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Single Idea 4886

[filed under theme 15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 5. Qualia / a. Nature of qualia ]

Full Idea

Mary knows all the physical facts. ..It seems, however, that Mary does not know all there is to know. For when she is let out of the black and white room .. she will learn what it is like to see something red.

Gist of Idea

Mary knows all the physical facts of seeing red, but experiencing it is new knowledge

Source

Frank Jackson (What Mary Didn't Know [1986], §1.4)

Book Ref

Perry,John: 'Knowledge, Possibility and Consciousness' [MIT 2001], p.15

A Reaction

Jackson is begging the question. A new physical event occurs when the red wavelength stimulates Mary's visual cortex for the first time. For an empiricist raw experience creates knowledge, so it can't BE knowledge. Does Mary acquire a new concept?

The 52 ideas from Frank Jackson

8499 Nominalists cannot translate 'red resembles pink more than blue' into particulars [Jackson]
8500 Colour resemblance isn't just resemblance between things; 'colour' must be mentioned [Jackson]
14288 'If A,B' affirms that A⊃B, and also that this wouldn't change if A were certain [Jackson, by Edgington]
13769 Conditionals are truth-functional, but should only be asserted when they are confident [Jackson, by Edgington]
14289 There are some assertable conditionals one would reject if one learned the antecedent [Jackson, by Edgington]
14353 Modus ponens requires that A→B is F when A is T and B is F [Jackson]
14354 When A and B have the same truth value, A→B is true, because A→A is a logical truth [Jackson]
14355 (A&B)→A is a logical truth, even if antecedent false and consequent true, so it is T if A is F and B is T [Jackson]
14352 '¬', '&', and 'v' are truth functions: the truth of the compound is fixed by the truth of the components [Jackson]
14358 In the possible worlds account of conditionals, modus ponens and modus tollens are validated [Jackson]
14360 Possible worlds for subjunctives (and dispositions), and no-truth for indicatives? [Jackson]
14359 Only assertions have truth-values, and conditionals are not proper assertions [Jackson]
14357 Possible worlds account, unlike A⊃B, says nothing about when A is false [Jackson]
14356 We can't insist that A is relevant to B, as conditionals can express lack of relevance [Jackson]
13858 The truth-functional account of conditionals is right, if the antecedent is really acceptable [Jackson, by Edgington]
7880 If a blind persons suddenly sees a kestrel, that doesn't make visual and theoretical kestrels different [Papineau on Jackson]
7378 No one bothers to imagine what it would really be like to have ALL the physical information [Dennett on Jackson]
7377 Mary learns when she sees colour, so her complete physical information had missed something [Jackson]
4894 I say Mary does not have new knowledge, but knows an old fact in a new way [Perry on Jackson]
4895 Is it unfair that physicalist knowledge can be written down, but dualist knowledge can't be [Perry on Jackson]
4886 Mary knows all the physical facts of seeing red, but experiencing it is new knowledge [Jackson]
6976 In physicalism, the psychological depends on the physical, not the other way around [Jackson]
6975 Possible worlds could be concrete, abstract, universals, sentences, or properties [Jackson]
7005 Something can only have a place in a preferred account of things if it is entailed by the account [Jackson]
6979 Serious metaphysics cares about entailment between sentences [Jackson]
6977 Egocentric or de se content seems to be irreducibly so [Jackson]
6980 Conceptual analysis studies whether one story is made true by another story [Jackson]
6982 Long arithmetic calculations show the a priori can be fallible [Jackson]
6991 We examine objects to determine colour; we do not introspect [Jackson]
6990 Keep distinct the essential properties of water, and application conditions for the word 'water' [Jackson]
6985 Analysis is finding necessary and sufficient conditions by studying possible cases [Jackson]
6989 I can understand "He has a beard", without identifying 'he', and hence the truth conditions [Jackson]
6983 Intuitions about possibilities are basic to conceptual analysis [Jackson]
6984 Smooth reductions preserve high-level laws in the lower level [Jackson]
6987 We should not multiply senses of necessity beyond necessity [Jackson]
6986 Is the dependence of the psychological on the physical a priori or a posteriori? [Jackson]
6988 Mathematical sentences are a problem in a possible-worlds framework [Jackson]
6993 Redness is a property, but only as a presentation to normal humans [Jackson]
6992 If different states can fulfil the same role, the converse must also be possible [Jackson]
6996 Folk psychology covers input, internal role, and output [Jackson]
6994 Truth supervenes on being [Jackson]
6998 Folk morality does not clearly distinguish between doing and allowing [Jackson]
6997 Moral functionalism says moral terms get their meaning from their role in folk morality [Jackson]
7000 Which are prior - thin concepts like right, good, ought; or thick concepts like kindness, equity etc.? [Jackson]
6999 It is hard to justify the huge difference in our judgements of abortion and infanticide [Jackson]
6995 Successful predication supervenes on nature [Jackson]
6978 Baldness is just hair distribution, but the former is indeterminate, unlike the latter [Jackson]
14707 Conceptual analysis is needed to establish that metaphysical reductions respect original meanings [Jackson, by Schroeter]
14632 Quine may have conflated de re and de dicto essentialism, but there is a real epistemological problem [Jackson]
14631 How can you show the necessity of an a posteriori necessity, if it might turn out to be false? [Jackson]
14633 How do we tell a table's being contingently plastic from its being essentially plastic? [Jackson]
14635 An x is essentially F if it is F in every possible world in which it appears [Jackson]