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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)
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:
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)
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
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)
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?
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)
"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)
"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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
"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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
This reference appears to be missing on the list of references and I'm not sure what it should be referred to.
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)
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' [1], 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)
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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)
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:
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)
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
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)
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?
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)
"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)
"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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
"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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
This reference appears to be missing on the list of references and I'm not sure what it should be referred to.
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)
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' [1], 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
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)