Ned Block (1990), Philosophical Perspectives 4 (Action Theory and Philosophy of Mind), pp. 53–79 — DOI-10.2307/2214187.
The brief’s citation (Phil Perspectives 4, 1990) is correct. The paper began as a reply to Gilbert Harman’s “The Intrinsic Quality of Experience” in the same volume (n. 1: delivered at the Chapel Hill Colloquium, 17 October 1987). Harman’s paper is not in the record.
Key takeaways
- The fallacy of intentionalizing qualia (pp. 55–57). If spectrum inversion is possible, contents expressible in public language, such as looking red, are intentional, not qualitative: “‘Red’ is a public language word, not a word that means one thing in your mouth and another thing in mine.” The intentional content of colour experience is referential, fixed by the colours it is caused by and used about.
- Quasi-functional qualia realism (p. 58). Intentional content of experience is functional, in “long-arm” roles that reach to coloured things; qualitative content is not functionally characterisable.
- The case (pp. 62–67). Inverted Earth (Harman’s example) has complementary colours and inverted colour vocabulary. A kidnapped subject with inverting lenses notices no change. On the first day his intentional contents are still Earth’s, and wrong; after fifty years they have shifted to the natives’, and his functional states have shifted with them. In the interpersonal version, twins with molecularly identical brains look at their skies: same qualitative content, inverted intentional content, inverted long-arm functional role. If Q = F₁ and Q = F₂ with F₁ ≠ F₂, transitivity fails, so qualitative content is no functional state.
- Why it beats the inverted spectrum (pp. 67–68). No internal switch, no adaptation period to cast doubt on testimony, and supervenience is asymmetric: identical brains establish identical qualia, while physically different brains never establish different qualia.
- The escape Block concedes (pp. 69–71). Brain-internal functional descriptions make the twins functionally identical, and could serve a “two factor” functionalism (long-arm roles for intentional content, short-arm roles for qualia). Block’s answer is a burden of proof: say what the short-arm roles are, the qualia in “the ‘program’ of the mind”. “Good luck to him!” The same escape would sink the inverted spectrum argument.
- Method (p. 73). “Elicit simple intuitions about complex cases rather than complex intuitions about simple cases”: Harman’s introspective diaphanousness claim is the wrong way round.
Standing in the record
Filed on 2026-10-03 at the owner’s request. No anthology topic holds it,
and it carries no instruction for machine-learning practice. consciousness
is primary; metaphysics for the identity argument against functionalism;
cognition for its account of the intentional content of perception.
Relations declared.
extends:LIT-407. Notes 21 and 22 present Inverted Earth as a better version of an example in “Troubles with Functionalism” (pp. 302–303 and n. 21 of the 1980 Readings reprint): inverting lenses and switched colour words in an arctic village without standing colour beliefs. LIT-407’s inverted-qualia point (NOTE-366, C7: psychophysics would give the same results on a system with inverted or absent qualia) is turned into an argument that does not need an internal switch.rivals:LIT-433. Dennett’s “Quining Qualia” is answered by name (p. 61, n. 20): Dennett “insists that your inclinations to say such things reflect a memory malfunction” in the intrapersonal inverted spectrum. NOTE-357 records the same move as Dennett’s intuition pumps 5–6 and his claim C2. Block concedes “some justice” in it and goes round it: Inverted Earth has no internal disturbance for a memory-malfunction diagnosis to attach to. The two papers give rival accounts of qualia; neither refutes the other.
Where it bears.
- Chalmers (LIT-392, NOTE-347; LIT-406, NOTE-336). Chalmers’s principle of organisational invariance is about “fine-grained functional organization”, which is internal. Block’s twins are internally identical, so Chalmers’s principle agrees they share qualia; Inverted Earth refutes only long-arm functionalism about qualia. What Block leaves as a burden for the functionalist, a short-arm functional theory of qualia, is the position Chalmers’s fading- and dancing-qualia arguments defend. That pairing is mine; neither cites the other on this point.
- Representationalism. The paper is the basis of Block’s later case against representationism about phenomenal character in “Mental Paint” (LIT-635), and NOTE-089 notes that Nagel’s paper predates the functionalist and representationalist accounts this argues against.
- Meaning. Note 26 cites “Functional Role and Truth Conditions” (LIT-625) for the equivalence of long-arm roles to short-arm roles plus reference; Block’s own two-factor theory of meaning is what licenses the “two factor” functionalism he here challenges the functionalist to fill in for qualia.
- IIT (LIT-445). The premise that qualitative content supervenes on internal physical constitution is one IIT shares; nothing more is claimed.