What Mary Didn't Know (1986) [pdf]
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What Mary Didn't Know (1986) [pdf]
1–10 of 62 posts
Re: What Mary Didn't Know (1986) [pdf]
#2Related to this would be Nagel's paper, "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" We can't say what sort of echolocation sensation a bat has anymore than Mary can say what a color looks like before she leaves the black and white room. We're in the same position when it comes to bird vision. We can't say what the world would look like with four primary colors. What does that fourth primary color look like? We don't have a word for it because we don't see that color.
Or for that matter, what would the rest of the EM spectrum look like if we could see it all? What would a scientific theory that could answer these sorts of questions look like?
Saying physicalism is false because it can't answer the questions above is not to say naturalism is false. There's no magic or supernatural stuff here. It just means our scientific description of the world lacks the subjective. There is a fundamental epistemological limit to our ability to know how to combine the two. It doesn't mean the world itself has such a division. We just can't cognate how to reconcile the two.
Re: What Mary Didn't Know (1986) [pdf]
#3Related to this would be Nagel's paper, "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" We can't say what sort of echolocation sensation a bat has anymore than Mary can say what a color looks like before she leaves the black and white room. We're in the same position when it comes to bird vision. We can't say what the world would look like with four primary colors. What does that fourth primary color look like? We don't have a word f…
I'm pretty sure detailed enough differential brain imaging of bats echolocating and not in different circumstances would eventually reveal the secrets of bat echolocation processing.
Re: What Mary Didn't Know (1986) [pdf]
#4Related to this would be Nagel's paper, "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" We can't say what sort of echolocation sensation a bat has anymore than Mary can say what a color looks like before she leaves the black and white room. We're in the same position when it comes to bird vision. We can't say what the world would look like with four primary colors. What does that fourth primary color look like? We don't have a word f…
I'm pretty sure detailed enough differential brain imaging of bats echolocating and not in different circumstances would eventually reveal the secrets of bat echolocation processing.
And how would that processing tell us what sort of sensation that bat has when using echolocation? Do you think doing this for birds would reveal what the fourth primary color looks like? If the answer is it wouldn't look like anything (for us), then there's something science can't tell us.
Re: What Mary Didn't Know (1986) [pdf]
#5Related to this would be Nagel's paper, "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" We can't say what sort of echolocation sensation a bat has anymore than Mary can say what a color looks like before she leaves the black and white room. We're in the same position when it comes to bird vision. We can't say what the world would look like with four primary colors. What does that fourth primary color look like? We don't have a word f…
> There is a fundamental epistemological limit to our ability to know how to combine the two. It doesn't mean the world itself has such a division. We just can't cognate how to reconcile the two.
I’m not convinced there’s any indication of a fundamental limit to our cognitive abilities. What if we just don’t know how subjective experience works in the same normal way that we’ve not known how other stuff works until we figured it out?
Re: What Mary Didn't Know (1986) [pdf]
#6Related to this would be Nagel's paper, "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" We can't say what sort of echolocation sensation a bat has anymore than Mary can say what a color looks like before she leaves the black and white room. We're in the same position when it comes to bird vision. We can't say what the world would look like with four primary colors. What does that fourth primary color look like? We don't have a word f…
On an aside, I've always loved the idea of a computer game where your character's primary sense is smell.
But how could you really convey it to a human, except visually? Although maybe something like Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice's audio hallucinations could be a way, whispering voices that tell you the scent blows stronger this way.
Re: What Mary Didn't Know (1986) [pdf]
#7Related to this would be Nagel's paper, "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" We can't say what sort of echolocation sensation a bat has anymore than Mary can say what a color looks like before she leaves the black and white room. We're in the same position when it comes to bird vision. We can't say what the world would look like with four primary colors. What does that fourth primary color look like? We don't have a word f…
Human tetrachromats do exist, but it’s X recessive. They can differentiate some hues that others can’t.
Re: What Mary Didn't Know (1986) [pdf]
#8Related to this would be Nagel's paper, "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" We can't say what sort of echolocation sensation a bat has anymore than Mary can say what a color looks like before she leaves the black and white room. We're in the same position when it comes to bird vision. We can't say what the world would look like with four primary colors. What does that fourth primary color look like? We don't have a word f…
I use echolocation all the time. Granted, I can definitely not explain how a bat feels, but... I was born with 20% vision, and kept it for roughly 6 years. After that, the world officially went dark. However, my brain was quite stubborn in not accepting that.
From that point on, my auditory system, in particular echolocation, took over. My internal field of vision did not change much. Echolocation, and my prior knowledge of the world, was used to build up my idea of my surroundings.
At first, that built-up internal image resembled very much how I saw the world prior to going blind.
However, after a few years, things started to become abstract. I lost almost all notion of clear-cut edges, and color "perception" smeared itself all over the color spectrum.
These days, what I see in my minds eye doesnt really reflect what a sighted person would visualize.
However, my minds eye still has the same function, it creates my surroundings in my head such that I can navigate and interact with the world.
Re: What Mary Didn't Know (1986) [pdf]
#9Related to this would be Nagel's paper, "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" We can't say what sort of echolocation sensation a bat has anymore than Mary can say what a color looks like before she leaves the black and white room. We're in the same position when it comes to bird vision. We can't say what the world would look like with four primary colors. What does that fourth primary color look like? We don't have a word f…
I use echolocation all the time. Granted, I can definitely not explain how a bat feels, but... I was born with 20% vision, and kept it for roughly 6 years. After that, the world officially went dark. However, my brain was quite stubborn in not accepting that. From that point on, my auditory system, in particular echolocation, took over. My internal field of vision did not change much. Echolocation, and my prior knowl…
That's very interesting. Bat neuroscience might be able to tell us whether bats use echolocation in a similar fashion as you described (they do also have ears and eyes, although many don't have color vision). If not, then probably they have an entirely different experience that humans when using echolocation.
Re: What Mary Didn't Know (1986) [pdf]
#10Related to this would be Nagel's paper, "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" We can't say what sort of echolocation sensation a bat has anymore than Mary can say what a color looks like before she leaves the black and white room. We're in the same position when it comes to bird vision. We can't say what the world would look like with four primary colors. What does that fourth primary color look like? We don't have a word f…
> There is a fundamental epistemological limit to our ability to know how to combine the two. It doesn't mean the world itself has such a division. We just can't cognate how to reconcile the two. I’m not convinced there’s any indication of a fundamental limit to our cognitive abilities. What if we just don’t know how subjective experience works in the same normal way that we’ve not known how other stuff works until w…
I don't know either, it's just that the problem seems to be hard in a fundamental way. We would have to show how something like brain processing results in subjective experience in a way that isn't just correlation. The explanation would somehow have to show how the subjective emerges. How it's determined by the physical processes.
Then we could go make computers conscious.