El Octavo Dia

What What It’s Like Is Really Like
As I write, I have a backache. There is something it is like for me to be
the subject of this backache. But what it is like to be the subject of this
backache is not the same as what it is like to be me, even though I am
the subject of this backache. Why not? _
What it is like to be the butt of Raucous Roger’s jokes is acutely
embarrassing. But what it islike to be Friendly Fred is not acutely embar-
rassing, even though Friendly Fred is the butt of Raucous Roger’s jokes.
Why not? I
There is, on occasion, something it is like to be a creature with a heart.
Characteristic beating sensations are felt in the chest. There is also, on
occasion, something it is like to be a creature with kidneys. Here too
there are characteristic bodily sensations(for example, soreness in the V `
back immediately above the hips). But there are two things it is like
here, not one. And they typically do not go together. How can there be
something it is like for me to be a creature with a heart at time t without
there being something it is like for me to be a creature with kidneys at
~ t, given that all and only creatures with a heart are creatures withkidneys?
As I stare across from me, I see some square tiles. Square is also the
shape of the picture on the wall above the tiles. The light is playing
strange tricks. The tiles look square to me, but they do not look to me
the shape of the picture. How can this be, given that square is the shape
of the picture?
The answer to these questions is that the above contexts are intensional.Predicates that are true of the same things and singular terms that refer
to the same things cannot always be safely substituted without change

34 Chapter 5
of truth value. What creates the intensional contexts is the representa-
tional nature of phenomenal character or "feel." How the tiles look,
what it is like to undergo a particular headache or to be the butt of
someone’s jokes or to have aheart, how that feels, are themselves inten-
tional matters}
In this chapter, I elaborate an intentional view of phenomenal charac-
ter. I begin by supplying some further motivations for an intentional
approach. ·
5.1 Why Be an Intentionalist?
Consider the overall conclusion of the last chapter, that all feelings and
experiences are intentional. Is this necessary connection between phenom-enal consciousness and intentionality a brute fact, admitting of no further
explanation? Surely not. The simplest explanation is that the phenomenal
character of a state is itself intentional. ‘
Consider also my earlier comments on how specific pains differ.
Twinges of pain represent mild, brief disturbances; throbbing pains repre-
sent rapidly pulsing disturbances; aches representdisturbances inside the
body, ones that have imprecise volumes, beginnings, and ends; pricking
pains represent sudden, short-lived disturbances covering a tiny area on
the surface or just below. These differences are paired with felt differences,
according to the view developed in the last chapter. More generally, my
claim is that experiences and feelings are sensory representations that
elicitvarious sorts of cognitive reactions, and that differences in what
the sensory representations represent go along with differences in what
it is like to undergo the experiences and feelings. Again, the simplest
explanation for this pairing is that differences in what it is like are simply
intentional differences.
Perhaps it will be objected that what it is like for the masochist is
differentfrom what it is like for me, even if we are subject to sensory
representations of exactly the same sort of tissue damage. The fact that
the masochist responds positively to his sensation, whereas I am overcome
with an immediate reaction of dislike, is itself phenomenally relevant.
My reply is that the felt quality of the pain is the same for both of us.
[ find the felt quality horrible and I...