From PhilPapers forum Philosophy of Mind:

2012-07-27
What would count as an explanation?
Reply to Mark Pharoah
This one, from Chalmers, is problematic:
> 2. Criterion B, the principle of organisational invariance, states that any two systems with the same functional organisation will have qualitatively identical experiences.


The problem is that there is no possible way to tell if two systems have qualitatively identical experiences, because experience is private.  I can't get in your head and see through your eyes, and you can't see through mine.  So there is no way to compare my experience of a green tree with your experience of the same green tree.   The best we can do is compare how we behave toward it and what we say about it, both of which are publicly observable, not private.


This may be at the root of the problem of explanation.  Explanations work in the public world, where we can all agree on what we are talking about.  But experience is private.  There is a disconnect.