You can also know all relevant facts about physics but still not “know” how to ride a bicycle. “Knowing” what red looks like (or being able to imagine redness) requires your brain to have the ability to produce a certain neural pattern, i.e. execute a certain neural “program”. You can’t learn how to imagine red the same way you learn facts like 2+2=4 for the same reason you can’t learn how to ride a bike by learning physics. It’s a different type of “knowledge”, not sure if we should even call it that.
Edit (further explanation): To learn how to ride a bike you need to practice doing it, which implements a “neural program” that allows you to do it (via e.g. “muscle memory” and whatnot). Same for producing a redness sensation (imagining red), a.k.a “knowing what red looks like”.
Knowing” what red looks like (or being able to imagine redness) requires your brain to have the ability to produce a certain neural pattern, i.e. execute a certain neural “program”
Maybe. But, if true, that doesn’t mean that red is know-how. I means that something like know-how is necessary
to get knowlege-by-acquaintance with Red. So it still doesn’t show that Red is know-how in itself. (What does
it enable you to do?)
So it still doesn’t show that Red is know-how in itself.
Talking about “red in itself” is a bit like talking about “the-number-1 in itself”. What does it mean? We can talk about the “redness sensation” that a person experiences, or “the experience of red”. From an anatomical point of view, experiencing red(ness) is a process that occurs in the brain. When you’re looking at something red (or imagining redness), certain neural pathways are constantly firing. No brain activity → no redness experience.
Let’s compare this to factual knowledge. How are facts stored in the brain? From what we understand about the brain, they’re likely encoded in neuronal/synaptic connections. You could in principle extract them by analyzing the brain. And where is the (knowledge of) red(ness) stored in the brain? Well there is no ‘redness’ stored in the brain, what is stored are (again in synaptic connections) instructions that activate the color-pathways of the visual cortex that produce the experience of red. See how the ‘knowledge of color’ is not quite like factual knowledge, but rather looks like an ability?
You argue as if involving neuronal activation is sufficient evidence that something is an ability. But inabilities
are as neuronal as abilitites. If someone becomes incapably drunk, that is as much as matter of neuronal activity
as anything else. But in common sense terms, it is loss of ability, not acquisition of an ability.
Both riding a bike or seeing red involves the brain performing I/O, i.e., interacting with the outside world, whereas learning that 2+2=4 can be done without such interaction.
You can also know all relevant facts about physics but still not “know” how to ride a bicycle. “Knowing” what red looks like (or being able to imagine redness) requires your brain to have the ability to produce a certain neural pattern, i.e. execute a certain neural “program”. You can’t learn how to imagine red the same way you learn facts like 2+2=4 for the same reason you can’t learn how to ride a bike by learning physics. It’s a different type of “knowledge”, not sure if we should even call it that.
Edit (further explanation): To learn how to ride a bike you need to practice doing it, which implements a “neural program” that allows you to do it (via e.g. “muscle memory” and whatnot). Same for producing a redness sensation (imagining red), a.k.a “knowing what red looks like”.
Maybe. But, if true, that doesn’t mean that red is know-how. I means that something like know-how is necessary to get knowlege-by-acquaintance with Red. So it still doesn’t show that Red is know-how in itself. (What does it enable you to do?)
Talking about “red in itself” is a bit like talking about “the-number-1 in itself”. What does it mean? We can talk about the “redness sensation” that a person experiences, or “the experience of red”. From an anatomical point of view, experiencing red(ness) is a process that occurs in the brain. When you’re looking at something red (or imagining redness), certain neural pathways are constantly firing. No brain activity → no redness experience.
Let’s compare this to factual knowledge. How are facts stored in the brain? From what we understand about the brain, they’re likely encoded in neuronal/synaptic connections. You could in principle extract them by analyzing the brain. And where is the (knowledge of) red(ness) stored in the brain? Well there is no ‘redness’ stored in the brain, what is stored are (again in synaptic connections) instructions that activate the color-pathways of the visual cortex that produce the experience of red. See how the ‘knowledge of color’ is not quite like factual knowledge, but rather looks like an ability?
An ability to do what?
You argue as if involving neuronal activation is sufficient evidence that something is an ability. But inabilities are as neuronal as abilitites. If someone becomes incapably drunk, that is as much as matter of neuronal activity as anything else. But in common sense terms, it is loss of ability, not acquisition of an ability.
In an case, there are plenty of other obections to the Ability Hypothesis
Both riding a bike or seeing red involves the brain performing I/O, i.e., interacting with the outside world, whereas learning that 2+2=4 can be done without such interaction.
One might imagine so, but I expect there are no examples of it ever happening.
There are plenty of examples of less basic apriori truths being figured out once the basics are in place.