In philosophy of mind, qualia are defined as instances of subjective, conscious experience. The term qualia derives from the Latin neuter plural form (qualia) of the Latin adjective quālis meaning "of what sort" or "of what kind" in relation to a specific instance, such as "what it is like to taste a specific apple — this particular apple now".
Inverted qualia
Thomas Nagel argues that while a human might be able to imagine what it is like to be a bat by taking "the bat's point of view", it would still be impossible "to know what it is like for a bat to be a bat." (Townsend's big-eared bat pictured).
Did Mary learn something new?
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
The Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of the mind and its relation to the body and the external world.
Portrait of René Descartes by Frans Hals (1648)
John Searle—one of the most influential philosophers of mind, proponent of biological naturalism (Berkeley 2002)
Since the 1980s, sophisticated neuroimaging procedures, such as fMRI (above), have furnished increasing knowledge about the workings of the human brain, shedding light on ancient philosophical problems.