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Not sure I follow the original premise. If Mary knows everything there is to know in physics, then Mary knows about the wave theory of light and the colour spec

Not sure I follow the original premise. If Mary knows everything there is to know in physics, then Mary knows about the wave theory of light and the colour spectrum. She may not have experienced the colour red but she is aware of the concept of the colour red. Additionally, while Mary may only receive information in black and white, she perceives in full colour and can see the colours of her own skin and clothes. The combination of the first and second facts means that Mary can conceive what it would be like to see the colour red before she ever sees it. The first time she sees green she will know that she has perceived some colour, even if she gets the label wrong and calls it red for instance.

tsimionescu 4y ago
The point of the thought experiment is to ask if Mary would interpret the experience of seeing the specific color with her own eyes as a new experience. If yes, and given the premise that she knows everything that it is possible to know about the physics of color and the human brain, the conclusion is supposed to be that an experience is not a physical fact of the world. I have written another comment on why I think this conclusion is wrong.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- 31337Logic 4y ago
  > The conclusion is supposed to be that an experience is not a physical fact of the world. I see what you're getting at and mostly agree (hence the Upvote!). But... Whether a 1st person qualitative experience is a "physical fact of the world" depends on your level of description. In a sense, it's not an epistemically objective physical fact that I can share with others. However, it is just a brute ontological physical fact of the world that my mind experiences the color red (even if yours doesn't). This is precisely where we need to clarify "facts of the world". We can't settle this chat until we introduce the notion of subjective vs objective, and epistemic vs ontological.
  - tsimionescu 4y ago
    Note that I personally believe the argument is deeply flawed, and rests on some assumptions about the human mind that may turn out to be false; and that shouldn't be generalized to other potential minds (say, AGI) even if they are true of human minds. I was just explaining what I believe to be the core of the argument.
denton-scratch 4y ago
I think the fallacy is to treat knowledge of redness as a "fact" about the world. In general, when you learn a fact, you acquire information about the world that previously you lacked. But when you first experience redness, your knowledge of the world is exactly the same as it was when you were stll Monochrome Mary. The old Mary knew which things were red, like tomatoes; she was fully-informed about the nature of light and colour. The experience of redness has added nothing to her knowledge of tomatoes and their colour. If that's correct, then familiarity with any qualia fails to be a kind of knowledge.
- glitchc 4y ago
  > But when you first experience redness, your knowledge of the world is exactly the same as it was when you were still Monochrome Mary. That is still false though, because in that moment Mary realizes what redness looks like. She has mapped a sense experience to a concept, which is new knowledge. The author has to prove that this mapping exercise is indeed not new knowledge, as making a connection between two disparate events (acquisition of concept vs acquisition of experience) is considered net new knowledge based on the epistemical definition of knowledge.
  - mannykannot 4y ago
    See my update below. > The author has to prove that this mapping exercise is indeed not new knowledge... Is that what you meant to write? It seems that "the author" here is referring to the paper's author (Frank Jackson), but his whole argument depends on the premise that the result of this mapping exercise is new knowledge. It is acceptable English usage to call what Mary learns on release "knowledge", but it is not knowledge in the form of a proposition that you believe to be true; it is the memory of an experience (and whatever connections are made from that experience), and materialism does not claim or imply that you can gain the latter from reading it in a book. --- Update: With respect to the phrase I quoted, I see what you mean. This knowledge (if that is what it is) is new to Mary, but unless it existed and was knowable before Mary was released, the argument fails to show some knowledge that Mary did not know then but was knowledge at the time. Jackson attempts to get around this by saying that she learns something about other people - specifically, that her conception of the mental life of other people was incomplete before her release and more complete after. Insofar as that conception includes objective facts, however, Mary could know those facts beforehand. Seeing colors might modify her personal justification for believing those facts (along the lines of "previously, I accepted it on the basis of what I learned verbally but now I accept it on the basis of my experience"), but note the "my experience" in that phrase: those experiences did not exist until after her release, so this justification was not available to Mary beforehand.
31337Logic 4y ago
> Additionally, while Mary may only receive information in black and white, she perceives in full colour and can see the colours of her own skin and clothes. No, she doesn't (and never has) perceived in full color. Her entire world has been modified (Truman Show style) to shield her from ALL color at ALL times.

tsimionescu 4y ago

The point of the thought experiment is to ask if Mary would interpret the experience of seeing the specific color with her own eyes as a new experience. If yes, and given the premise that she knows everything that it is possible to know about the physics of color and the human brain, the conclusion is supposed to be that an experience is not a physical fact of the world. I have written another comment on why I think this conclusion is wrong.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
31337Logic 4y ago
> The conclusion is supposed to be that an experience is not a physical fact of the world. I see what you're getting at and mostly agree (hence the Upvote!). But... Whether a 1st person qualitative experience is a "physical fact of the world" depends on your level of description. In a sense, it's not an epistemically objective physical fact that I can share with others. However, it is just a brute ontological physical fact of the world that my mind experiences the color red (even if yours doesn't). This is precisely where we need to clarify "facts of the world". We can't settle this chat until we introduce the notion of subjective vs objective, and epistemic vs ontological.
- tsimionescu 4y ago
  Note that I personally believe the argument is deeply flawed, and rests on some assumptions about the human mind that may turn out to be false; and that shouldn't be generalized to other potential minds (say, AGI) even if they are true of human minds. I was just explaining what I believe to be the core of the argument.

denton-scratch 4y ago

I think the fallacy is to treat knowledge of redness as a "fact" about the world. In general, when you learn a fact, you acquire information about the world that previously you lacked. But when you first experience redness, your knowledge of the world is exactly the same as it was when you were stll Monochrome Mary. The old Mary knew which things were red, like tomatoes; she was fully-informed about the nature of light and colour. The experience of redness has added nothing to her knowledge of tomatoes and their colour. If that's correct, then familiarity with any qualia fails to be a kind of knowledge.

glitchc 4y ago
> But when you first experience redness, your knowledge of the world is exactly the same as it was when you were still Monochrome Mary. That is still false though, because in that moment Mary realizes what redness looks like. She has mapped a sense experience to a concept, which is new knowledge. The author has to prove that this mapping exercise is indeed not new knowledge, as making a connection between two disparate events (acquisition of concept vs acquisition of experience) is considered net new knowledge based on the epistemical definition of knowledge.
- mannykannot 4y ago
  See my update below. > The author has to prove that this mapping exercise is indeed not new knowledge... Is that what you meant to write? It seems that "the author" here is referring to the paper's author (Frank Jackson), but his whole argument depends on the premise that the result of this mapping exercise is new knowledge. It is acceptable English usage to call what Mary learns on release "knowledge", but it is not knowledge in the form of a proposition that you believe to be true; it is the memory of an experience (and whatever connections are made from that experience), and materialism does not claim or imply that you can gain the latter from reading it in a book. --- Update: With respect to the phrase I quoted, I see what you mean. This knowledge (if that is what it is) is new to Mary, but unless it existed and was knowable before Mary was released, the argument fails to show some knowledge that Mary did not know then but was knowledge at the time. Jackson attempts to get around this by saying that she learns something about other people - specifically, that her conception of the mental life of other people was incomplete before her release and more complete after. Insofar as that conception includes objective facts, however, Mary could know those facts beforehand. Seeing colors might modify her personal justification for believing those facts (along the lines of "previously, I accepted it on the basis of what I learned verbally but now I accept it on the basis of my experience"), but note the "my experience" in that phrase: those experiences did not exist until after her release, so this justification was not available to Mary beforehand.

31337Logic 4y ago

> Additionally, while Mary may only receive information in black and white, she perceives in full colour and can see the colours of her own skin and clothes. No, she doesn't (and never has) perceived in full color. Her entire world has been modified (Truman Show style) to shield her from ALL color at ALL times.