THE EMERGENCE OF QUALITATIVE ATTRIBUTION, PHENOMENAL EXPERIENCE AND BEING

Abstract

Creatures view the objective world as experiential qualities, memories, feelings, thoughts, desires, beliefs and so on. Why is it that an objective world has given rise to agents that possess these phenomena of conscious experience? Why has an objective world produced creatures with a subjective view of the world? This paper is very much about this objective - subjective divide and about the qualitative character of phenomenal consciousness. I argue that the physiological, phenomenal and conceptual constitute a three-tiered hierarchy of emergent categories. These categories are causally and ontologically distinct (or separated). Each category employs a unique type of interactive mechanism. This interactive mechanism enables a meaningful type of environmental discourse. Increasingly sophisticated and complex forms tend to evolve in each distinct category. The increase in complexity in each category inevitably leads to the emergence of the next level in the hierarchy. In other words, there is an emergent hierarchy of evolving categories that are delineated (or differentiated) by the nature of their mechanism of environmental engagement. With the first category, I argue that biochemical mechanisms have a tendency to evolve meaningfully, specifically, in a way that is both qualitatively significant and responsive to environmental particulars (or properties). In the second category, I explain that these mechanisms set in play an organisational capability that enables the evaluation and prioritisation of qualitative assimilations. I then explain why this characterises the subjective individuated experience phenomenon. Lastly, I relate this to the characteristics of the unique human perspective.