Welp, haven't posted on FF since I was 14 lets give this a whirl.

Sup my name's Jordan and I like to mentally dissect things. This was originally my musings on qualia and the enormous amount of it Alex Mercer has. He is a brilliant hypothetical for the Philosophical Zombie debate.


What does it mean to be human? Is being human about a physical body, a language center, and complex reasoning abilities? Is it simply a genus and a species? Humans on average use the word 'human' more often to describe something relatable or of value than they do to describe their biological properties.

What does it mean to be human? Sentience.

The word human has evolved over time, with the superiority complex of the species, to mean 'sentient'. In the average person's day to day life, this is not disputed… Humans are the only sentient life form on the planet, by their own standards. But as technology and science continue to advance, more and more problems arise. What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be sentient?

Some say the deciding factor is Qualia. 'Qualia' is a term used to explain feelings or experiences that cannot be communicated. Life experiences like anger or sadness, the color red, a brain freeze, or even the feeling of pain.
These are qualia.

If the measure of sentience is the amount of qualia one has, then Alex J Mercer is the most human of us all. Why, then, does everyone refuse him even the luxury of a simple pronoun? What has he done that is so unlike a human?
He has seen red. He has seen red approximately one thousand and fifty six times, and each time felt different from the last. Sometimes, he liked red. A potted poinsettia sitting on the coffee table, a cherry popsicle, a beautiful woman's hair. Sometimes, he hated it. His own hands glaring up at him... That's when he hated it most. That was his own quale.

It was regrettable that the very reason for his humanity was the culmination of one man's descent into madness. It was regrettable that all of these life experiences came at a grisly cost.

He knew 1056 reds, he knew 1056 deaths.
He knew fear, terror, pain- he knew the last moments of life.

Alex Mercer was more scared than any of us. In more pain than any of us…
Alex Mercer wasn't human, he was something more.