It may be more accurate to say that when she sees a red object, that generates a feeling of surprise, because her visual cortex is doing something it has never done before. Not that there was ever any information missing—but the surprise still happens as a fact about the brain.
It may be more accurate to say that when she sees a red object, that generates a feeling of surprise, because her visual cortex is doing something it has never done before. Not that there was ever any information missing—but the surprise still happens as a fact about the brain.
We measure information in terms of surprise, so you’re kind of contradicting yourself there.
The entire “thought experiment” hinges on getting you to accept a false premise: that “knowledge” is of a single kind. It then encourages you to follow this premise through to the seeming contradiction that Mary shouldn’t be able to be surprised. It ignores the critical role of knowledge representation, and is thus a paradox of the form, “If the barber shaves everyone who doesn’t shave themselves, does the barber shave him/herself?” The paradox comes from mixing two levels of knowledge, and pretending they’re the same, in precisely the same way that Mary’s Room does.
I mean surprise in the sense of the feeling, which doesn’t have to be justified to be felt. Perhaps a better word is “enlightenment”. Seeing red feels like enlightenment because the brain is put into a state it has never been in before, as a result of which Mary gains the ability (through memory) to put her brain into that state at will.
It may be more accurate to say that when she sees a red object, that generates a feeling of surprise, because her visual cortex is doing something it has never done before. Not that there was ever any information missing—but the surprise still happens as a fact about the brain.
We measure information in terms of surprise, so you’re kind of contradicting yourself there.
The entire “thought experiment” hinges on getting you to accept a false premise: that “knowledge” is of a single kind. It then encourages you to follow this premise through to the seeming contradiction that Mary shouldn’t be able to be surprised. It ignores the critical role of knowledge representation, and is thus a paradox of the form, “If the barber shaves everyone who doesn’t shave themselves, does the barber shave him/herself?” The paradox comes from mixing two levels of knowledge, and pretending they’re the same, in precisely the same way that Mary’s Room does.
I mean surprise in the sense of the feeling, which doesn’t have to be justified to be felt. Perhaps a better word is “enlightenment”. Seeing red feels like enlightenment because the brain is put into a state it has never been in before, as a result of which Mary gains the ability (through memory) to put her brain into that state at will.
That isn’t a paradox. It is a simple logical question with the answer yes.
Hm, I guess that should probably be, “if the barber shaves only those who don’t shave themselves.”
“if and only if”-type language has to enter into.
If the barber shaves all and only those who don’t save themselves...
Cracked me up. I think you might mean “shave” here.
Oh no! The barber of Seville is coming! I’ll hold him off, you save yourself!
But what if I run into the barber of Fleet Street?!