Talk:Knowledge argument

important biological remark

It seems to people that they experience as experience of perception some essence of redness or a certain essence of the smell of ammonia. And intuition passes before questions: a) how it is possible to "know" the experience of experiencing this essence proceeding from the "knowledge" of all physics and physiology, but not having experience of stimulation; b) how physical processes can be this experience

Then you should ask: Hmm ... What does the philosopher mean by the word "knowledge"? .. All our knowledge is only and only representative maps of the brain. All our knowledge is the structure of a neural network, resulting from its individual history of stimulation. All our knowledge is only and only our individual history of perceptual stimulation.

The "argument of knowledge" is erroneous. But it seems convincing because there is a substitution of concepts. The thing is that the word "knowledge" is used twice in it, but at the same time - in different meanings. In fact, if we leave only one meaning of the word "know", corresponding to how organisms know something - namely, the meaning of "the history of individual perceptual stimulation" - then the argument does not say anything, because it is trivial, because it considering an internally contradictory situation. He asks the question: "how can you have something as part of an individual history of perceptual stimulation, if this is not something that was part of the history of perceptual stimulation of this individual?" And that's all. But in what sense is the word "know" used in the premise "to know all the physics and physiology"? What thing is this the situation "to know all the physics and physiology" for organism? Here is the answer: for the organism "to know all the physics and physiology" means to have a history of individual stimulation with words, pictures and movements, - a history that leads to the formation of a verbal model in this organism that describes certain rules - the "rules of physics and physiology". But this is a completely different story of perceptual stimulation than the history of perceptual stimulation, in which the individual learned to differentiate (and this also requires training) certain colors or smells. The "argument of knowledge" tells something about comparing the stories of individual perceptual stimulation - but this argument by no means goes beyond the scope of physicalism. He does not say anything beyond that scopes. He can not in any way represent opposition to physicalism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.72.106.14 (talk) 14:58, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

Clean up

Hi all. I recently made some changes and added some stuff to the article. It seems like the article could use a lot of work. A few things I did:

• Added Jackson's original statement of the thought experiment
• Added references & notes
• Removed side note about the occipital lobe experiment that was pretty inappropriate for an encyclopedia article and had no source or reference cited
• Generally tried to clean up the article

That's about it. Hope I didn't step on anyone's toes, but this article needs improvement. - Jaymay 07:44, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Masked Man

The masked man section has no place here. It is clearly not a masked man fallacy (because of the 'everything', as evidenced by the following:- 1. Mary knows everything about her father. 2. Mary does not know who the masked man is. 3. Ergo, Mary's father is not the masked man. This is NOT invalid. Being the masked man would be part of 'everything about her father', and so if she does not know whether he is or not, proposition 1 would be falsified.

So, "1. Mary knows everything about the physical science of colour 2. Mary does not know everything about colour, 3. The physical science of colour differs somehow from colour The said fallacy is involved in inferring 3 as the conclusion." is invalid. Think of simple set theory. 1. Mary is in possession of everything in set A (physical facts on colour). 2. There is something in Set B (everything about colour) which Mary is not in possession of, which by definition cannot be in Set A. 3. Ergo, there is at least one item in set B which is not in Set A, and 3 is a valid conclusion. 167.127.24.25 (talk) 14:29, 21 November 2007 (UTC)Andy Mac

Title of the thought experiment

This is called the Jackson(-Nagel) thought experiment, not the "Mary's Room" thought experiment. This page should be redirected to one with the appropriate title. Nortexoid 01:10, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

...perhaps one with the location of the article --Wetman 04:25, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This thought experiment and/or argument does not go by one name for certain. The thought experiment really doesn't seem to have a set name in the literature. "Mary's room" seems fine, I suppose. The argument related to the thought experiment does have a pretty set name: "the knowledge argument". I added that into the intro paragraph and added a reditect (see knowledge argument). My opinion: I think we should have the title of the article be the "knowledge argument", which would, of course, include info on Mary's room. We could then redirect "Mary's room" to the "knowledge argument". I'm just trying to think of what a philosophy student, etc. would come looking searching for this info under. "Knowledge argument" is more common. - Jaymay 07:44, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

It's called the knowledge argument at Standford's article as well. Richard001 04:25, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Bold text==Related scientific experiments & facts==

That bit about the occipital lobe is breaking the thought experiment. its interesting, lets keep it, but how about a different heading or something?

A link should be included to a page detailing the related experiment (which actually took place) where kittens were raised in a room with no straight lines whatsoever, then released into the real world. --Monguin61 22:10, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I recently removed the bit about the occipital lobe and all that. Real scientific experiments related to Mary's room are interesting, but not the place for an encyclopedia entry on the thought experiment. However, if anyone insists on having these interesting facts placed in the article, please provide sources and references--since they're supposed to be facts. - Jaymay 07:44, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Origin of the thought experiment

The Qualia page says the knowledge argument was made In Frank Jackson's "Epiphenomenal Qualia" (Jackson 1982). does anyone know which is correct? There is a fair amount of overlapp between this page and the qualia page. lets define how these pages differ before someone comes and merges them Spencerk 07:08, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

It was made originally in "Epiphenomenal Qualia". I provided the quote as the primary statement of the thought experiment in this article. - Jaymay 07:44, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Black and White or Grayscale?

"Her food, her books, and even the color of her skin are all in black and white." That can't be right, can it? If she's to never see even shades of gray, she'll have to be deprived of light completely because shadows and lighting make things different shades of white or depths of black. I've changed "black and white" to Grayscale. --Mr. Billion 00:55, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Guess you are right Spencerk 01:21, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I'd make sure to stick to Jackson's formulation of the argument. I've put the quote in. He says that she has to "investigate the world from a black and white room via a black and white television monitor". I think this is intended to mean that she has to look through something that keeps her from seeing color. That is, her skin is not gray or black and white or whatever. She just has a visual apparatus that makes her only see in black and white (grayscale). That's the main point. - Jaymay 07:44, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Color

"Though this has no effect on the validity of the argument, research into the neural basis of sensation and perception suggest that Mary, if she is not exposed to colour before the critical period required to form proper normal perception, may not be able to correctly process colour, as the occipital lobe may not have developed to allow her to perceive colour."

Is the color white not all colors combined when concerning light? I'm not a physics genius or anything but this occurred to me and it seemed like this needs to be clarified. So if anyone knows, feel free to add a comment. --D03boy 05:03, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

white light would appear as clear, transparent light. it is not white like milk is white, that would be a pigmentation and pigment white is not all colors combined 169.233.243.250 (talk) 00:15, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

zombie nights

First: does not the philosophical zombie already exist?: a robot can be programmed to recognise (by physics) the colour red. Second, Mary will learn, when she actually sees red for the first time, that this new qualia is the one associated with that one particular wavelength, one type of retinal response, etc, she'd learned in the room. Thus if nothing else she has made the association, and this making-of-association is a (trivial) learning experience. Once made, this learning: the association between the qualia red and the physical parameters that define red that she learned previously in her room, will have altered her brain and memory for ever. So she has learnt something, regardles of whether she said Wow or not. Third: it is not valid to claim mentalism is the physical event making a mental event that does not change the physical world: the mental/brain is itself part of the physical world; the physical event out there, once perceived by the sense organs, then causes brain neuron activity and possibly some sort of engram, heat is generated, chemicals are consumed and recreated, enzymes and genes do their thing - there is no thought that is not also a physical activity in the brain - entropic and physical. The truth is that we are entirely physical, reducible and mechanistic, but that the gross orders of complexity that are the brain make its workings ineluctable and irreducible. Knowing about cogs does not make the watch, knowing how to make a watch does not give you the qualia of time, especially when sitting in a dentist's chair. Lgh 00:09, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Ah but Dualism (philosophy of mind) is the idea that our minds are not matter which is something I think you should consider.--24.57.157.81 04:02, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

qualia and thought

Having though a little about the subject I have surmised that the difference between a sterile firing of an engram in the brain: a pure cognition [cerebral] circuit event if you like (as in Mary's room), and qualia, is that qualia (when Mary sees red) may involve responses in other organs outside the brain. Specifically, qualia may be defined (fairly arbitrarily I admit] as that which causes hormone release in distant organs from the brain. Let me elaborate: on experiencing qualia one probably not only gets brain hormone and paracrine action happening, limbic activity, oxytocin, and other; but also releasing hormones produced and signals sent to pituitary and distantly to adrenals resulting in adrenalin and noradrenalin, cortisol and so on. Hence the feeling of excitement generated by qualia. This is the key point: the sense of an emotional connection to the perceived event is only possible through extra-brain hormone mediation. Useful? Lgh 01:33, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think the hormonal system is complex enough to provide a unique response to every perceptual quale. Emotions are sometimes said to be accompanied by qualia, and are uncontroversially connected with the release of hormones and neurotransmitters. 1Z 11:58, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

you're right - it is not a useful distinction. Lgh 03:47, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Time domain perception of color?

In this experiment, is color-blind Mary allowed to momentarily place a sheet of color gel in front of objects in order to investigate how objects appear under different wavelengths? For example, human vision is not sensitive to polarization, yet humans can polarize their sunglasses and tilt their heads. Just as a half-deaf Dalmatian turns its head to locate sounds, so can a human turn a polarized lens to gain a sense of light direction, and theoretically so could color-blind Mary wave a set of color gels to gain a time domain perception of color. She might perceive an apple as "early" or the sky as "late". Does any of the literature endorse or attack this argument? --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 14:22, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

No. It is stipulated that there is nothing coloured in Mary's Room, which would include gel sheets. 1Z 09:08, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Then how can Mary manipulate the world in order to investigate it? Specifically, the gel sheets would not be inside the gray room but outside it, in front of the camera. --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 02:49, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Specifically, if Mary cannot manipulate anything outside her room, how does she decide to "specialize[] in the neurophysiology of vision"? --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 20:31, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

She does it inside the room. 1Z 16:27, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

To what does "it" refer in your response? What does she see on TV, and what control does she have over what she sees on TV? --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 20:06, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

It = "specialise in the neurophysiology of vision". What have your concerns to do with theis encycolpedia article? THis is is not a usenet discussion. 1Z (talk) 20:21, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

I want to understand the conditions of the experiment so that I can make meaningful contributions to the article. What control does Mary have over what appears on the TV? --Damian Yerrick (serious | business) 21:10, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

YOu can find out about the argument by reading the literature. But the point is that this process of trying to find loopholes is besides the point. Jackson can just close a loophole by issuing a revised experiment. 09:24, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

How would I go about that? Are these documents available on the Internet? Or would I have to get them through interlibrary loan? --Damian Yerrick (serious | business) 12:54, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

is —Preceding unsigned comment added by Peterdjones (talk • contribs) 09:24, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Presumably, any learning that would necessitate interacting with color would be learned via television experiments and Mary would view them in black and white. Mary would have access to grad students she could phone and send directions to and supervise via live stream."take the_ colored gel sheet and place over the _ colored object. I, mary, based on reading past research hypothesis such and such will happen because so and so, please record the color wavelengths of each item and the change in wavelengths that occurs, blah, blah, blah" 169.233.243.250 (talk) 00:11, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Mary's skin color?

Wouldn't Mary's skin, eyes, and lips be colored differently from everything in the room, which she can see by turning the TV off and using it as a mirror? --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 20:31, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

We can stipulate that they are not.1Z 16:27, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

She's a goth, she wears black lipstick, dyes her hair black, wears black clothes, and has white pale skin.211.30.63.154 (talk) 16:43, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I was wondering this too. Does she not eat? Have skin? Poop and pee? Look at light through her eyelids? Also, what is the definition of the word "acquires" as in "acquires all information..." all information includes sensory information. What about Prisoner's cinema, and other Entoptic phenomena? I understand thought experiments, but this is a poorly constructed one. Saudade7 19:22, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

No, a thought experiment is not meant to account for everything in the universe it is set in, only in the main stipulations that are relevant. objections to the details can only come through as they are relevant to the core purpose of the argument. None of those are relevant. Mary acquires all *physical information* in her colorless existence. The point is to imagine a person with the entire collection of information that a materialist would claim exists. That is, all except for qualia, or the actual "what it is like" to see color. Where Mary lives or how she spends her days is irrelevant. the important needs are: she is not an uneducated person, all physical information is present,the only new part to Mary has to be the phenomenal part.

Maybe you can tell a better story. Tell the story like this instead: Mary was born without cones, only rods. Mary lives in the world, a normal life and grows up to be the most well-educated scientist of neurology specializing in vision and knows all about the neuroscience of seeing color but was born without cones and so cant see color. Then, by medical magic, gets cones implanted into her eyes and sees color for the first time. But the point and purpose of the thought experiment don't change. Same problem, same questions. 169.233.243.250 (talk) 23:53, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Coloured after-images of black and white objects

The sensory impression of a colour can be generated by pure black and white objects because the colour sensitive cells in the retina, the cones, differ in sensitivities and time lags. When they are overworked by a long gaze at a black and white object until their sensitivity is grossly reduced by fatigue, an after-image is emerging when the eyes are closed and darkened by the palms. I have described this experiment here and I consider it a refutation of Mary's Room thought experiment.

Of course, this is not a refutation of qualia. I only conclude that Mary's Room does not support the notion of qualia.

Mousetrapper (talk) 09:29, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

This of course, does not negate the thought experiment, but only calls the story a bad one. It can be chalked up to magic dwarves and still work. The point is the logic of the premises and what their conclusion would be. Say x is an abstract entity filled with all physical information of a topic. this would excluded the phenomenal information. now introduce the phenomenal information. has anything really been "added" to X? or has all that physical information already existed in X merely been applied? (i.e, the Ability Argument refutation in which there is no new knowledge, only an ability from old knowledge being applied.)169.233.243.250 (talk) 00:05, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Implausibility

Jackson's "Mary's room" will likely always remain a thought experiment, for a few insurmountable reasons:

Experimental Ethics

Actualization of the situation proposed herein would be illegal. For instance, as a newborn could not have volunteered to spend her entire life in a black and white room, Mary's confinement would be somewhat akin to wrongful imprisonment. Regardless of measures taken to ensure her comfort, such a confinement could have an unimaginable impact on Mary's quality of life. This type of involuntary subjection is central to the plot of the 1998 film, The Truman Show.

Properties of Light and Vision

It is ironic that Jackson chose a female, Mary, given that women are rarely colorblind. Even in a monochromatic setting, like Mary's black and white room, the presence of visible light in her color-sighted eye will manifest as color. For instance, if Mary closes her eyes while facing a light source, such as her television screen, she will be able to perceive red through her eyelids. This is, of course, assuming advanced measures have been taken as to prevent her from simply examining her own pigmentation prior to her release; presumably, Mary's entire anatomy is monochromatic, including skin, hair, blood, and waste (the last of which raises questions as to whether one can survive on a diet of black and white foods).

In another instance, if Mary stares unblinking for several seconds at any well-lit black and white part of the room, then looks away at a blank surface and blinks repeatedly, the resultant afterimage will blur along its edges of significant contrast, revealing thin rainbow-like refractions. Similarly, if Mary holds her breath and stares unblinking at any well-lit black and white area for awhile, the light areas will begin to "bleed" color into the adjacent dark areas: along a white edge, a red halo; just beyond it, a blue-violet halo; and, after long enough, there will be a colorful kaleidescope effect, at which point Mary needs to resume breathing.

I'm not sure all of this is true, and anyways, do our dear readers really want to know all the various ways in which thought experiments cannot happen? --EmbraceParadox (talk) 17:48, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

The reasons can and IMHO should be expressed more concisely. But do the "Properties of Light and Vision" hold even if the monochromatic light in Mary's room is of a single wavelength? --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 21:08, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

"References"

"neither Jackson or "Mary" are cited with any regularity." in the Popular References section was tantamount to a baseless accusation of plagiarism. Thus, I have removed the section. The section should not be put back without a source that supports the claim of borrowing. Superm401 - Talk 23:25, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Real Life "Mary's Room"

A real life Mary's room happened in mathematics in the 1980's when the availability of high speed computers allowed complex fractal structures which had previously been studied entirely through non-visual abstract calculations to be visualized readily and immediately. So, did the most knowledgable experts learn something new? In particular, did the experts on Julia sets suddenly have a "wow" when they saw Julia sets for the first time?

To some extent, the answer is yes. The computer calculations revealed some new things. But in regards to this thought experiment, that would be like Mary having incomplete knowledge about red. The more surprising result is to what an extent the answer was no. The computer calculations in their gross features mostly reflected visualizations that were already present in the heads of the experts. When they saw the pictures, they would say, "oh yes, that's about right. That's what I thought it would look like".

The greatest impact was on mathematicians that didn't have the visualization in their heads already. One person said that he heard a talk by Julia about these things, but couldn't understand what he was on about until he saw the first pictures. Similar comments can be made regarding simulations of other complex mathematical structures. This Mary's room business is actually a commonplace thing in mathematics.Likebox (talk) 21:13, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

As you say, some mathematicians have the visualization in their heads, but Mary has no way to figure out colours that she have never saw before. For her, « the colour red » can't have a visualization, although she has a knowledge about the physical properties of it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.54.240.226 (talk) 18:06, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

What I'm saying is that if she actually was able to internalize all the properties of the color red, which means that she can predict all the emotional response that people have to a red dress, a red car, a red flag, a red rose, the red in a Mondrian painting, the red of a sunset, etc, then she will produce in her mind a visualization of the color red, even without ever having seen red.

This happened in real life mathematics: the mathematicians in principle had no way of being able to visualize Julia sets, but some of them did anyway. And that happened with far less than full information about the structure.Likebox (talk) 19:41, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

A lot hinges on whether "red" has a structure, whether it can be reducted to a bundle of properties. Your list of "properties of red" is actually a list of behvioural effects, cognitive associations etc. Qualiaphiles say you could have those or know about those without having red qualia, just as you can can shiver and sneeze without having a cold. Abstract mathematical structures can be given complete theoretical specifications, so it is unsurprising that nothign is learnt when they are made concrete. But the question is whether htey are analogous to qualia in that respect. Arguable, pretty well eveything has some kind of unknown hinterland beyond its defintion. You can't give really 100% precise defintiion of shoes and ships and sealing-wax...Mathematics is exceptional in its exquisite definablility. This is all thouroughly discussed in the literature of course.1Z (talk) 11:54, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you about the debate, but I am saying that the philosophers generally are relying on a false intuition. They are trying to make the case that the quality of "seeing red" is not like the quality of "seeing a Julia set", in that it cannot be reduced to a communicable discrete set of data which can be used to learn it. The reason this is convincing for the quality of "seeing red" is because we identify red throughout our lives, and it was hardwired into the eyes and brain before birth. Julia sets are wired through learning. But the question remains whether Mary can learn what "red" is without seeing it.

Dennett's answer to this question is that it is obviously yes (although that contradicts most people's initial intuition). To give you an example: I have never lived through the Civil War, but I can get a complete sense of what it was like from reading the literature. The literature is a discrete set of data: some ascii strings, a picture or two. Yet by making hypotheses, it is possible to reconstruct the thoughts of the principal actors by the personal scientific method: you make a guess for what they were thinking, you predict what they would say if this is what they were thinking, you check to see if your predictions are accurate. This process can allow you to understand defunct political positions, like "states rights", and to put yourself in other people's position very accurately.

Similarly, if you have no visual experience of red, I agree with Dennett that you can reconstruct the qualia by having people tell you about the reaction to red scenes. You might watch a black and white version of "The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover", in which blue, red, and white are used to evoke different atmospheres, and ask a color-seeing person to describe the color value of every pixel and the reactions simultaneously. Then you would have to internalize this text, and make hypotheses about what red "feels like", generalizing from your knowledge of black, white, green, and blue. Once you get the quale right, you will reproduce their output.

If you are truly anal about this, you can get the exact quantity of red in every pixel in a scene in RGB format (this dress is Red:245 Blue:16 Green:28) and ask people detailed questions about the scene, and color modified version. Once you can predict the reactions with the same accuracy as you can predict the responses of 19th century political figures in the civil war, you can be confident that you have extrapolated the exact "feeling" of red. After many years of doing this, you would be left not so impressed by actually seeing red for the first time. If you are Mary, and have done this essentially forever, and learned everything there is to know, your internal representation of red would be identical to that of a seeing person, and you would learn nothing new.

Another real life Mary's room is provided by Helen Keller. She wrote many books with visual imagery, which are written convincingly and use the image metaphors accurately. She was able to deduce the quality of many visual experiences without having sight at all, and with far less than perfect knowledge.

I wish that Dennett's position would be better represented here, because, like Searle's Chinese room, this thought experiment is an abuse of intuition. Behavioralism/strong AI has been knocked around by philosophers for several decades, using absurdly flimsy arguments like this one. The other side is usually supported by scientists, not philosophers, so it is rarely represented properly in the literature.Likebox (talk) 20:45, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, I've got a science background and I support the qualiaphiles.

(Oh, and Ramachandran).

You have no evidence whatsoever that Hellen Keller knew the quality of any colour. Her ability to write convingly --that is, as well as anyone else -- on the subject is not persuasive, since most people regard colours and other experiential qualities as essentially <st>communicable</st> incommunicable-- any attempt at communication is always going to be a failure. Someone can read a description of a sunset and look at a sunset and conclude that even though the description was written by a great author, it still falls short of the experience.

Being able to map someone else's behaviovoural inputs to outputs is not sufficient to give the obeserve the dispositions that produce the outputs. I have had plenty of opportunity ot observe the behaviour of people who like soccer, but I remain undisposed to like it. If such behavioural knwoeldge doesn't grant dispositions, why should it grant the feeling of having the disposition? I am not disposed to like soccer, and I don't know what it feels like to be disposed to like soccer. But I know how soccer fans behave. 1Z (talk) 21:44, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough--- that's the other side. But that side is represented well. The reason I am mentioning the behaviorist side is because I believe it isn't getting a fair shake today. Some people believe that it is possible to learn what the preception of people who like soccer is, even if you are not one of those people. For example, perhaps they percieve the arrangements of the players in the field directly, and see the potential passes and ball trajectories. Perhaps they are attracted to the players' physique. Whatever. You can learn what it is like without becoming the person.

It's the old stoner question "Yo, dude. How can I know that the red that you call red is the same red as the red that I call red". You can know that because the people's reaction to artwork involving red can be communicated and internalized between all non-colorblind people. I think that the notion of a primitive non-communicable quale is belied by human empathy.Likebox (talk) 23:36, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

You are just reiterating the claim that what-it-is-like can be learnt. That only follows of necessity is what-it-is-like is identical to the behaviour being observed. That is the implausible what-was-it-like-for-me-darling version of behaviourism. OTOH, the plausible versions have a looser link between what is going on on the inside and what is going on the outside, leading to the possibility tha the "right" reactions are being produced by a non-standard mechanism. I used to know someone who got as far as art shool before realising he was colour-blind. His behaviour hadn't shown it up to himself or anybody else before then. 1Z (talk) 00:01, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

It may be intuitively implausible at first, but it is a consistent belief system. Remember that all these questions are in principle. The assertion is that if the underlying "what-it-is-like" is different between two people, then eventually their responses will be different enough to see the difference, and further, with enough observation, it will be possible for each of the people to understand very well what it is like for the other just by studying the response. It's a philosophical position that is currently out of fasion.

Your friend that noticed he was colorblind is not evidence against this assertion, rather it is evidence for. He might have noticed he was colorblind after failing to mix pigments properly, or having strange reactions to artwork. Either way, he was studying responses and learning about the difference in his own perception and that of others.Likebox (talk) 20:06, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Consistency isn't that big a deal -- no doubt the Jehova's Witness beleif system is consistent. The claim that you would be able to ultimately detect a difference is a lot more plausble than the claim that you would be able to tell what someone else's non-standard qualia were like. 1Z (talk) 17:00, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

The point is, if you can't ever tell from the responses, what exactly does it mean to say that the qualia are nonstandard?Likebox (talk) 19:19, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I have conceded that you can tell they are nonstandard. I have not conceded that means you know in what way they are. 1Z (talk) 23:48, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I see! That is a very nifty distinction. I suppose philosophers know about it, but I don't know what they call it. So it seems that you can agree on the functionalist aspect, that the qualia have different responses in some way, but disagree on the proposition that "given a way to tell when two qualia are different, you can deduce the actual quale".

I thought that this would be done in principle by a long process of trial and error. You make a guess for the quale, producing a new quale in your own mind, judiciously, until you no longer get it wrong. But since the search space is very large, it is concievable that this method doesn't work effectively. I thought that it must work in practice, to have empathy, but that's just a particular personal philosophy of mind..Likebox (talk) 00:02, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

WHy would you even be wired up to produce the quale? Why would human sbe wired up to have bat or dolphin qualia? 1Z (talk) 07:29, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

If a brain is large enough it could (at least in theory) simulate a brain that is a lot smaller. I think that in this thought experiment would be better if Mary is replaced by a sufficiently large artificially intelligent machine. Count Iblis (talk) 13:46, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

It would only simulate it as software. You are begging a question about whether qualia attach to abstract information-processing or concrete biology. 1Z (talk) 17:21, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

The reason I assume all brains are wired up to produce the same quales is because I believe that this is computation, and I know computation is universal, Like Count Iblis said. The reason I don't think you can attach a quale to anything except computational information is because the notion of "concrete biology" (as I see it) does not exist. All of biology, when talking about what it's doing and why, is pure information. And every single last bit of it is discrete, despite what many people knee-jerk think.Likebox (talk) 18:10, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Mary's Room = Louie Braille regaining his sight (in theory)

I once read a book on Louie Braille which contained something similar to the following sentence:

"His [Louie's] hands told him that the trunk of a tree was tall, but he could not recall the color of a tree"

Now, Louie once HAD the memory that tree trunks were brown but FORGOT this. If Louie was to regain his sight, would the knowledge come rushing back or would he need to re-learn colors?

Yeah dude, PowerUserPCDude was here (yeah) (talk) 22:58, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Flow = Red?

Is the learning about colors then seeing red the same as learning about parkour and then practicing for real until the motions and reactions become reflex-like? --TiagoTiago (talk) 17:19, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Physicalism

In the first paragraph, we have physicalism defined as "the the view that the universe, including all that is mental, is entirely physical" (with a link to physicalism, which sticks to this definition). But later we are exhorted: "It is important to note that in Jackson's article, physicalism refers to the epistemological doctrine that all knowledge is knowledge of physical facts, and not the metaphysical doctrine that all things are physical things." I'm guessing the later is correct, and the former needs to be changed.

Even with this definition, it's very difficult for to understand exactly what this epistemological physicalism entails. I mean, if you held a gun to my head, I'd say that it's wrong to say that all knowledge is of 'facts', and it seems that this is sort of what the thought experiment is driving at, but the significance of 'physical' part eludes me. I really think this article needs some clearer explanation of epistemological physicalism (I am not an expert though).

Also, other parts of the article clearly seem to have 'metaphysical physicalism' in mind, e.g. "Specifically, the Knowledge Argument is an attack on the physicalist claim about the completeness of physical explanations of mental states." I fail to see how this can be. The thought experiment doesn't posit that the physical state of Mary's brain has all the characteristics of someone who has seen red, only that she has 'all possible physical information of red'. In order to contradict metaphysical physicalism, you would have to show that she learns or changes internally in some way without the physical state of her brain changing. In this particular thought experiment, it seems pretty clear that the physical state of her brain will in fact change in some way when she sees red for the first time.

Another one that seems to be talking about metaphysical physicalism "Jackson believed in the explanatory completeness of physiology, that all behaviour is caused by physical forces of some kind. And the thought experiment seems to prove the existence of qualia, a non-physical part of the mind."-- Holomorphic (talk) 12:40, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Missing reference #13 to Jackson 2003

This reference appears to be missing on the list of references and I'm not sure what it should be referred to.

Applications

There is no information on real world applications for the various philosophical stand points outlined. It might help people connect with the subject if there were comments on how it feeds into moral debates on how we treat each other, other species and our environment, either in a neutral or active way. 31.68.128.70 (talk) 10:47, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Churchland's Response

In the 'Thought Experiment' section, it is currently claimed that there is a disagreement between Jackson and Churchland as to how the argument can be summarized. It should be noted, however, that, in 'Knowing Qualia: A Reply to Jackson', Churchland accepted Jackson's version, and showed that it too is a faulty argument, on account of its equivocation over the concept of 'knows about'. --ARaybould (talk) 15:15, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

References

Wiki Education assignment: Mind-Body

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 16 January 2023 and 31 May 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Physicalist (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Physicalist (talk) 20:45, 11 May 2023 (UTC)