Hi Ham, On Sep 28, 2010, at 5:29 PM, Ham Priday wrote:
> Marsha -- > > > The story that you attribute to Rosenblum & Kuttner coincidentally appears in > Dinesh D'Souza's essay 'Mind over Matter' which is archived on my website. > D'Sousa, who is highly insightful in his own right [you would enjoy his > bestselling "Life after Death"], mentions that philosopher Thomas Nagel wrote > a famous essay in 1974 with the provocative title "What Is It Like to Be a > Bat?" > > Neither that question nor the question of whether Mary adds anything to her > "complete knowledge" of color by actually seeing red has anything to do with > "probability" that I can see. D'Souza explains the point of both > propositions in this essay. (You'll note that the author refers to the "Mary > problem" as an argument introduced by Frank Jackson to refute "materialist > attempts to explain mental states in purely physical terms"). > > "Nagel's point was that there is something that it is like to be human, or > male, or a dog; by the same token, there must also be something that it is > like to be a bat. But however much we learn about bat physiology, bat > brains, and echolocation, Nagel says we can never fully understand what it is > like to be a bat. The clear implication is that an objective physical > understanding is necessarily incomplete, apparently because there is > something to living organisms that transcends the physical. > > In 1986, philosopher Frank Jackson broadened Nagel's argument into a > refutation of all materialist attempts to explain mental states in purely > physical terms. In what has come to be called the "Mary problem," Jackson > envisioned a brilliant scientist named Mary who is locked in a > black-and-white room from which she investigates the world by way of a > black-and-white television monitor. As a specialist in the neurophysiology > of vision, Mary knows everything there is to know about color. She > understands how different wavelengths of light stimulate the retina, and how > those are channeled to the visual areas in the brain, resulting in such > statements as 'The sky is blue' and 'Tomatoes are red.' > > "Now here's Jackson's question: Suppose Mary finally gets a color TV monitor > or is released from her black-and-white room into the outside world. Will > Mary learn something that she didn't know before? Jackson says she obviously > would. She would for the first time know what it's like to see the blue sky > or red tomatoes. These experiences would teach her something about color > that all her previous knowledge could not. > > "Alarmed at where this is going, the atheist Dennett disputes Jackson's > interpretation, insisting that if Mary really knew everything about color, > including, as Dennett puts it, '10 billion word treatises' on the subject, > then she actually would know what it was like to see the blue sky and red > tomatoes. Dennett admits this is counterintuitive, but he contends that > intuitions are not always our best guide. > > "I agree with him on that, but on balance I have to go with Jackson here. It > defies not only intuition but also reason to say that Mary, on being > liberated from her black-and-white world, wouldn't discover something new. > Her extrinsic knowledge of color would now be supplemented by intrinsic > knowledge. If this is so, then it is hard to resist Jackson's conclusion > that all attempts to reduce mental states to physical states must be false, > because Mary had all the physical information, and yet her prior knowledge > was incomplete." > -- [D'Souza: Mind over Matter; www.essentialism.net/mind_over_matter.htm] > > As I read it, the moral of this story is: Conscious awareness is far more > than the acquisition of factual knowledge (or a collection of "interrelated > patterns"). > > When it comes to knowing something, there's nothing like experience! Yes, this is what I thought too. Mary's knowledge (static patterns) is not comparable to her direct experience. I do no know why Dennett was fearful. Is intrinsic knowledge the boogyman? But I'm not the same kind of atheist as Daniel Dennett. - So yes, I agree, there's nothing like experience! But it's a huge unsolved problem for QP which some think may be pointing to something way beyond our present scientific understanding. It seems quantum physics never fails to work as expected, so what is going on? Marsha > > What say you now, Marsha? > > --Ham ___ Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
