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by nopenotthat
1215 days ago
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Like most arguments of this type it assumes the conclusion then acts like it’s terms don’t do that. If Mary knows everything about red then she also knows what seeing it is like. If she doesn’t… then she doesn’t. They try to have it both ways by hand waving & hiding behind colloquial language but it still comes down to that in the end. The thought experiment just reveals the writers own biases & limitations of thought rather than be revelatory in any way. In fact this paper is often used by opponents of qualia as demonstrating why they are nonsensical & incoherent. Got to say, I agree. Daniel Dennett has his flaws but his argument that this type of thought experiment is a category error & that qualia do not exist and are incompatible with what are basic facts we know about neuroscience should have ended this years ago. |
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Not necessarily. And if you assert it is true, then it can be true only in a limited sense.
Can you "know everything" about playing guitar if you've never actually done it yourself? I think you'll agree with me when I say the answer varies:
It's "Yes", if you mean "know everything" to stand for something like "know everything objective that can be passed along to another person without any loss whatever." (I'm thinking of things like how guitars are made, how they're tuned, how you play them, etc.)
But it's "No" if you mean "know everything" to also include your subjective first person experience of actually playing a real guitar (and why wouldn't you include that as part of your "know everything"?) If the subjective feeling is something to be known, then it ought to be included as part of your "know everything" list, right? (If not, why not?)