The problem is that there in no other case does it seem necessary to instantiate a brain state in order to undertstand something.
The point is you either define “to understand” as “to experience”, or it is not necessary to see red in order to understand experience. What part of knowledge is missing if Mary can perfectly predict when she will see red? It just that ability to invoke qualia from memory is not knowledge, just because it is also in the brain—the same way that reflexes are not additional knowledge. And even ability to transfer thoughts with words is just approximation… I mean it doesn’t solve the Hard problem by itself (panpsychism does) - but I think bringing knowledge into it doesn’t help. Maybe its intuitive, but it seems to be very easily disprovable intuition—not the kind of “I am certain that I am conscious”.
Basically, yes, I would like to use different words for different things. And if we don’t accept that knowing how to ride a bike and being able to ride a bike are different, then what? A knowledge argument for unphysical nature of reflexes?
By that reasoning a native speaker of a language would often have less knowledge of a language then a person who learned it as a foreign language in a formal matter even when the native speaker speaks it much better for all practical purposes.
When we speak about whether Mary understanding Chinese, I think what we care about is to what extend she will be able to use the language the way a speaker of Chinese would.
A lot of most expert decision making is based on “unconscious competence” and you have to be very careful about how you use the term knowledge if you think that “unconscious competence” doesn’t qualify as knowledge.
Again, this seems to me like a pretty consistent way to look at things that also more accurately matches reality. Whether we use words “knowledge” and “ability” or “explicit knowledge” and “knowledge” doesn’t matter, of course. And for what its worth, I much less sure of usefulness of being precise about such terms in practice. But if there is an obvious physical model of this thought experiment, where there are roughly two kinds of things in Mary’s brain—one easily influenceable by words, and another not—and this model explains everything without introducing anything unphysical, then I don’t see what’s the point of saying “well, if we first group everything knowledge-sounding together, then that grouping doesn’t make sense in Mary’s situation”.
The point is you either define “to understand” as “to experience”, or it is not necessary to see red in order to understand experience. What part of knowledge is missing if Mary can perfectly predict when she will see red? It just that ability to invoke qualia from memory is not knowledge, just because it is also in the brain—the same way that reflexes are not additional knowledge. And even ability to transfer thoughts with words is just approximation… I mean it doesn’t solve the Hard problem by itself (panpsychism does) - but I think bringing knowledge into it doesn’t help. Maybe its intuitive, but it seems to be very easily disprovable intuition—not the kind of “I am certain that I am conscious”.
Most people who rides bikes don’t have explicit knowledge about how riding a bike works. They are relying on reflexes to ride a bike.
Would you say that most people who ride bikes don’t know how to ride a bike?
Basically, yes, I would like to use different words for different things. And if we don’t accept that knowing how to ride a bike and being able to ride a bike are different, then what? A knowledge argument for unphysical nature of reflexes?
By that reasoning a native speaker of a language would often have less knowledge of a language then a person who learned it as a foreign language in a formal matter even when the native speaker speaks it much better for all practical purposes.
When we speak about whether Mary understanding Chinese, I think what we care about is to what extend she will be able to use the language the way a speaker of Chinese would.
A lot of most expert decision making is based on “unconscious competence” and you have to be very careful about how you use the term knowledge if you think that “unconscious competence” doesn’t qualify as knowledge.
Again, this seems to me like a pretty consistent way to look at things that also more accurately matches reality. Whether we use words “knowledge” and “ability” or “explicit knowledge” and “knowledge” doesn’t matter, of course. And for what its worth, I much less sure of usefulness of being precise about such terms in practice. But if there is an obvious physical model of this thought experiment, where there are roughly two kinds of things in Mary’s brain—one easily influenceable by words, and another not—and this model explains everything without introducing anything unphysical, then I don’t see what’s the point of saying “well, if we first group everything knowledge-sounding together, then that grouping doesn’t make sense in Mary’s situation”.