If she knew "everything about the physical aspects of sight", that would have to include colour experience — Manuel

Would it? I don't think science offers any assurances of that. Why are you so confident?

If she knew "everything about the physical aspects of sight", that would have to include colour experience. — Manuel

You're assuming physicalism is true. If dualism is true, then Mary could know everything about the physical aspects of sight and still not know what the experience of colour is.

I'm using Strawson's definition of the term, "(real) materialism", which says that everything that exists is physical. Though I've been debating if it merits replacing by "naturalism", but these terms tend to have this scientistic implications. But I don't like the term idealism either as is used today. It's a monist claim, in any case.

The differences concern epistemology, not ontology.

I think my claim is modest, what I'm saying is that science so far, says nothing about colour experience, or if does say something about it, it's dubious sounding to me, as when its claimed that "red" is association with love and that "blue" is associated with depression, etc.

Science has scope and limits. I think some things might be outside its purview. Otherwise, why bother with literature, philosophy or the arts? Science will eventually tell you all about it. I'm skeptical.

But I could be wrong.

You're assuming physicalism is true. If dualism is true, then Mary could know everything about the physical aspects of sight and not know what the experience of colour is. — RogueAI

Yes. I only stress that I think consciousness is what we are best acquainted with out of everything we know. I'm saying it's physical.

But it's an assumption, your absolutely correct.

If dualism is true then we can have the argument your presenting, which is more clear to me.

Mary cannot tell she's seeing red without first learning that what she is seeing is red. — InPitzotl

:up:

Is an orgasm a more complete, more data rich, description if the physical system of human reproduction? Not for me. — frank

One has nothing to do with the other, so of course not for me either.

The idea is that if you know everything about the physical aspects of sight, there's something extra you learn from actually seeing. — frank

And there's the fly in the ointment: the knowledge of color was not complete without (before) seeing color. Jackson's thought-experiment fails because of this incoherent premise and therefore implies nothing about physicalism.

:100:

Yes. I only stress that I think consciousness is what we are best acquainted with out of everything we know. I'm saying it's physical.

But it's an assumption, your absolutely correct.

If dualism is true then we can have the argument your presenting, which is more clear to me. — Manuel

We should consider Mary's room without making any ontological assumptions.

:wink:

The differences concern epistemology, not ontology. — Manuel

he problem from my perspective, is that by calling this "physicalism", it excludes visual experience. But why isn't visual experience physical? Eyes are physical, brains are physical, mental phenomena is physical. These things are made of physical stuff. — Manuel

That all depends on whether you think colors are physical. If colors are out there in the world on the surface of objects or light sources, then you can mount a defense. But it's tricky to defend color primitivism, because the scientific facts do not straight forwardly match on to color. For one thing, you will likely have to allow for an object or lighted source to have multiple colors at the same time. For another, how do the colors "get into" the brain? Do they ride on photons and then hop onto electrons all the way into the visual cortex? Or does the brain recreate them in response to the stimulus? Which isn't color itself, but a result of wavelength and frequency interacting with cells in the eyes.

At any rate, Mary hasn't seen red until she leaves the room. How do we categorize "seeing red"? Mary knew all the scientific facts, but presumably this never resulted in seeing red. I should mention that another issue for colors being out there in the world is that they are an additional supervenient fact to the scientific facts. Wavelength and frequency properties are not colors, unless you think the entire EM spectrum is colored, from gamma-rays to radio waves. If not, what makes visible light special?

because the scientific facts do not straight forwardly match on to color. — Marchesk

Yes, there is a massive gap between out scientific knowledge of colours and colour experience.

For another, how do the colors "get into" the brain? — Marchesk

No idea. Unless the colour experience is already in the brain and experience triggers that qualia. Still doesn't explain it though.

If not, what makes visible light special? — Marchesk

It's a good question. A bit similar to asking how do sounds arranged in a certain way sound like music to us?

I don't know how much science can say about these things.

the knowledge of color was not complete without (before) seeing color. Jackson's thought-experiment fails because of this incoherent premise and therefore implies nothing about physicalism. — 180 Proof

:clap:

Absolutely.

She already knew about those changes. — frank

But she didn’t have them happen to her and was surprised when they did. What’s the problem?

How would you fit color experience into physicalism? — Marchesk

Color experience is what your brain is doing when you see color

:up:

Color experience is what your brain is doing when you see color — khaled

So the brain is creating an experience that is not part of any scientific description of the world, including the neuroscientific one of the brain activity while seeing color.

I do not see how this helps physicalism. It sounds like brain activity is creating something additional to the physical, which would be color experience in this case.

So the brain is creating an experience that is not part of any scientific description of the world — Marchesk

No. The experience is what the brain is doing. The referent of "experience" is the neuronal activity.

Saying that there is an "experience" that is created by the neuronal activity, separate from said activity, is something you added, not something I said.

I do not see how this helps physicalism. — Marchesk

When you propose the existence of a non physical experience created by physical processes, you're not challenging physicalism, you're assuming it is false from the get-go.

And there's the fly in the ointment: the knowledge of color was not complete without (before) seeing color. Jackson's thought-experiment fails because of this incoherent premise and therefore implies nothing about physicalism. — 180 Proof

I tend to agree. If mary had complete physical knowledge of red, it should include the very physical act of seeing red. Yet, in the thought experiment, she never actually saw red.

That said, we have to concede that a purely mental expereience of red is impossible and so the gedanken experiment couldn't have been constructed in a way that aspect of redness, perception in general, could have been satisfactorily isolated.

What does knowledge of everything that is physical actually mean if Frank Jackson, a reputable professional philosopher, no less, thought that it doesn't include the physical act of perceiving red with our eyes?

Off the top of my head, perceiving red involves the mind too and since the physicality of the mind's not as of yet cut-and-dried, Jackson probably assumed he could consider seeing red as a mind-cum-body process and hence a point of interest for nonphysicalism.

How is it even possible for mind to be "nonphysical" and yet causally interact with physical systems (i.e. brain-body-environment)? It's not, therefore what you call "nonphysicalism" is ruled out (vide Spinoza re: the 'dual-aspect monism / property dualism' dissolution of the MBP (i.e. substance dualism) ... for a start).

How is it even possible for mind to be "nonphysical" and yet causally interact with physical systems (i.e. brain-body-environment)? It's not, therefore what you call "nonphysicalism" is ruled out (vide Spinoza re: the 'dual-aspect monism / property dualism' dissolution of the MBP (i.e. substance dualism) ... for a start). — 180 Proof

For starters, thoughts don't seem to be physical e.g how much does the thought of Descartes weigh, how much space does it occupy? Of course one could say that thoughts are pure energy e.g. the electrical energy in our neurons and their synapses but then thoughts don't seem to be energy per se but patterns in energy and patterns, last I checked, aren't physical, are they?

Just as there must be, there usually is, something drug-ish about a man who deals in drugs, there probably is something nonphysical about our minds whose stock-in-trade is nonphysical thoughts.

Saying that there is an "experience" that is created by the neuronal activity, separate from said activity, is something you added, not something I said. — khaled

Because the neuroscience does not include the identity you are asserting. The red experience is not part of the explanation. It's only a correlation.

When you propose the existence of a non physical experience created by physical processes, you're not challenging physicalism, you're assuming it is false from the get-go. — khaled

The physical processes, in terms of physical explanation, do not include the experience as part of the explanation. Ergo, the physical processes qua physical explanation, are not identical to the experience.

You might wish to nevertheless assert such an identity. Which is fine, but understand it's not part of physicalism. Rather it's something additional. The key being that physicalism is a metaphysics. The world is whatever it is, whether that's fully described by physics. Which I think in the case of experience, it's clearly not.

The red experience is not part of the explanation. It's only a correlation. — Marchesk

That's one interpretation. One which presumes physicalism is false.

The physical processes, in terms of physical explanation, do not include the experience as part of the explanation. Ergo, the physical processes qua physical explanation, are not identical to the experience. — Marchesk

The neuroscience doesn't attempt to explain what the experience is. It explains what's happening in your brain when you experience something. This does not confirm or deny the identity that what's happening in your brain is the experience.

One interpretation is that the experience is fundamentally different. Another is that the experience is the physical process. And many more. The neuroscience doesn't take a side here. It just tells you what's happening in your brain at the same time as the experience.

For starters, thoughts don't seem to be physical e.g how much does the thought of Descartes weigh — TheMadFool

There are plenty of physical things that don't weigh anything. Like an electric field.

then thoughts don't seem to be energy per se but patterns in energy and patterns, last I checked, aren't physical, are they? — TheMadFool

We say sounds are physical even though they're no more than patterns of air movement.

There are plenty of physical things that don't weigh anything. Like an electric field. — khaled

Just curious, an electric field has no mass?

One interpretation is that the experience is fundamentally different. Another is that the experience is the physical process. And many more. The neuroscience doesn't take a side here. It just tells you what's happening in your brain at the same time as the experience. — khaled

Right, but the problem for physicalism is that experience is not part of the explanation. If we say that we live in a physical world, but some aspect of it is not part of the physical description, then physicalism is incomplete. The world might be something more.

Right, but the problem for physicalism is that experience is not part of the explanation. — Marchesk

You don't think so because you begin by assuming that the experience is different from the explanation since it's non-physical, aka, you beg the question by assuming physicalism is false.

If you assume that the experience is the physical process, it's not a challenge.

It's not that physicalism cannot account for experience, it's that you define experience in a way that physicalism cannot possibly account for. In other words, if someone tells you "the experience of anger is the physical process of anger" (as I am doing) you wouldn't be convinced because by definition, to you, the experience of anger is non-physical. But that identity does allow physicalism to account for experience.

Just curious, an electric field has no mass? — Marchesk

No resting mass as far as I know.

It's not that physicalism cannot account for experience, it's that you define experience in a way that physicalism cannot possibly account for. In other words, if someone tells you "the experience of anger is the physical process of anger" (as I am doing) you wouldn't be convinced because by definition, to you, the experience of anger is non-physical. But that identity does allow physicalism to account for experience. — khaled

Since color and feeling angry are not properties in the explanation, I feel justified in saying that physical descriptions are incomplete. It's basically Locke's primary and secondary quality distinction.

Since color and feeling angry are not properties in the explanation — Marchesk

They are. Anger is: *insert the physical explanation of what's happening when you're angry here*

There are plenty of physical things that don't weigh anything. Like an electric field. — khaled

Well, here's the deal. What's common between a lump of clay (physical) and a field (you claim it too is physical). Wittgenstein? @Banno, see anything interesting?

Too, electric fields, to my reckoning, are mathematical objects - mental constructs.

We say sounds are physical even though they're no more than patterns of air movement. — khaled

In what sense is sound physical? Is it matter or is it energy? It's energy of course but then see what I wrote above.

What's common between a lump of clay (physical) and a field (you claim it too is physical). — TheMadFool

They can affect physical stuff. Also that knowledge of how they work falls under the field "physics".

Too, electric fields, to my reckoning, are mathematical objects - mental constructs. — TheMadFool

They're not just that. Mental constructs can't push around charges. Electric fields can.

In what sense is sound physical? — TheMadFool

In that sense that it can affect physical stuff.

They can affect physical stuff. Also that knowledge of how they work falls under the field "physics". — khaled

So anything that affects physical stuff is itself physical? Isn't that begging the question?, whether the nonphysical can/can't affect the physical as of yet an open question? Take the idea of God, a nonphysical entity that allegedly can act on the physical.

They're not just that. Mental constructs can't push around charges. Electric fields can. — khaled

Why not? You're begging the question again.

So anything that affects physical stuff is itself physical? — TheMadFool

Yes. That's how we've defined the word. At first "physical" meant things with a mass like rocks and water. Then it expanded to things with no mass like electromagnetic fields. And now, we have things with no mass and no specified location/velocity in quantum mechanics. What do they share in common? That they can affect physical things.

If you have another definition for physical things that can account for all of the above I'll be happy to hear it. If your definition makes it so that electromagnetic waves are non-physical, have fun with that. It doesn't coincide with how people use the word you're defining at all. I'm sure everyone can agree that electromagnetic waves are physical.

Isn't that begging the question? — TheMadFool

No, there can still be nonphysical minds, they just wouldn't be able to do anything.

whether the nonphysical can/can't affect the physical as of yet an open question? — TheMadFool

No because if something "nonphysical" pushed something physical that "nonphysical" thing will be studied by physicists and included in the list of things that are physical.

The question at hand is whether or not minds are nonphysical. My definition of physical does not imply minds being physical or non physical. So it's not begging the question.

Take the idea of God, a nonphysical entity that allegedly can act on the physical. — TheMadFool

What is this meant to prove? You need to prove God exists to say anything by this.

Why not? You're begging the question again. — TheMadFool

I'm just speaking from experience. No matter how many times I wished to fly as a kid, I didn't fly.

And again, me saying that non-physical things cannot interact with physical things does not imply that the mind is physical or non-physical, so it's not begging the question.