I relate this argument to baking for the first time. I read and understand everything I need to know about sourdough bread but when I bake it for the first time, I quickly realize that the knowledge from the recipe isn't enough to fully understand the experience (that cause my first bread to fail). It is only from experince that I completely understand what all the bakers are talking about. I have learn something new, not in the refining of the recipe but in refining my knowledge through experience.
@nivedithakrishna13812 жыл бұрын
Yes Mary is definitely learning something. What if she was presented with three colors at the same time - red, green and blue. She will not be able to identify them, unless she measured the wavelengths and the other physical attributes. She is learning the experience of what each color actually looks like. Once she has this knowledge, she may not need all that knowledge that she acquired previously to identify a color.
@dirkbastardrelief2 жыл бұрын
The separation of "learned facts" from "experience" is sentimental and half-baked. Life is a constant tracking of one onto the other. Mathematicians working in higher dimensions confess that they can't picture them.
@WorldviewDesign4 жыл бұрын
Nicely done!
@MajestyofReason4 жыл бұрын
Excellent video! I wonder about the extent to which the claim that she knows all the physical facts is question-begging. The physicalist could seemingly say (and this was essentially your 'fourth reply' on behalf of the physicalist): "What? Of course she doesn't know all the physical facts, precisely because she hasn't a single clue about knowledge of experiential character of red! In order to claim she doesn't know all the physical facts while in her room, we would already be assuming that qualitative experiential facts are non-physical facts."
@K0ndratyuk4 жыл бұрын
This dilemma seems largely to disappear if we use consistent Language. I would prefer that instead of asking whether Mary learn something new, we ask whether Mary learned a new fact about the color red. It seems obvious that she learned something new oh, but it is far from intuitive that she learned something about the color red. It seems that she is learning something about her own experience of red and that appears to be a different category.
@stucrab4 жыл бұрын
@@K0ndratyuk I don't understand your distinction between the color red and her own experience of red. Red, by definition, is an experience. Her experience of red is still just red.
@K0ndratyuk4 жыл бұрын
@@stucrab The distinction is ontology (EM radiation within a frequency we define as "red") vs. epistemology (perception of a person). Like Einstein, I'm a realist and share his sentiment that "I like to think the moon is there even if I am not looking at it." Most anti-realists would say that red doesn't exist unless someone observes it, while others go further... They claim that even then, red doesn't truly exist. Do you really see no difference between a red light above an intersection and neurons firing in Smith's brain in a car on the road, preventing him from driving into cross-traffic? This difference is clear to most cops and judges, in my experience.
@stucrab4 жыл бұрын
@@K0ndratyuk Sorry, that makes perfect sense. I just misunderstood you. I am used to "red" referring solely to the subjective experience unless you explicitly reference the object it is associated with. I.e. "red light" vs just "red". That being said, your comment seems to unintentionally concede an anti-materialistic worldview. If a materialist worldview is correct, there is only one kind of red, not two. There is only one red, but there is a long causal chain leading up to it. Learning "every physical fact about the color red" means not only learning everything about that causal chain, but also the facts about the experience of red as well (because the experience must be physical if materialism is true). In other words, even if Mary only learns something new about her own experience of red, that is still a failure for materialism in the thought experiment.
@stucrab4 жыл бұрын
Wouldn't the follow-up question to that be why a black and white room prohibits her from learning new physical facts? If materialism is true, all knowledge can be physically represented, including experiental knowledge. If all knowledge can be physically represented, then there exists some algorithm that can be used to create that representation. A turing-complete computer can perform any algorithm. Our brains are turing-complete, which means that it should be possible, in principle, to arrive at any physical knowledge through thinking alone (assuming we had enough time and memory).
@xmontovanillix3 жыл бұрын
I think this is one of those things that are awesome in theory, but break down in practice. IMO It's not possible to know everything about red if you haven't seen it since seeing it is in and of itself information about red. Neither side can be right or wrong because the experiment isn't even possible because of how it's worded. Now that I watched the video, I guess I fit the 4th and a little of the 1st category perfectly haha
@dirkbastardrelief2 жыл бұрын
@@alfiecollins5617 I think they mean that the distinction between physical facts and experience is false. Why isn't the reaction of humans to seeing red considered a physical fact? (Answer: because it's complex. And we limited monkeys mistake complexity for qualitative difference.)
@MatthewFearnley2 жыл бұрын
Hmm. So Mary knows (by definition) what effect the colour red has on the brain. But could she use that information to imagine what red would “look like” if she did see it? So maybe the underlying question then is: is Mary capable of imagining how different brain states would look and feel when realised in her mind? And, if she is, would that validate or invalidate physicalism? I’m not actually sure…
@K0ndratyuk4 жыл бұрын
It doesn't seem a fair move to claim that learning about an experience an individual will have upon seeing red is equivalent to a physical fact about the color red. In the initial scope of inquiry we are concerned mainly with the color red and exclusively with that. In the purported falsifying activity, it seems like we are mainly concerned with Mary's experience. These seem like very different things and that it is improper to assert Mary experience falsifies the condition that she knows everything about the color red.
@tolgacan134 жыл бұрын
Great video. I wonder why particularly the color "red" (why red?) is highlighted as the most frequent example of qualitative experience in the thought experiments. Redness should have something unique when compared to others, excepting pain or toothache :)
@stucrab4 жыл бұрын
Well, colors in general tend to dominate visualization/imagination. They are, by and large, one of the easiest sensations to think about. It also seems to be one of the most "simple" types of experiences you can have. As for why "red" is used over other colors, I think people just picked a "primary" color that is attention-grabbing.
@bobhearinger4 жыл бұрын
Very helpful video, thank you!
@mominashafiqueawan83513 жыл бұрын
We can say that in schools for botany students if they see the plant like adientum directly rather then studing it's life cycle about it's leaves and other things ?
@baggins181 Жыл бұрын
The argument is simply incomplete. If in fact Mary learns EVERYTHING about the color red, then this means she has to have had her optic nerves artificially stimulated in exactly the way one would receive after seeing red. The various shades of red would have to be artificially sent, and the way red stimulation is impacted by signals of other colors. If this is done with "complete knowledge of all things red" then the experiment of Mary's room would end in the obvious answer that , NO, she did not learn anything new upon seeing the color red. If you do not stipulate that she be artificially stimulated with the signals representing red, then you are clearly admitting that the experiment is withholding from Mary a very fundamental fact about seeing the color red. This argument falls apart if ANY knowledge of seeing the color red, is withheld from Mary.
@dirkbastardrelief2 жыл бұрын
Few things are as compelling as a badly worded thought experiment. Ants will march around a teacup rim till they die.
@protonman894711 ай бұрын
Mary gains experiential knowledge upon seeing the color that was withheld from her, as was stated here multiple times. This experiential knowledge of course had an underlying neural substrate - i.e., neural circuitry that had simply never been activated. To claim that the new knowledge (no matter how subjective and personal to Mary) is non-physical, or denies physicalism, is absurd. Is the claim that the processes involved in experiencing red are not in fact neural (and therefore physical)? Could this occur without an underlying neural substrate? Can information of any sort be transmitted, stored, or received without a physical (matter-energy) substrate? Of course not. Any generation or storage of information is an energy-dependent process opposing entropy (and is sometimes referred to as a kind of "negative entropy"). The Jackson argument amounts to Cartesian-style flim-flam wherein a non-physical reality is asserted as a necessary explanation sans evidence. It should be added that the color vision paradigm is a poor choice to begin with, because in order to see color, mammals must first experience color in the days and weeks after birth. A different modality such as pain could have made a better paradigm, but the conclusion would be the same. If you have had your teeth drilled at the dentist under the dissociative anesthetic nitrous oxide, you know that the experience of pain can be pharmacologically separated from the negative affective response. An "experience" which can be profoundly altered by physical agents such as nitrous oxide (or psychedelics) can only explained by the normal or aberrant processing of information by a neural substrate. An experience can also be conjured simply by electrically stimulating an area of cerebral cortex. A rejection of physicalism must explain how pharmacological agents and electrical currents link up and effect some postulated non-physical reality. So far the dualists have offered nada.
@mizzammo16242 жыл бұрын
yes or no? Theirfore yes mary will gain knowlege. Foe example reading about something you have never seen in motion would deprivve you the knowlege of (in this case colour) subject in expression. So for example "Green with envy" the association of green implys jelousy in humans, would cause emotional impact. The same way most Danger Sings are mainly Red. The colour has emotional impact. Unless mary knows any knowledge beyond colour then how can she know their are signs made to warn of danger? or people are jelous of each other in life?
@originalblob3 жыл бұрын
Matrix-style philosophical bullet dodge to the Knowledge Argument: Change the definition of knowledge to something very technical and specific.
@donjindra4 жыл бұрын
I'll offer a fifth response. Suppose we were going to test if a match requires oxygen to light. We construct an experiment similar to Mary's Room. Inside the room we remove all oxygen gas. We strike a match. It doesn't light. We go outside into the oxygen rich atmosphere and strike a match. It lights. It's reasonable to conclude oxygen is required to light the match. We have tested two cases where (probably) only one relevant variable has changed -- oxygen content. But in Jackson's thought experiment no such control over the variable in question is exercised. I'll assume the dualist position is correct. The only way to test for this non-physical 'substance' is to create an environment in which the substance does not exist. In this case Mary would have to be drained of the extra non-physical substance while inside her room. She is not. She still experiences qualia. We know this because she still experiences black and white. When she exits the room the extra, non-physical substance is exactly the same. Only the physical environment has changed. So the variable we want to test is not a variable in this test. Jackson has created a bogus test. He does not test for the substance in question. He merely begs the question.
@gianjaeger33763 жыл бұрын
Interesting response. You therefore challange the premise A of the experiment, which holds that Mary before her release knows everything physical there is to know about red, as opposed to premise B which holds that Mary learnt something new upon her release. Hope I understood that correctly. Are these your own thoughts?
@donjindra3 жыл бұрын
@@gianjaeger3376 I'm not actually challenging premise A, although I do challenge it. We are all supposed to challenge it (or forget we assumed it) when Mary experiences red. I'm challenging the findings or significance of the 'experiment'. I challenge the significance because it doesn't test for what it claims to test. It's supposed to test if knowledge can be explained by the physical alone -- material facts alone. We are lead to believe Mary, inside her materialist room, is devoid of what would permit her to have full knowledge of red. Outside her room she has a revelation. Presumably the rich world of red contains some newfangled non-material 'substance' that must be present for her to have full knowledge of red. I say this revelation about the non-material does not follow. Whatever that non-material 'substance' is supposed to be, it was certainly inside her materialist room with her. We know this because she experienced black and white and gray. I agree she did not experience red. But the missing component was the physical light wave of red. The change from inside her room to outside was not a variation in non-material stuff, it was a variation in material stuff -- light waves are material. So the test does not control for the thing for which it's supposed to test. It's a flawed experiment. It ends up testing variations in material facts, and that only. Obviously we can draw no conclusion about the non-material based simply on variations of the material facts.
@gianjaeger33763 жыл бұрын
@@donjindra I have to disagree with your argumnet. You say Mary is "missing component was the physical light wave of red." But this is physicalist knowlegde and the experiment holds that she already knew everything physical there is to know. The only thing she was missing is concious experience of the lightwave. Furthermore, even if you were right in the case of Mary who is able to experience the "non-material substance" of seeing red, by seeing gray, black and white in her room, the same wouldn't go for someone who is completly blind, since physicalism holds that all knowledge can be acquired independently of one’s particular perceptual apparatus. Hence if physicalism were true one would be able to explain the experience of seeing red in the same way that you can explain the shape of a rock. But this clearly isn't the case.
@donjindra3 жыл бұрын
@@gianjaeger3376 "the experiment holds that she already knew everything physical there is to know." But that simply begs the question. If we were to believe the conclusion, it's perfectly reasonable to claim Mary and the experts were simply mistaken. IOW, there is no way I could agree to the first premise of the argument. My point, though, is that even if I could accept it, the conclusion does not follow. You're not confronting the argument I made. The non-material 'substance' the 'experiment' claims to find is not used as a control in the 'experiment.' Therefore its conclusion is bogus. "the same wouldn't go for someone who is completly blind, since physicalism holds that all knowledge can be acquired independently of one’s particular perceptual apparatus." That's false. You can think of no 'experiment' where this is possible. First, if she was blind, she wouldn't see red either. But second, she could still smell or hear or touch. If a person has no sensory ability at all, there is no way that person counl be part of this 'experiment' because the experiment demands some sort of sensory revelation. It's not an experiment, btw. It's a thought game.
@rizdekd3912 Жыл бұрын
@@gianjaeger3376 "But this is physicalist knowlegde and the experiment holds that she already knew everything physical there is to know. " But does that knowledge (everything physical there is to know, a physical description of all the chemical reactions and the neural impulses) actually cause neural impulses to travel down optic nerve and does it cause the chemical reactions in the brain cells that must transpire before she actually experiences red. And those two physical things must happen regardless of whether the experience of seeing red is purely physical of if there is a nonphysical component. Knowing what those physical processes are doesn't cause those physical processes to actually happen. Experiencing things is first and foremost a physical process just like getting hit with a hammer is a physical process. All the knowledge about hammers and physics and flesh and bone reaction to blunt trauma won't actually break bones. And having your bones broken with a hammer might NOT yield any new information but the condition of the skull is still different. The condition of the brain is different after she sees red. The issue isn't physical information the issue is physical condition. Until Mary sees red her condition doesn't become a physical body that has been exposed to red just like a head full of physical information about being hit with a hammer is not a head that has been hit with a hammer. It's NOT that I can prove of even consider the entire process (consciousness and qualia) as physical, it's that this experiment doesn't address the real issue.
@wardman213 жыл бұрын
You forgot crosseyed Mary
@liquidsofa2 жыл бұрын
It's 2022, a time when men can eat, drink and be Mary.