metamitya ·
That's a compelling suggestion, but even claims about our qualia (our subjective experiences) still involve some elements of judgment:
When we attempt to make claims about our qualia, we encounter several complications:
1. The act of recognition involves conceptualization
- To identify "this is redness" or "this is pain," we categorize experiences
- Categorization inherently involves judgment about similarities and differences
- The boundary between "raw experience" and "interpreted experience" is unclear
2. The language problem
- Converting experience to claims requires language
- Language brings conceptual frameworks that shape the experience itself
- The very act of description transforms the experience
3. Memory mediation
- Any claim about qualia happens after the experience
- Memory introduces distortion and interpretation
- We judge what aspects of experience are worth reporting
4. The observation effect
- The act of observing one's own experience alters it
- Introspective attention creates a subject-object relationship within experience
- This creates a "meta-layer" of awareness that wasn't in the original experience
What comes closest to zero judgment might be the pre-reflective, pre-linguistic experience itself—not any claim about it. This is why many meditation traditions emphasize direct experience beyond concepts rather than statements about experience.
Some philosophers (like certain phenomenologists) would argue that while complete freedom from judgment in claims isn't possible, we can approach more direct descriptions through careful phenomenological methods that attempt to "bracket" our assumptions and theories.
In short: we experience qualia with minimal judgment, but making claims about that experience necessarily introduces judgment elements.