Term of Art: Qualia

qualia n. pl. A philosophical term for sensory experiences that have distinctive subjective qualities but lack any meaning or external reference to the objects or events that cause them, such as the painfulness of pinpricks or the redness of red roses. The term is virtually synonymous with sense data. See also sense data, inverted qualia, phi movement, sensation, sensibaliaquale sing. 

[From Latin qualis of what kind]

Excerpted from: Colman, Andrew M., ed. Oxford Dictionary of Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

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