Basically Yes Mary can “know all there is to know about color ….” before being exposed. Yes she does learn something new when exposed to color.
But basically the knowledge of how her brain reacts to color is information that does not exist in the universe prior to her exposure. She is physically changed and the new information is thus created.
If her knowledge were in essence complete, she might know beforehand EXACTLY how her own brain would change, what new neurons and synapses would developon exposure to color, how long it would take, etc..… But knowing what changes will happen inside your body doesn’t make them happen any more than a diabetic can think away his disease if he happens to be a biochemist with utmost understandings of the mechanisms.
Information is ALAWAY manifest as physical structure and patterns. The information of Mary’s color knowledge could not exist until she had exposure to color. (In a way out yonder sf world where scientists could effect the changes to her brain without exposing her to color, then no, in only that case would she NOT learn anything new and have no new learnings by exposure to color; in a world where exposure is the only way to create the linkage patterns in her brain—even if she knows what they will be—she does learn something new.)
I’ve a similar deconstruction of flying vermin.
The “knowledge argument” is dead.
*BTW I’ve never seen my particular arguments before, but was never a philosophy student as such. I don’t claim that others haven’t offered them first, possibly in less colorful terminology, but I’m damned if my arguments don’t in fact destroy the two great “knowledge arguments”. (Chalmer’s zombies were fantasy from day one … “modal logic” … which one? … aside there was never reason to believe in material possibility of philosophical zombies; absent material possibility there is nothing to argue about).
I think I have long since “dissolved the problem quite elegantly” …
http://antiphilosopher.com/wiki/index.php/Mary,_A_Philosopher%27s_Whore_of_Color_and_Her_Knowledge_Problem
Basically Yes Mary can “know all there is to know about color ….” before being exposed. Yes she does learn something new when exposed to color.
But basically the knowledge of how her brain reacts to color is information that does not exist in the universe prior to her exposure. She is physically changed and the new information is thus created.
If her knowledge were in essence complete, she might know beforehand EXACTLY how her own brain would change, what new neurons and synapses would developon exposure to color, how long it would take, etc..… But knowing what changes will happen inside your body doesn’t make them happen any more than a diabetic can think away his disease if he happens to be a biochemist with utmost understandings of the mechanisms.
Information is ALAWAY manifest as physical structure and patterns. The information of Mary’s color knowledge could not exist until she had exposure to color. (In a way out yonder sf world where scientists could effect the changes to her brain without exposing her to color, then no, in only that case would she NOT learn anything new and have no new learnings by exposure to color; in a world where exposure is the only way to create the linkage patterns in her brain—even if she knows what they will be—she does learn something new.)
I’ve a similar deconstruction of flying vermin.
The “knowledge argument” is dead.
*BTW I’ve never seen my particular arguments before, but was never a philosophy student as such. I don’t claim that others haven’t offered them first, possibly in less colorful terminology, but I’m damned if my arguments don’t in fact destroy the two great “knowledge arguments”. (Chalmer’s zombies were fantasy from day one … “modal logic” … which one? … aside there was never reason to believe in material possibility of philosophical zombies; absent material possibility there is nothing to argue about).