Being You: A New Science of Consciousness

by Anil Seth

In philosophy, these properties are sometimes also called “qualia”: the redness of red, the pang of jealousy, the sharp pain or dull throb of a toothache.

Whether something is conceivable or not is often a psychological observation about the person doing the conceiving, not an insight into the nature of reality.

An experience of pure redness is the way that it is, not because of any intrinsic property of “redness,” but because red is not blue, green, or any other color, or any smell, or a thought or a feeling of regret or indeed any other form of mental content whatsoever.

Redness is redness because of all the things it isn’t, and the same goes for all other conscious experiences.