What I do deny is that Mary’s Room demonstrates that such information exists, or that they are justified in believing anything different after being exposed to MR than before.
No, it doens’t demonstrate it like a mathematical proof. It isn’t intended to work that way. it is supposed to be an intuition pump.
Conversely, if I don’t believe that to start with, it might not. “Oh look,” I might say, “there’s Mary, who knows everything there is to know about color, and has probably therefore had vivid dreams of seeing color as her brain has made various connections with that information, so clearly seeing a yellow banana is not new information to her, therefore etc. etc.”
To have dreams of colour is to be in the brain state. So you are not saying Mary would have the information of what yellow looks like without ever having been in a seeing-yellow state. These kind of loophole-finding objections are rather pointless because you can always add riders to thought experiment to block them: Marys skin has been bleached,s he has been given driugs to prevent dreaming, etc.
There might be good reasons to reject that second intuition and embrace the first, or vice-versa,
If we have reasons for an intuition, it isn’t an intuition.
All of that said, I certainly agree that there exist experiences which depend on certain classes of brain states to instantiate them, and that in the absence of those brain states those experiences are not possible.
But that isn;t relevant. What is relevant is whether personally instantiating a state is necessary to understand something.
If we’re agreed about the nature of Mary’s Room, great.
I decline to get into a discussion of how thought experiments are supposed to work, but I certainly agree with you that they aren’t supposed to be mathematical proofs.
I also decline to get into yet another discussion about the nature of conscious experience.
If we’re agreed about the nature of Mary’s Room, great.
Agreed on what about Mary’s room? I don’t agree that there a “right” and “wrong” intuitions about it, and I am not a fan of “M’s R is bad because all thought experiments are bad”.
Agreed that Mary’s Room doesn’t demonstrate that information that is not in-principle understandable by the methods of physical science but is ordinarily extracted by particular cognitive systems exists; that it’s solely intended as an intuition pump, as you say.
I certainly don’t believe that all thought experiments are bad, but again, I decline to get into a discussion of how thought experiments are supposed to work.
I’m surprised by your patient discussion with Peterdjones. My experience was that he is impossible to get through to, so I gave up a long time ago. Have you had any success?
I’m not quite sure what success looks like. Mostly, I’ve been trying to clarify my initial point about Mary’s Room, which we may have made minor progress on.
No, it doens’t demonstrate it like a mathematical proof. It isn’t intended to work that way. it is supposed to be an intuition pump.
To have dreams of colour is to be in the brain state. So you are not saying Mary would have the information of what yellow looks like without ever having been in a seeing-yellow state. These kind of loophole-finding objections are rather pointless because you can always add riders to thought experiment to block them: Marys skin has been bleached,s he has been given driugs to prevent dreaming, etc.
If we have reasons for an intuition, it isn’t an intuition.
But that isn;t relevant. What is relevant is whether personally instantiating a state is necessary to understand something.
If we’re agreed about the nature of Mary’s Room, great.
I decline to get into a discussion of how thought experiments are supposed to work, but I certainly agree with you that they aren’t supposed to be mathematical proofs.
I also decline to get into yet another discussion about the nature of conscious experience.
Agreed on what about Mary’s room? I don’t agree that there a “right” and “wrong” intuitions about it, and I am not a fan of “M’s R is bad because all thought experiments are bad”.
Agreed that Mary’s Room doesn’t demonstrate that information that is not in-principle understandable by the methods of physical science but is ordinarily extracted by particular cognitive systems exists; that it’s solely intended as an intuition pump, as you say.
I certainly don’t believe that all thought experiments are bad, but again, I decline to get into a discussion of how thought experiments are supposed to work.
I’m surprised by your patient discussion with Peterdjones. My experience was that he is impossible to get through to, so I gave up a long time ago. Have you had any success?
I’m not quite sure what success looks like.
Mostly, I’ve been trying to clarify my initial point about Mary’s Room, which we may have made minor progress on.
You mean I remained unconvinced by your claim that reality isn’t real?
Its “nature”.
Mary’s Room is:
A thought experiment.
Supposed to be an intuition pump.
Not a formal proof of anything.
Possible conditional extension:
Of usefulness dependent upon the relevance of its premises, the things it seeks to make you think about, and the reliability of human intuition.