I prefer looking at it from the standpoint of “learning” rather than “surprise”, but yes, the main idea is that we naturally equivocate between two meanings of “learning”- the phenomenon of adding to a body of knowledge, and the mental process that operates in us (most of the time appropriately) when this happens. Mary’s Room just points out an edge case where the two meanings differ.
So in short, “surprise” is not necessarily an indication of lack of “knowledge”.
I prefer looking at it from the standpoint of “learning” rather than “surprise”, but yes, the main idea is that we naturally equivocate between two meanings of “learning”- the phenomenon of adding to a body of knowledge, and the mental process that operates in us (most of the time appropriately) when this happens. Mary’s Room just points out an edge case where the two meanings differ.