Timeline for Mary and dualists
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17 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 19, 2025 at 2:09 | history | became hot network question | |||
| Jun 19, 2025 at 1:43 | comment | added | Scott Rowe | We don't run from the word 'Lion', but from actual lions. If you ask, "what's the difference?" then you deserve your fate. No amount of reading about food will satisfy hunger. (especially if you are a lion) | |
| Jun 18, 2025 at 6:53 | comment | added | Graylocke | I'd suggest that previously Mary had experienced the (simplified and imperfect) description of red, and then experienced red. | |
| Jun 18, 2025 at 5:58 | answer | added | Ted Wrigley | timeline score: 5 | |
| Jun 18, 2025 at 1:51 | comment | added | variableization | @Groovy Your intuition is essentially correct here. There is no need to posit substance dualism to deal with subjective experiences adding information. Because subjective experiences are free to be physical in nature. The real issue that Mary's room address, and quite well, is that physical things (if consciousness is one of those) aren't always necessarily objectively available as some physicalists claim. | |
| Jun 17, 2025 at 22:16 | answer | added | Syed | timeline score: -1 | |
| Jun 17, 2025 at 21:34 | answer | added | tkruse | timeline score: 1 | |
| Jun 17, 2025 at 19:53 | answer | added | Hudjefa | timeline score: -1 | |
| Jun 17, 2025 at 19:30 | comment | added | Sammich | I don't think it's about the complex physical event itself, but more that you're there for it, right? We can imagine that the event can occur with a pZombie but no one is "there for it", on the inside. So qualia is trying to get at the difference between a pZombie seeing red and whatever we are seeing red. It's tough squeezing science in there. Physicalism is fine though, just with a limit on science. | |
| Jun 17, 2025 at 18:36 | answer | added | g s | timeline score: 1 | |
| Jun 17, 2025 at 17:37 | comment | added | Olivier5 | Leaving aside the aloofness of the scenario (in this thought experiment Mary must not be alowed to see her own hands or lips, cut herself, or have her periods), there's an assumption hidden, which is that red qualia are not fully knowable theoretically, as second-order knowledge, and that they can only be experienced directly. IOW, that qualia are inefable is assumed but not stated explicitly. So I think the thought experiment is circular: it starts from its own conclusion: there is something in experience that is beyond theoretical knowledge. | |
| Jun 17, 2025 at 17:03 | answer | added | village idiot | timeline score: 2 | |
| Jun 17, 2025 at 16:57 | history | edited | Groovy | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jun 17, 2025 at 16:56 | comment | added | Groovy | So my question stands: you are pointing to a gap between her prior knowledge and her new experience. I am pointing to a new physical event and claiming that event fills the gap. What grounds are there for insisting we need to posit a second, non-physical thing on top of it? | |
| Jun 17, 2025 at 16:51 | comment | added | Groovy | ou are absolutely right: Mary already knew the propositional fact that "photons will strike her retina and fire up neurons in V1, V2, and V4." My question, however, hinges on a crucial distinction: the difference between knowing a description of a physical event and the physical event actually happening in your own system. Before leaving the room, Mary knew the facts about the process, like someone who has memorized the entire chemical formula for chocolate and the neurobiology of taste. After she leaves the room and sees red, a new physical process occurs in her brain for the first time | |
| Jun 17, 2025 at 16:43 | comment | added | tkruse | that seems to be missing the point. Mary already knew in the room that upon encountering a tomato, "photons in the 620-740 nm range strike her retina, cascade through the lateral geniculate nucleus, and fire up color-responsive neurons in V1, V2, and V4" Still that did not allow her to know what redness looks like. Also Dualism does not imply supernaturalism, only non-monism (non-physical-monism). | |
| Jun 17, 2025 at 16:28 | history | asked | Groovy | CC BY-SA 4.0 |