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Full Idea
An ornithological Mary might know everything theoretical about kestrels, but be blind from birth, then have her sight restored. She now knows "That bird eats mice", so visual kestrels must be ontologically distinct from theoretical ones.
Gist of Idea
If a blind persons suddenly sees a kestrel, that doesn't make visual and theoretical kestrels different
Source
comment on Frank Jackson (Epiphenomenal Qualia [1982]) by David Papineau - Thinking about Consciousness 6.3
Book Ref
Papineau,David: 'Thinking about Consciousness' [OUP 2004], p.166
A Reaction
A nice reductio, and I think this pinpoints best what is wrong with the knowledge argument. Knowledge, and the means of acquiring it, are two distinct things. When I see x, I don't acquire knowledge of x, AND knowledge of my seeing x.
| 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] |
| 2327 | Knowledge and inversion make functionalism about qualia doubtful [Kim] |
| 7866 | Mary acquires new concepts; she previously thought about the same property using material concepts [Papineau] |
| 4094 | Experience teaches us propositions, because we can reason about our phenomenal experience [Crane] |
| 4594 | A scientist could know everything about the physiology of headaches, but never have had one [Heil] |