7880
|
If a blind persons suddenly sees a kestrel, that doesn't make visual and theoretical kestrels different [Papineau on Jackson]
|
|
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.
|
|
From:
comment on Frank Jackson (Epiphenomenal Qualia [1982]) by David Papineau - Thinking about Consciousness 6.3
|
|
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.
|
7377
|
Mary learns when she sees colour, so her complete physical information had missed something [Jackson]
|
|
Full Idea:
It seems obvious that Mary will learn something about the world when she is released from her black-and-white room; but then it is inescapable that her previous knowledge was incomplete; she had all the physical information, so there is more to have.
|
|
From:
Frank Jackson (Epiphenomenal Qualia [1982], §1)
|
|
A reaction:
This is Jackson's famous 'knowledge argument', which seems to me misconceived. Since I don't think phenomenal colours are properties of objects (Idea 5456), Mary learns more about herself, and about her means of acquiring knowledge.
|
20713
|
God must be fit for worship, but worship abandons morally autonomy, but there is no God [Rachels, by Davies,B]
|
|
Full Idea:
Rachels argues 1) If any being is God, he must be a fitting object of worship, 2) No being could be a fitting object of worship, since worship requires the abandonment of one's role as an autonomous moral agent, so 3) There cannot be a being who is God.
|
|
From:
report of James Rachels (God and Human Attributes [1971], 7 p.334) by Brian Davies - Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion 9 'd morality'
|
|
A reaction:
Presumably Lionel Messi can be a fitting object of worship without being God. Since the problem is with being worshipful, rather than with being God, should I infer that Messi doesn't exist?
|