever microphysical property normally causes our red experiences. Or we might instead functionally identify redness with a dispositional property (e.g., the disposition to cause red experiences in normal human subjects in certain circumstances). Similar proposals are available for our ordinary judgments about solidity, spatial properties, etc.11

Functional identification has obvious advantages; it offers us a way to uphold our ordinary object judgments using a standard, compositional semantics. But in section 6.3, I will raise a series of puzzles for this proposal. The puzzles are cases where it is very difficult to match the objects and properties from our experience with corresponding items in the external world.