# Quining Qualia **Opening (not a real abstract):** Qualia is an unfamiliar term for something that could not be more familiar to each of us: the ways things seemto us. As is so often the case with philosophical jargon , it is easier to give examples than to give a definition of the term . Look at a glass of milk at sunset; the way it looks to you- the particular , personal , subjective visual quality of the glass of milk is the quale of your visual experience at the moment . The way the milk tastes to you then is another , gustatory quale, and how it sounds to ' you as you swallow is an auditory quale. These various properties of ' conscious experience are prime examples of qualia. Nothing , it seems, could you know more intimately than your own qualia ; let the entire universe be some vast illusion , some mere figment of Descartes' evil demon , and yet what the figment is madeof (for you ) will be the qualia **Authors:** [[Dennett]]