{ "model": { "rank": 11475, "code": "thing-q282250", "model_id": "vr.tr.qualia", "name": "qualia", "purpose": "Let an agent explain qualia and their role in philosophy of mind, present arguments for and against their existence and irreducibility with attribution, relate them to consciousness research, and separate the philosophical concept from everyday talk of experience.", "family": "Thing Registry", "category": "Cross-cutting context", "status": "research-draft", "kind": "thing", "plane": "XCT", "domain": "XCT.QLT", "industry": "", "version": "", "url": "/models/thing/q282250/", "tier": 2, "score": 42, "payload": { "layer": "wikidata", "aliases": [ "lived experience", "sense of achievement", "traumatic experience", "witnessing abuse", "conscious experience", "tragic triad", "peak experience", "exposure to death", "aspect of sound" ], "aliasCount": 9, "merged": 9, "knownIn": 42, "facets": null, "markers": [], "lexicalClass": "", "senseRank": null, "alsoRegisteredAs": null, "source": { "dataset": "wikidata", "item": "Q282250", "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q282250", "license": "CC0 1.0" } }, "research": { "vercy": "1.0-draft", "publication": { "status": "research-draft", "adjudicationStatus": "unreviewed", "publishableCanonical": false, "generatedAt": "2026-09-12T04:28:23Z", "providers": [ "Claude" ], "breadth": "written by Claude from model knowledge without web access - no source was read, every claim is a lead to verify", "pass": 2, "wave": 2, "engine": "claude" }, "metaModel": { "id": "THING-Q282250", "registryId": "vr.tr.qualia", "name": "qualia", "version": "0.2.0-wave.2", "entryKind": "thing", "family": "Thing Registry", "domain": [ "XCT.QLT" ], "status": "research-draft" }, "canonicalUrl": "https://ver.cy/models/thing/q282250/", "model": { "registry_id": "vr.tr.qualia", "name": "qualia", "purpose": "Let an agent explain qualia and their role in philosophy of mind, present arguments for and against their existence and irreducibility with attribution, relate them to consciousness research, and separate the philosophical concept from everyday talk of experience.", "definition": "The subjective, qualitative properties of conscious experience, such as the redness of red, the taste of coffee or the felt quality of pain, considered as what it is like to have an experience, and extended in ordinary use to lived and conscious experience including significant experiences such as achievement or trauma; qualia are central to debates in philosophy of mind about consciousness, physicalism and the explanatory gap, and are described here with positions attributed.", "what_it_is_for": "Subjective qualities of experience.", "affordances": [ "explain the concept", "present arguments with attribution", "relate to consciousness research", "separate everyday senses" ], "distinguishing_features": [ "Subjectivity", "Qualitative character", "Contested existence", "Explanatory gap" ], "appearance": "Not physical; a philosophical concept.", "visual_identification": [ "What it is like to have an experience", "Qualitative, subjective", "Sensation is the physiological process; perception is interpretation" ], "physical_properties": [], "families_and_kinds": [ "sensory qualia such as colour and taste", "bodily qualia such as pain", "emotional qualia", "lived experience in everyday usage", "qualia in thought experiments" ], "related_models": [ { "relation": "is a kind of", "target": "qualitative property", "why": "category" }, { "relation": "is related to", "target": "sense", "why": "perception and meaning" }, { "relation": "is related to", "target": "polarization", "why": "a physical property contrasted with experience of colour" }, { "relation": "is related to", "target": "biology of depression", "why": "experience and its biological basis" } ], "identifiers": [], "standards_and_regulation": [ "Academic standards in philosophy", "No regulation" ], "failure_modes_and_hazards": [ "Presenting one position as settled", "Confusing philosophical and everyday senses", "Treating personal experiences reported by users as philosophical examples without care" ], "in_scope": [], "out_of_scope": [], "characteristics": [] }, "sources": [], "structure": { "bundles": [ { "id": "understand", "name": "Understand", "description": "What qualia are.", "rationale": "Philosophy.", "layers": [ { "id": "concept", "name": "Concept", "description": "Concept.", "findings": [ { "id": "concept-finding", "name": "Concept", "description": "Concept.", "questions": [ { "text": "What are qualia, and how do philosophers characterise their subjectivity and qualitative character?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Is the philosophical concept or everyday lived experience meant?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] }, { "id": "arguments", "name": "Arguments", "description": "Thought experiments.", "findings": [ { "id": "arguments-finding", "name": "Arguments", "description": "Arguments.", "questions": [ { "text": "What do thought experiments such as the inverted spectrum, the knowledge argument and zombies claim, with positions attributed?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Which entry fits philosophy of mind?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "debate", "name": "Debate", "description": "Debates.", "rationale": "Attribution.", "layers": [ { "id": "existence", "name": "Existence", "description": "Do qualia exist?", "findings": [ { "id": "existence-finding", "name": "Existence", "description": "Existence.", "questions": [ { "text": "What do realists, eliminativists and functionalists argue about qualia, with positions attributed?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Is the presentation balanced?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] }, { "id": "physicalism", "name": "Physicalism", "description": "Physicalism and the explanatory gap.", "findings": [ { "id": "physicalism-finding", "name": "Physicalism", "description": "Physicalism.", "questions": [ { "text": "How do qualia figure in debates about physicalism, the hard problem and the explanatory gap?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Which entry fits consciousness?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "science", "name": "Science", "description": "Science and experience.", "rationale": "Context.", "layers": [ { "id": "neuroscience", "name": "Neuroscience", "description": "Consciousness research.", "findings": [ { "id": "neuroscience-finding", "name": "Neuroscience", "description": "Neuroscience.", "questions": [ { "text": "How do neuroscience and psychology study conscious experience, and what do they say about qualia?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Which findings are contested?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] }, { "id": "lived", "name": "Lived", "description": "Lived experience.", "findings": [ { "id": "lived-finding", "name": "Lived", "description": "Lived.", "questions": [ { "text": "How is lived experience used in phenomenology, research and everyday language, and how should personal accounts be handled with care?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Is someone describing distressing personal experience, needing support?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "learn", "name": "Learn", "description": "History and teaching.", "rationale": "Education.", "layers": [ { "id": "history", "name": "History", "description": "History.", "findings": [ { "id": "history-finding", "name": "History", "description": "History.", "questions": [ { "text": "How did the concept of qualia develop from Lewis through Nagel, Jackson and Dennett?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Which references are standard?", "kind": "provenance" } ] } ] }, { "id": "teach", "name": "Teach", "description": "Teaching.", "findings": [ { "id": "teach-finding", "name": "Teach", "description": "Teaching.", "questions": [ { "text": "How can qualia be taught in philosophy courses?", "kind": "action" }, { "text": "Which misconceptions arise?", "kind": "provenance" } ] } ] } ] } ] }, "openQuestions": [ "Should consciousness be a separate entry?", "How should key papers be linked?", "How should neuroscience resources be linked?" ], "statistics": { "bundles": 4, "layers": 8, "findings": 8, "questions": 16 } }, "draft": { "generator": "vr.draft.v3", "status": "draft-generated", "researched": false, "archetype": "abstract concept", "method": "Written from the archetype playbook - what this kind of thing needs beyond identity and provenance - and from the structure that recurred across 6,333 models already researched by two engines. Applied to this entry by rule. No source was read for this thing and no claim here is researched. This entry carries no facets of its own, so they were inferred from its domain - a guess about a whole domain applied to one thing.", "facetsInferred": true, "nextPass": "A researcher replaces this draft with a sourced specification. Treat every sentence below as a proposal to argue with.", "purpose": "Give an agent a durable, checkable way to recognise a qualia, record what state it is in, and decide what may be done with it.", "whatItIs": "Let an agent explain qualia and their role in philosophy of mind, present arguments for and against their existence and irreducibility with attribution, relate them to consciousness research, and separate the philosophical concept from everyday talk of experience.", "characteristics": { "substance": "abstract", "origin": "conceptual", "agency": "inert" }, "whatYouCanDoWithIt": [ "observed and measured" ], "distinguishingFeatures": [ "Names folded into this entry, which a task may need to split apart again: lived experience, sense of achievement, traumatic experience, witnessing abuse, conscious experience, tragic triad, peak experience, exposure to death, aspect of sound.", "9 finer distinctions are held as aliases rather than separate entries, because telling them apart needs a task that asks for it.", "Described in 42 Wikipedia languages, which is a measure of how widely the thing is known, not of how important it is." ], "openQuestionsForResearch": [ "Which of the bundles below does a real task actually need, and which are ceremony?", "What does this thing have that the facets do not capture at all?", "Which neighbouring kind is most often confused with a qualia, and on what evidence are they told apart?" ], "whatItIsMadeOf": "an abstraction with no physical instance", "physicalCharacter": [ "Does nothing on its own; everything it does, something else did to it.", "These come from the domain this entry sits in rather than from the entry itself, so treat them as a first guess about the whole domain applied to one thing." ], "whatCanBeDoneWithIt": [ "observe it, measure it, record its state" ], "howItIsRecognised": [ "Nothing to see. What is recognised is an instance of it, and which instances count is exactly what is argued about." ], "relatedModels": [ { "relation": "covers", "note": "Finer kinds folded into this entry because telling them apart needs a task that asks for it. Each is a model waiting to be split out when one does.", "targets": [ "lived experience", "sense of achievement", "traumatic experience", "witnessing abuse", "conscious experience", "tragic triad", "peak experience", "exposure to death", "aspect of sound" ] } ], "standing": "Described in 42 Wikipedia languages, which measures how widely it is written about rather than how important or how common it is. 9 finer distinctions are held inside this entry as names rather than as separate models.", "structure": { "bundles": [ { "id": "identity-and-classification", "name": "Identity, naming and classification", "description": "How an agent tells one qualia from another, and a qualia from things that resemble it.", "rationale": "Recognition comes before every other claim. Without stable identity nothing else in the model can be trusted to be about the same thing twice.", "layers": [ { "id": "naming-and-identifiers", "name": "Names and identifiers", "description": "The names this thing goes by and the identifiers that survive translation and time.", "findings": [ { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases", "name": "Preferred name, aliases and local names", "description": "Which name to use, which names mean the same thing, and which merely sound similar.", "questions": [ { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the name of a qualia, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the name of a qualia, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the name of a qualia is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers", "name": "Stable identifiers and external keys", "description": "Identifiers that keep pointing at this kind of thing across systems and languages.", "questions": [ { "id": "stable-identifiers-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes an identifier for a qualia, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about an identifier for a qualia, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once an identifier for a qualia is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "classification-and-granularity", "name": "Classification and granularity", "description": "Where a qualia sits among kinds, and how finely a task needs to cut it.", "findings": [ { "id": "kind-and-parents", "name": "Kind, parents and neighbouring kinds", "description": "The classes this thing belongs to and the ones it is next to.", "questions": [ { "id": "kind-and-parents-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the kind of a qualia, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "kind-and-parents-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the kind of a qualia, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "kind-and-parents-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the kind of a qualia is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features", "name": "Distinguishing features", "description": "What separates a qualia from the things most often confused with it.", "questions": [ { "id": "distinguishing-features-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes what distinguishes a qualia, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about what distinguishes a qualia, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once what distinguishes a qualia is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "state-and-lifecycle", "name": "State and lifecycle", "description": "The states a qualia passes through and the events that move it between them.", "rationale": "Most decisions about a thing depend on what state it is in now, which is a claim with a time on it, not a property.", "layers": [ { "id": "lifecycle-stages", "name": "Lifecycle stages", "description": "From coming into existence to ceasing to be one of these.", "findings": [ { "id": "stages-and-transitions", "name": "Stages and transitions", "description": "The stages worth naming and what moves a qualia between them.", "questions": [ { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the lifecycle of a qualia, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the lifecycle of a qualia, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the lifecycle of a qualia is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "observations-and-status", "name": "Observations and current status", "description": "What is observed about a qualia, how often and by whom.", "findings": [ { "id": "observation-record", "name": "Observation record", "description": "How an observation of a qualia is recorded so that it can be superseded rather than overwritten.", "questions": [ { "id": "observation-record-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes an observation of a qualia, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "observation-record-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about an observation of a qualia, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "observation-record-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once an observation of a qualia is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "definitions-in-contest", "name": "Definitions and who holds them", "description": "What qualia is taken to mean, and by whom.", "rationale": "When a field disagrees about a concept, the disagreement is the content. A model that picks one definition silently destroys the information.", "layers": [ { "id": "competing-definitions", "name": "Competing definitions", "description": "The main readings and the traditions behind them.", "findings": [ { "id": "definition-map", "name": "Definitions and their holders", "description": "Each definition with the school or body that holds it.", "questions": [ { "id": "definition-map-q01", "text": "Which definitions of qualia are in use, and which tradition or body holds each?", "kind": "definition" }, { "id": "definition-map-q02", "text": "What turns on the difference between them in practice?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] }, { "id": "operationalisation", "name": "Operationalisation", "description": "How it is measured or applied when it has to be.", "findings": [ { "id": "operational-record", "name": "Measures and proxies", "description": "Instruments and indicators used to stand in for it.", "questions": [ { "id": "operational-record-q01", "text": "How is qualia operationalised or measured in practice, and by what instrument?", "kind": "measurement" }, { "id": "operational-record-q02", "text": "What does that operationalisation leave out, and when does that matter?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "instances-and-use", "name": "Instances, use and consequence", "description": "What counts as an instance of qualia and what follows from calling something that.", "rationale": "Applying a concept is an act with consequences, so a model must say what the label licenses and what it does not.", "layers": [ { "id": "instances", "name": "What counts as an instance", "description": "Clear cases, borderline cases and non-cases.", "findings": [ { "id": "instance-tests", "name": "Tests for an instance", "description": "What would settle whether something falls under it.", "questions": [ { "id": "instance-tests-q01", "text": "What would settle whether something is an instance of qualia?", "kind": "boundary" }, { "id": "instance-tests-q02", "text": "Which borderline cases are argued about, and on what grounds?", "kind": "definition" } ] } ] }, { "id": "consequence", "name": "Consequence of application", "description": "Rights, duties or decisions that follow from the label.", "findings": [ { "id": "consequence-record", "name": "What the label licenses", "description": "What an agent may do once something is classified this way.", "questions": [ { "id": "consequence-record-q01", "text": "What follows practically once something is treated as qualia?", "kind": "action" }, { "id": "consequence-record-q02", "text": "What must an agent not infer from the label alone?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "provenance-and-evidence", "name": "Provenance, evidence and time", "description": "Where every claim about a qualia came from and when it held.", "rationale": "A claim without a source and a time cannot be superseded, only overwritten, and an agent that overwrites loses the ability to explain itself.", "layers": [ { "id": "source-and-authority", "name": "Source and authority", "description": "Who said it, on what evidence, and how strongly.", "findings": [ { "id": "claim-provenance", "name": "Claim provenance and confidence", "description": "The authority behind each claim about a qualia and how confident it is.", "questions": [ { "id": "claim-provenance-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes a claim about a qualia, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "claim-provenance-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about a claim about a qualia, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "claim-provenance-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once a claim about a qualia is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "time-and-versions", "name": "Time, versions and supersession", "description": "When a claim was true, when it was learnt, and what replaced it.", "findings": [ { "id": "validity-and-supersession", "name": "Validity period and supersession", "description": "How an old claim about a qualia is retired without being erased.", "questions": [ { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the validity of a claim about a qualia, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the validity of a claim about a qualia, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the validity of a claim about a qualia is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] } ] }, "statistics": { "bundles": 5, "layers": 10, "findings": 12, "questions": 32 } } } }