You can learn all the biochemistry about a strawberry, but actually _tasting_ one is going to be a new experience. I don't see any need to bring in metaphysics

You can learn all the biochemistry about a strawberry, but actually _tasting_ one is going to be a new experience. I don't see any need to bring in metaphysics to explain this (in fact, doing so indicates a confusion of ideas to me). When we describe sensory experiences to one another, we usually do so in comparisons. "It tastes like chicken." "They look like little blue bananas." "It smells like almonds and paint thinner." Of course there will be a gap in understanding if Mary has never tasted chicken, seen the color blue, or smelled paint thinner. > ...despite having previously learnt all the physical facts about colour vision... Well, we _could_ simply include scratch-and-sniff in our physics books... If Mary never actually had examples of the different colors, then she wouldn't know how to recognize a color when she eventually saw one. But that's because she (and pretty much everyone else) can't synthesize accurate sensory simulations given information like frequencies or wavelengths. One could imagine a machine that could take the physical description of a color, taste, smell, and stimulate Mary's brain to simulate a sensory experience. No metaphysics necessary.