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> This whole thought experiment is actually presenting what is quite possibly a limitation specific to human minds - no reason to extrapolate to all possible mi

> This whole thought experiment is actually presenting what is quite possibly a limitation specific to human minds - no reason to extrapolate to all possible minds. That is, human minds seem to have two very distinct ways of altering their internal state. How to define “mind”? If all human minds turn out to have a certain property, how do we decide whether that property is essential or accidental to “being a mind”? Obviously if the property is “being human”, it can’t be essential to the property of “being a mind” (unless someone wants to claim that only humans can have minds by definition-a claim very few would make). But, if the property is “having two very distinct ways of altering their internal state”, how do we know if that is just an accidental property that all human minds happen to have, but non-human minds might lack, or an essential property of being a mind, which all minds must have to be “a mind”?

tsimionescu 4y ago
Sure - I'm not claiming to have settled the theory of mind! I'm just pointing out that nothing in the argument about Mary, even if we accept that she would learn something new when leaving the room, proves that qualia must be non-physical or non-computational or anything like that. You could find arguments that such a separation between qualia and physical facts is indeed necessary for any mind that could really exist in the world. But they would have to be other arguments - this one doesn't work.
- skissane 4y ago
  I think a version of this argument does succeed in showing that qualia are real as opposed to just some conceptual mistake. The problem with arguing about whether qualia are “physical” or “non-physical”, is I’m not sure how much sense such a distinction makes if one is not a Cartesian dualist-which I’m not, and you don’t appear to be either
  - tsimionescu 4y ago
    Personally, I'm of the opinion that the human/animal mind is a computational process happening in the brain, and that a sufficiently complex computer could also "run" such a mind. In that sense, I believe they are entirely physical objects, just as much as the Linux kernel running on my phone is a physical object. As such, I believe that qualia are just how we would label some aspects of this computation, and I believe that concepts like a p-zombie are thus more or less non-sensical. I'm not claiming to know for sure that this is the way. I do think it's, at least in principle, possible that a mind is a different thing, one that our understanding of physics can't (yet?) fully model. Hell, even though I'm an atheist, I wouldn't even claim that the concept of a divine soul is completely impossible.

tsimionescu 4y ago

Sure - I'm not claiming to have settled the theory of mind! I'm just pointing out that nothing in the argument about Mary, even if we accept that she would learn something new when leaving the room, proves that qualia must be non-physical or non-computational or anything like that. You could find arguments that such a separation between qualia and physical facts is indeed necessary for any mind that could really exist in the world. But they would have to be other arguments - this one doesn't work.

skissane 4y ago
I think a version of this argument does succeed in showing that qualia are real as opposed to just some conceptual mistake. The problem with arguing about whether qualia are “physical” or “non-physical”, is I’m not sure how much sense such a distinction makes if one is not a Cartesian dualist-which I’m not, and you don’t appear to be either
- tsimionescu 4y ago
  Personally, I'm of the opinion that the human/animal mind is a computational process happening in the brain, and that a sufficiently complex computer could also "run" such a mind. In that sense, I believe they are entirely physical objects, just as much as the Linux kernel running on my phone is a physical object. As such, I believe that qualia are just how we would label some aspects of this computation, and I believe that concepts like a p-zombie are thus more or less non-sensical. I'm not claiming to know for sure that this is the way. I do think it's, at least in principle, possible that a mind is a different thing, one that our understanding of physics can't (yet?) fully model. Hell, even though I'm an atheist, I wouldn't even claim that the concept of a divine soul is completely impossible.