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. — Manuel

So that leaves the question, though, why Strawson's physicalism? Is it just an expression of monism? Is it more politically expedient?

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

Remember, you don't need the experience of sight to have the functioning elements of sight.

Remember, you don't need the experience of sight to have the functioning elements of sight. — frank

This would imply that the experience of sight is a non-functioning element of sight. But surely the experience of sight is at a minimum functionally necessary to describe the experience of sight; otherwise, how are we having this conversation? If epiphenomenally we are experiencing things, and it just so happens that physically our fingers are getting pressed in such a way as to say we're experiencing things, that would be quite a weird coincidence.

This would imply that the experience of sight is a non-functioning element of sight. — InPitzotl

There's a large chunk of philosophy of mind that explores this from various angles, from functionalism to p-zombies.

It would be difficult to make the case that functional sight entails the experience of sight.

the knowledge of color was not complete without (before) seeing color. Jackson's thought-experiment fails because of this incoherent premise .... — 180 Proof

Yes. One could say that Mary's knowledge of red was purely theoretical and second-hand, not pre-theoretical, ie not 'experiencial' or practical or first hand.

So the point would be that theoretical knowledge of something cannot replace or account fully for the first-hand experience of something. Theoretical knowledge is based on experience but it cannot exhaust it.

It's an expression of monism, yes. It's implying that everything is a configuration of physical stuff. I say "physical" and not "ideal" because I don't think the external world is completely mind-depedent, I want to say there's something "out there", independent of us.

If we want to say something "non physical" exists, or that there is "physical-mental" problem, as highlighted by Jackson, then you're going to have to articulate why there isn't a "physical-gravity" problem or a "physical-liquidity" problem or even a "sound-mind" problem, or anything else.

It would be problematic to create a separate ontology for all our senses, one ontology for hearing, one for vision, etc. It's makes more sense to say that we are studying different aspects of the same thing.

But "physical" here could be replaced by almost any word: "neutral", "natural", "insubstantial", "substantial", etc.

It's more convenient to use "physical", I think, but what matters is that the whole world is encapsulated by the use of the word.

That is, unless someone can give a good argument why experience (or gravity and other phenomena) cannot be compatible with physical stuff (natural stuff, neutral stuff, and so on.).

Yes. That's how we've defined the word. — khaled

:rofl:

It would be difficult to make the case that functional sight entails the experience of sight. — frank

But it would be trivial, and tautological in a meaningless sense, to say that functional sight excludes the experience of sight. Words are boxes, and boxes are flexible. All you have to do is erase any consequence of experiencing from your box of "sight". We could build functional mimics... robots with cameras... and have them perform tasks that require sight but not experience. We can draw our "sight" box this way; it's what that robot would do. Since we can do this, and since boxes are arbitrary, I can easily upgrade your "difficult" to "impossible".

But by contrast, there's the part of my post you didn't comment on... you're describing on this forum something you call "experience of sight". In describing it, you're typing a word: "E" followed by "X", followed by "P", followed by another "E", and so on. If the thing you're talking about exists, given you're talking about it, then it must have the functional consequence that in talking about it you typed "E" followed by "X" followed by "P" followed by another "E", and so on.

So it would be trivial to say that functional sight excludes what you're referring to by the phrase "experience of sight". But what would be difficult is to claim that you're talking about something real when you say "experience of sight", but that thing has no functional consequence.

But "physical" here could be replaced by almost any word: "neutral", "natural", "insubstantial", "substantial", etc. — Manuel

The word "physicalism" often, I would say usually, implies rejection, ontologically speaking, of about half of Descartes' dualism.

The way you're defining it is going past accepting the Hard Problem, to launching the changes in science that Chalmers advocates.

You're taking up residence in a future that we're probably all headed toward, but some of us haven't made it there yet, I think mostly for emotional reasons.

But as long as I understand what you mean, we're good. :grin:

But what would be difficult is to claim that you're talking about something real when you say "experience of sight", but that thing has no functional consequence. — InPitzotl

It's just not part of the function of sight.

Will she learn anything or not? — frank

We can distinguish readily, at the person level, between 'knowledge that' and 'knowledge how':

WE can read about riding a bike, watch people ride bikes and maybe even dream of riding bikes ... but that isn't riding a bike. — I like sushi

Could you learn to ride a bike just by reading about it? No. Experience is required. — RogueAI

We could say something similar, distinguishing 'knowledge by acquaintance' --- there doesn't seem to be an obvious way to do that with just a preposition, again simply at level of a person's experience:

Surely you can picture the dramatic difference between sitting in your chair and pondering a 480,000 mile trip, and actually going 480,000 miles. — InPitzotl

We might think of this as the difference between physically interacting with something and interacting with it 'mentally', only thinking about it or imagining it. And we will want to say that the acquisition of knowledge how, say, how to ride a bike, requires that physical interaction, that it's no use just thinking about it. Of course we recognize there are causes all the way through in either version: if I read accounts of someone riding a bike, they are causally connected to the physical event of someone riding a bike, but we're connected as readers to that event differently than the person participating in it, and that's all we need for 'mental' here.

The question is whether all instances of an agent knowing how or being acquainted with can be reduced, without remainder, to something someone could know that. That is, can we pinpoint a difference in the structure or functioning of the brain of a person who knows how to ride a bike from the brain of a person who doesn't? Can we pinpoint a difference in the structure or functioning of the brain of a person who has been to the moon from the brain of a person who hasn't? Is it conceivable that those differences could be written down and read about? Is there any sort of ability or acquaintance not describable as a physical fact about the person?

I think that's the idea. At first it looks like just a sort of 'dualism of the gaps' --- just because neuroscience can't yet achieve these sorts of explanations, then it will never be able to. What we want is to isolate something that it looks like neuroscience couldn't explain in principle, something that would categorically escape it. I don't know why people think color vision fits the bill, but apparently they do.

:roll:

:down:

Learning about colours causes changes in the parietal-temporal-occipital region, the hippocampus, the frontal cortex... Seeing colours causes changes in the V4 and VO1 regions.

I can't for the life of me work out what this has to do with challenging physicalism.

It's just not part of the function of sight. — frank

Let me phrase it this way. Imagine we make a robot driver that will stop at a red light; we need not add experience to the robot. By comparison, I'm a human, and being a good driver, if I see a red light, I'll stop at the light.

Assuming we buy this, it's clear that experience is not necessary for sight, if by sight we mean to include what the robot is doing. But what's not so clear is that if I stop at a red light that I'm not stopping because I experienced red; that were it not for that experience, I would not have stopped.

That is, can we pinpoint a difference in the structure or functioning of the brain of a person who knows how to ride a bike from the brain of a person who doesn't? — Srap Tasmaner

I get that... but Mary's Room doesn't really address this very point. We could say that physicalism predicts there would be a physical difference in the brain. But it's a physical difference resulting from a physically different scenario... so physicalism would be viable if "knowing-that" mechanisms are insufficient to establish arbitrary states of the brain that "actual going" establishes.

MR simply posits that knowing-that's are all of physical knowledge, then notices that being-able isn't a know-that, and concludes that the know-that cannot be of the type "all physical knowledge", but that's not convincing... the above presents precisely the scenario that allows physicalism's viability but betrays this argument. Under this scenario, the MR argument fails at the premise that all physical knowledge is acquired by know-that's, because "actual going"'s can be physically manifest, and "know-that"'s need not be physically exhaustive. If that makes sense.

She only learns what it is to apply what she knows, like she was part of a training program.

In essence, she knows nothing about the experience of red but is alerted to its nature. What/where/how/when/why red, are all answered.

Mary is an expert fisherman per se, she is well prepared to catch red, but has never caught red before.

What does it say about physicalism? It's more spiritual than first thought.

Mary is on edge, her heart pumping, her breath upstream with the line. Suddenly a pull. Mary tugs and then pulls up the rod...

it's clear that experience is not necessary for sight, if by sight we mean to include what the robot is doing. But what's not so clear is that if I stop at a red light that I'm not stopping because I experienced red; that were it not for that experience, I would not have stopped. — InPitzotl

Experience of sight would likely be a factor in decision making for a human. It's just not a necessary component of the function of sight.

I can't for the life of me work out what this has to do with challenging physicalism. — Isaac

Well, I'm not surprised. :razz:

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

If you were trying to explain what anger is to an alien, would you consider that a complete description? I think it fails because it doesn't capture the essence about anger, pain, happiness, etc.: emotions are feelings. They are things we experience.

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

The argument doesn't require "complete knowledge" to illustrate the problem with physicalism. If Mary learns 90% of the physical facts involved in seeing (or any percentage), her knowledge of the experience of seeing red should increase by the same amount. But of course it doesn't. No matter how many facts she knows about the physical process of seeing red, she remains totally ignorant about the experience of seeing red until she sees red for the first time.

Can we pinpoint a difference in the structure or functioning of the brain of a person who has been to the moon from the brain of a person who hasn't? Is it conceivable that those differences could be written down and read about? Is there any sort of ability or acquaintance not describable as a physical fact about the person? — Srap Tasmaner

Knowing all the physical facts about the brain states of people having experience x (e.g., seeing red) won't lead to knowing what experience x is like (e.g., what it's like to see red).

Learning about colours causes changes in the parietal-temporal-occipital region, the hippocampus, the frontal cortex... Seeing colours causes changes in the V4 and VO1 regions.

I can't for the life of me work out what this has to do with challenging physicalism. — Isaac

If you were blind from birth, and you studied all the changes happening in the brain when someone is seeing something, do you think you would learn what it's like to see? I think the answer is obviously no.

Knowing all the physical facts about the brain states of people having experience x (e.g., seeing red) won't lead to knowing what experience x is like (e.g., what it's like to see red). — RogueAI

No, of course not. Because

Learning about colours causes changes in the parietal-temporal-occipital region, the hippocampus, the frontal cortex... Seeing colours causes changes in the V4 and VO1 regions. — Isaac

So still

I can't for the life of me work out what this has to do with challenging physicalism. — Isaac

I don't think emotions are feelings, but rather are felt.

:point:

I don't think emotions are feelings, but rather are felt. — Varde

Sure, but a complete definition of pain has to include it feels bad, wouldn't you agree? Isn't that the salient fact about pain? That it hurts?

yeah I agree with your point.

That would seem to be a problem for physicalists. How on Earth can you convey to someone the experiential nature of pain and anger with just a physical description?

you cannot. You can at most prepare yourself for it's occurrence.

You're taking up residence in a future that we're probably all headed toward, but some of us haven't made it there yet, I think mostly for emotional reasons.

But as long as I understand what you mean, we're good — frank

Sure, no problem. :up:

but Mary's Room doesn't really address this very point — InPitzotl

Maybe not. It's clearly trying to, and a lot of people have taken it as having done so.

If we were to talk about Mary's room "as psychologists", the first thing we'd note is that her developmental environment was impoverished, abnormal, so psychologically all bets are off.

That's clearly not the intention behind the thought experiment, but it does raise a question: is there a coherent way to frame this thought experiment, so that it makes the point it's trying to make, the one that you believe it doesn't? If not, maybe that tells you something, but then maybe that's just an argument from poverty of imagination.