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 wellAndRemember 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).
