| > I would argue, in the first case, stimulating your visual nerve with the identical signal as the color red would produce would be seeing red. Your argument is akin to saying that someone born profoundly deaf with a cochlear implant has never heard anything! I don't really object to that. My conclusion is that you can know what red is on the level of qualia without getting in contact with approximately red wavelength light. You can know what sound is without getting in contact with pressure waves. You can know what wetness is without getting in direct contact with water. > I also think this is a poor thought experiment, because it necessarily involves water, image Bob exists in a plane of reality without liquid water entirely, would it be feasible for him to experience wetness? I don't know. In that plane of reality we would not have evolved a mechanism for sensing wetness. I don't know if it's possible to experience being in a spacial 2 dimensional reality or spacial 4 dimensional reality. My guess would be yes, but it would require significant alternations to our bodies, mostly brain structures. Our experience of reality is almost certainly very limited vs. what's possible. There exist distinct human personalities who can see trough each other eyes and communicate with their minds - I'm talking about craniopagus twins. I'm looking forward to high-bandwidth computer-brain interfaces. Some people may actually get to experience how it is to be a computer or whether it feel like anything at all. |