One cannot but agree with Searle that the experience of tasting beer is very different from hearing Beethoven's Ninth, and that both are different from smelling a rose or seeing a sunset, for perceptual experiences are essentially identified or specified by their modality, i.e. sight, hearing, taste, smell and tactile perception, and by their objects, i.e. by what they are experiences of. But to claim that the several experiences have a unique, distinctive feel is a different and altogether more questionable claim. It is more questionable in so far as it is obscure what is meant. Of course, all four experiences Searle cites are, for many people, normally enjoyable. And it is perfectly correct that the identity of the pleasure or enjoyment is dependent upon the object of the pleasure. One cannot derive the pleasure of drinking beer from listening to Beethoven's Ninth, or the pleasure of seeing a sunset from smelling a rose. That is a logical, not an empirical, truth, i.e., it is not that, as a matter of fact, the qualitative 'feel' distinctive of seeing a sunset differs from the 'feel' distinctive of smelling a rose — after all, both may be very pleasant. Rather, as a matter of logic, the pleasure of seeing a sunset differs from the pleasure of smelling a rose, for the identity of the pleasure depends upon what it is that pleases. It does not follow that every experience has a different qualitative character, i.e. that there is a specific 'feel' to each and every experience. For, first, most experiences have, in this sense, no qualitative character at all — they are neither agreeable nor disagreeable, neither pleasant nor unpleasant, etc. Walking down the street, we may see dozens of different objects. Seeing a lamp post is a different experience from seeing a post-box — did it have a different 'feel' to it? No; and it didn't have the same 'feel' to it either, for seeing the two objects evoked no response — no 'qualitative feeling' whatsoever was associated with seeing either of them. Second, different experiences which do have a qualitative 'feel', i.e. which can, for example, be hedonically characterized, may have the very same 'feel'. What differentiates them is not the way they feel, in as much as the question, 'What did it feel like to V' (where 'V' specifies some appropriate experience) may have exactly the same answer — for the different experiences may be equally enjoyable or disagreeable, interesting or boring.
Bennett, Maxwell, et. al. Neuroscience & Philosophy: Brain, Mind, & Language. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. 41-42. Print.
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