I'm feeling a little less creative for this weeks Philosophy Blog War having been writing too many essays of late. This week I'm going to post a 'dilemma' and see if anyone can help me out with it. Remember to VOTE FOR ME.
Imagine a series of women, all called Mary, who have been afflicted from birth with a weird physiological condition—if they see colours they will die. (Maybe it is a curse.) They are given goggles that convert all colours into black-and-white images. They are given televisions and bedrooms and offices and laboratories in which everything is black-and-white, so they can take off their goggles (provided they wear black-and-white cover-alls).
Some of these women become fascinated by colour vision, precisely because they have not experienced it yet. They hope that their physiological condition will eventually be cured, and then they will see colours for themselves; but in the meantime they decide to study everything that has been written about colours. They collect and read virtually everything that has been written, not only about the science of wavelengths of light, but also about how retinas and brains respond to different patterns of stimulation from different wavelengths of light, about what poets and art critics say about colours, and so on.
Collectively, the Marys come to know everything relevant, anything that anyone could possibly tell anyone, about colours, and about what people say about colours, and about what goes on in people's brains when they think about colours, and when they experience colour vision. If one of the Marys has a ‘blind spot’, some relevant physical fact that she is somehow unable to know because it is about herself, then one of the other Marys can generally be counted on to have the knowledge, of that first Mary, which that first Mary lacks. The Marys also have helpful friends. For any scientific discovery that can be put into words (even if it is something that could only have been discovered by people with colour vision), this discovery is recorded in language, is found out by friends of the Marys, and then is communicated to them—in black and white.
Then one day, one of the Marys develops a cure for their condition. She gives herself the antidote, takes off the goggles, leaves her rooms, and sees red for the first time. Her brain undergoes various changes in response to the new stimulation, and she says, ‘Wow, so that's what it is like to see red! That is what people with colour vision have been experiencing. That is what we Marys have been missing out on.’ She tells the other Marys that the experience is great.
The other Marys have been watching their black-and-white video monitors, which have shown them exactly what went on in the first Mary's brain when she first saw red. Then the second Mary takes off her goggles and sees red, and all the remaining Marys watch their black and white screens again, to see what happens in the brain of Mary II. More or less the same thing happens in her brain as in Mary I's brain, and she too exclaims: ‘Gosh, so that's what it's like to see red!’
When we get to the nineteenth Mary, she knows almost exactly what is going to happen in her brain when she sees red for the first time. She takes off the goggles, and what happens in her brain is just what she predicted would happen. Her brain goes into a series of states almost exactly as she knew it would. The few unpredictable physical differences are definitely not ones that would cause her to say ‘Wow!’ or ‘Gosh!’
Virtually everything physical that happens, after Mary XIX takes off the goggles, is something that she already knew would happen when she took off the goggles. She gains no significant new knowledge about what physical properties are instantiated in the physical world. Yet she too, like the others before her, says, ‘Wow, so that's what it's like to see red!’—just as she expected she would. (Bigelow & Pargetter 2006, pp. 356-357).
Now these are my questions.
- Does Mary gain 'new' knowledge?
- What is 'new'?
- What is the knowledge?
- Since Mary already knew of all the material properties She was going to experience is the knowledge immaterial?
- If the knowledge is 'new' and and not physical what is it?
- Finally, how would a materialist or a non-dualist reconcile their views in light of such Qualia?
Of course you can just post your own thoughts into the matter as well
And
Remember to VOTE FOR ME!
References
Bigelow, J & Pargetter, R 2006, 'Re-acquaintance With Qualia', in The Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Vol 84, No 3, pp. 353-378).
17 comments:
Hi Simon!
Interesting.
I have to be really quick at the moment, so I will have to give you my short answer for now...
'Knowing' that new connections are going to form in your brain is not the same thing as those connections actually being formed. So, yes, it is new knowledge, it is not immaterial, but it is an emergent property of the brain.
tp
I’d have to disagree here TP.
Mary does gain new knowledge and I’m sure everyone will agree. However I’d have to say that the ‘new’ knowledge is non-material, it is non-physical. The knowledge she gains is knowledge of non-material properties that she experiences, visually. I’m not trying to say that the process in the brain is non-physical or non-material what I’m interested in is where the information comes from.
I posted this dilemma as it is a fairly commonly cited piece and I just have trouble reconciling it with a materialist point of view. Not that I’m materialist, or not. This example is widely used to explain the phenomena of Qualia.
Now, every material property that Mary experiences is the same as she knew it would be. Mary knew she would say ‘wow’ and why, materially, she would say ‘wow’. All of the material causes that led up to her experience she already knew. Therefore if there is any ‘new’ knowledge it is of properties, of non-material properties.
The widely accepted conclusion for this dilemma is that Mary gains new knowledge of non-physical properties of her visual experience.
Now I agree that whether Qualia exist or not is not assured but what I’m trying to get at is if Qualia does exist then is it necessary for the conception to be dualist?
Have a look at this link I found while researching Qualia
http://members.aol.com/NeoNoetics/Mary.html
Its a fairly old paper but still gives a good idea as to what qualia are.
Hi Simon --
Hold onto your hat, here we go... :D
I have been reading your link and there are a couple of general items that immediately jump out at me.
First, the article argues against physicalism. From what I gather, I would not consider myself to be a 'physicalist' because if it is being described fairly, it is a reductionistic system to describe the world around us. However, the real world world is built upon complexity. I can describe all of the properties of an apple tree and I can describe all of the properties of a raspberry bush... but that only begins to explore the nature of those two objects because the truly interesting and important characteristics are bound up in the relationship between the two, and the relationships they each have and together have with everything else around them.
Now, you might consider 'relationships' to be non-physical, but this concept in no way implies duality.
I. Knowledge Argument -- I would point out that the experience of Red1 and Red2 is qualitatively (and perhaps quantitatively) different from the experience of Red, therefore the only way to understand it is to experience it. No amount of 'reductionist' data can replace the complexity intuited through experience.
II The Modal Argument, IMO, is extremely weak. It follows the form If A then B, therefore C... yet it never even tries to prove A. (That beings could be physically identicial to us and yet have no experience of consciousness.)
III "What is it like to be" -- I see nothing here that affects the debate one way or another...
IV Epiphenominalism -- Perhaps I am missing something, here, but I see this entire section as so much fluff. He is trying to prove that qualia is unproveable... but once again that requires pre-supposing that there is such a thing. I have yet to see any evidence or solid argument that suggest that qualia do in fact exist!
And even if there were a successful argument, I see no reason that dualism must follow.
tp
I have no concrete position on this issue TP either way. I do believe that Mary gains new knowledge because she is ‘surprised’ when the event occurs. If the knowledge were already there I guess she wouldn’t be surprised.
This belief of mine hangs on a thread though. Professor Jackson, who originally came up with this dilemma, recently changed his own mind relating to the ‘new’ knowledge. He was uncomfortable with a dualist position and he rectified the situation by saying that the knowledge isn’t new, it’s just a new way of experiencing the same knowledge. Jackson had to make this concession as he thinks that if there are any non-representational properties then dualism must logically follow.
You may have noticed in that article that Jackson defines Qualia as ‘certain features of the bodily sensations especially, but also of certain perceptual experiences, which no amount of purely physical information includes’. Now maybe Qualia don’t exist, I don’t know. Just because we can’t prove either way, at the present moment, should not prove their non-existence. I posted this in the hope that we could talk about the consequences if Qualia do in fact exist.
Now according to the above definition of Qualia, if no physical information is included in Qualia then what information is? If there is non-physical information, such as the possibility in the relationships you mention, then what is this information? If this information isn’t material then how is it not dualist?
Hey Simon,
I going to reply to this in more detail for my own philosophy entry, but I thought I'd pose a question to you:
What would be the importance of Qualia, if in fact it did exist (in general terms)and more specifically how would it (Qualia) impact the way we -intentionally- dispose ourselves to what matters in the world?
Nath.
Hi Nathan.
Questions for me? Great.
Q.1 – What’s the importance of Qualia?
Well, being only a simple undergraduate student I’d have to first say I’m definitely not certain of what the full implications may or may not be. What I would think though is that the way we view relationships between things would have to change to begin with. If there are, in fact, non-physical properties in the Universe then the way we see the Universe and our own relationship to the Universe would also, at best, need adjusting. Certainly this Western rationalist reductionist method of interpreting the Universe would need updating as sensory data may no longer be enough to rely upon. Quite possibly the definition of Universe itself might need updating.
Q.2 – If Qualia do, in fact, exist then how will this impact on us?
I guess I’ve touched on this already. I guess the word to use is weltanschauung and whether ours is still applicable.
Of course this does nothing to prove, or otherwise, Qualia but that is not my intention. My intention was similar to your asking these questions. I would like to know, theoretically, that if non-physical phenomena exist then how does a materialist reconcile their views with this and is it even possible.
Hi Simon! Before I read the other comments, I'll give you my thoughts. Then I'll go be enlighted :-)
Prefaced with this: I'm embarrassed to say I've never heard of the term Qualia. This means that I will be "arguing" something other than the philosophical line of agreed upon terms you've set out. Which means I'll just be throwing it out there.
1. It seems that there has been an assumption that knowledge is something defined by brain activity. I'm a bit of a sensualist and think there is knowledge not measurable in MRIs or linguistic patterns of expression. So- yes. She experiences red as sensual information.
2. New is defined here as for Mary, right? Experience- not only of red, but of the dicotomy that exists between the neuro information and the sensual experience. (and more- I'll get to that)
3. If knowledge is separate from experience than I would say that knowledge is the possesion of a map of recorded experiences that has or continues to be useful to more than one person. It can be passed from person to person. Experience cannot.
4. I don't think she gained knowledge about red. She experienced red but gained a new experience that could be knowlege- she discovered the advantageous practice of hypocritical conformity in a society. In other words- she experienced puberty :-)
5. I answered this, I think. Knowledge is not necessarily new, but changes.
6. Uff. I have to go back to school to brush up the terminology. Aren't qaualia small birds? Let's see, the materialist would make dinner and the non-dualist would. . .
Thanks Simon!!! (now I'll go read the comments and prepare to be edified)
This seems a lot like the tasty wheat dilema, how does artificial
intelligence know what tasty wheat tastes like and how would
someone who had never tasted tasty wheat know if the AI had
got the taste right? The emotional reaction is a response to the
individuals value judgement so to make the emotional
reaction evidence of knowing or not knowing depends upon the
value judgement infered from the emotional experience itself.
Foul, it's just another example of circular reasoning.
Thanks for all the comments so far. I'm finding it quite interesting seeing that everyone seems to be arguing from a materialist or semi-materialist perspective - that the quale is in fact a material property.
I'm still touched, though, by Professor Jackson's deffinition that qualia possess no amount of purely physical information.
Is it possible for a 'thing' to possess no physical information?
Hi, Simon! Obviously, this dilemma is very similar to what we've been discussing on my site, and you even made reference to it in your comments. But I thought I would try to answer your questions the way I see things. So here goes:
1. Does Mary gain 'new' knowledge?
Yes. Now she 'knows' what red looks like rather than just knowing which changes her brain will undergo.
2. What is 'new'?
The physical changes (structural and chemical) in her brain caused by the sensory experience.
3. What is the knowledge?
The knowledge itself is of the experience of seeing red. The knowledge is physically manifest as those brain changes.
4. Since Mary already knew of all the material properties She was going to experience is the knowledge immaterial?
No. When she learned what would happen, that caused changes in her brain as well -- but different than the material changes that did occur when she actually saw red.
5. If the knowledge is 'new' and and not physical what is it?
It is physical.
6. Finally, how would a materialist or a non-dualist reconcile their views in light of such Qualia?
I think you're assuming the answer to #5 is that the knowledge is non-physical. There is no reconciliation required, if the knowledge is physical.
Thanks One Guy.
You said - What is 'new'? The physical changes (structural and chemical) in her brain caused by the sensory experience. If this happened to the first Mary and was related to the subsequent Marys then it wouldn't be new. If I already know of this physical phenomena then what is happening when the last Mary is suprised?
Just relating either the experience or a full description of the physical changes in the first Mary's brain will not cause those changes in the brain of a subsequent Mary -- relating those things would cause their own different changes.
It's not until the last Mary experiences red herself that those changes occur in her. It's not new in a universal sense, but it's new to the last Mary. That's why she's surprised.
For the pro-physicalist view (including a deconstruction of the "Marys" problem), check out Daniel Dennett's paper, "Quining Qualia," which is available online and easily found through Google.
Also noteworthy is Jaegwon Kim's very hardcore book (one of many) on philosophy of mind, titled Supervenience and Mind, which offers a different perspective from Dennett's.
I wrote an essay titled "Toward a Hominidal Theory of Mind," also findable via Google. The essay deals with and rejects the substance dualist argument from qualia in favor of a stance I call "materialistic nondualism," which may simply be another name for supervenience. I discovered this latter fact, newbie that I am, only after reading Kim and some other sources.
A version of my online essay appears in my new book, Water from a Skull, which is coming out in a few days (see here). As I'm no expert in this area, feel free to ignore my book and essay, but definitely give Drs. Dennett and Kim a read.
Pax,
Kevin
Before I forget: staunch defenses of substance dualism (or, at least, the reasonableness of substance dualism) can be found at the following excellent philo blog:
Maverick Philosopher
I read this blog pretty religiously, despite the fact that I disagree with almost everything on it. A must for serious philo students.
Kevin
Thanks Kevin. As it turns out I'm doing a minor in what you majored in.
I am really surprised about the excellent job that you have made in this blog, which contains very important and amazing content about "The Qualia Dilemma", it allows everyone to express a variety of opinions.
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