The Subject is Not an Object

Here’s a little thought experiment.

Suppose that I am a scientist, observing your brain with a powerful scanning device, and I have a very accurate theory of how the brain works. When you experience something, I see the objective correlate of that experience on my scanner. I have done many experiments showing you blue things, and I know the objective brain event that corresponds to your experience of blue. When you see blue, I recognize that brain event through the scanner with 100% accuracy. However, I only see a representation of the event on a computer screen. I don’t experience your qualia myself. I know that you are experiencing blue, but I do not share the experience.

In my model of your brain, your subjectivity is nowhere to be found, even though I believe that you have subjectivity. What’s missing is your perspective. I see your brain events from my perspective, as brain events. I cannot experience them from your perspective, as qualia. From my perspective, they are brain events. From your perspective, they are qualia.

To avoid confusion, we need to distinguish three things: (1) subjectivity, (2) objectivity, and (3) models. When I view your brain through the scanner and interpret the data through my theory, I subjectively experience a model of objective reality. I do not experience objective reality itself. A model of your brain does not contain your brain or your subjectivity. It is a model that represents your brain.

I believe that you have subjective experiences, but I have no access to them. As experiences, they only exist to you. They are intrinsically linked to your perspective, to your subjectivity.

Some people believe that subjectivity and qualia exist in some other reality. They posit a “spirit-world” and a “spirit-self” or “soul”. They believe that this resolves the mind-body paradox and other subject | object paradoxes, but it doesn’t resolve anything. It just adds confusion. It views subjectivity as another type of objectivity, which consists of some other “substance”.

Suppose that the spirit-world and the spirit-self exist. Your subjective experiences are objective events in the spirit-world. Also, suppose that I have a spirit-scope, which allows me to observe the objects and events in the spirit-world, including your spirit-self and the spirit-events that correspond to your subjective experiences.

I still don’t have access to your qualia. Instead of observing brain events, I observe spirit-self events through the spirit-scope. I still experience a model from my perspective, but now it is a model of the spirit-self instead of the brain. When you see blue, I see an event in the spirit-world from my perspective. I do not see blue from your perspective.

Positing a spirit-world does not eliminate the subject | object distinction. It just posits another layer of objective reality, which explains nothing.