The knowledge argument
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The knowledge argument
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Re: The knowledge argument
#2This kind of silliness is why I ignore philosophers whenever I can.
It is clear that the subject of how we personally experience X is not, strictly speaking, part of the body of knowledge about X. But the reverse is also true. Learning more about how we personally experience X does not increase our understanding of X. It is a different topic.
There is an important asterisk on this. And that is that we actually learn about things through our subjective experience. And therefore understanding our subjective experience can be necessary to get clear understanding of that thing.
This is true in a very literal way. "How long did that take?" If you give three people a stopwatch and have them record a common event, you will get 3 answers. And the answers will be consistently different in similar ways. In astronomy this phenomena is well-known as your personal equation. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_equation for verfication.
But now I return you to philosophers arguing that something obvious is something deep that has consequences that it really does not...
Re: The knowledge argument
#3I think Daniel Dennett nailed it.
Re: The knowledge argument
#4The argument seems to assume that "knowledge" is some sort of indivisible base class. "Knowledge" is shorthand for memories, compressed sensory input videos (plus smell, touch, and taste) of finite length in the brain. You can remember facts (beliefs, really) about wavelengths, and also the experience (believed experience, really) of sight. Not sure what there is to write a book about.
These philosophers seem to think that humans matter a lot more than those who "subscribe" to physicalism (if you can call believing in the least extraordinary option "subscribing") do. I don't care about all of those "the book is red" koans; "red" is just a word, and words are invented, primarily for convenience.
The only thing I find a bit hard to get from physicalism is why one's locus of consciousness happens to be in the brain that it is in. If the time I come into the world as a baby is "random", what "makes" it random?
Re: The knowledge argument
#5Just to summarize the article:
People doing a "non physical" experiment, while using physical proof methods.
This is scientific comedy at its finest, people.
Re: The knowledge argument
#6Re: The knowledge argument
#7On one hand, reductionists say that qualia (qualitative propeties of experience) is reducible to physical states. On the other hand, some (anti-reductionists) say, qualia is irreducible. How to settle this dispute?
Only theories from the object level domain (say, neurophysiology, vision, human experience) can settle this. When theories from the object level domain do not exist or when we have not understood enough about the phenomena, people engage is all philosophical disputes. Which philsophical theory one should choose? Pick your thought experiment:)
The same thing you see in moral philosophy: tons of thought experiments.
Re: The knowledge argument
#8Certain types of knowledge cannot be encoded effectively.
What I mean by an encoding that's effective is one that translates my subjective experience of the idea or the thing so that you can "imagine" or "visualize" the thing by the mere act of decoding my encoding.
Experiencing the thing directly does not count as an encoding in this case.
Defining the precise meaning of "encoding" is left as an exercise to the reader.
So if you've never experienced seeing red, you can't "imagine it" by just reading or hearing about it.
If you've never experienced reading a Chinese sentence and "understanding it" effortlessly, you won't really know what it feels like exactly; you can only approximate the feeling by comparing with your own native language.
Re: The knowledge argument
#9One friend of mine told me once that no matter how much you read about sex, you have to practice it in order to understand it. We, as men, will never actually understand female orgasms and women will never know how ours are felt, no matter how accurate one tries to describe it.
I don't know what the above means in the context of "the knowledge argument" but these are easier to understand examples than "not experimenting the red color" in the article
Re: The knowledge argument
#10This kind of silliness is why I ignore philosophers whenever I can. It is clear that the subject of how we personally experience X is not, strictly speaking, part of the body of knowledge about X. But the reverse is also true. Learning more about how we personally experience X does not increase our understanding of X. It is a different topic. There is an important asterisk on this. And that is that we actually learn…
>This kind of silliness is why I ignore philosophers whenever I can.
And avoiding this type of hasty comments are why it pays to study philogophical problems.
>It is clear that the subject of how we personally experience X is not, strictly speaking, part of the body of knowledge about X. But the reverse is also true. Learning more about how we personally experience X does not increase our understanding of X. It is a different topic.
That "it's a different topic" is a definitive statement that is not derrived from anywhere.
If anything, it is itself of philosophical nature, albeit a dogmatic one.
Who said that the actual experience of X doesn't increase "our understanding of X"? Even if it might be so, it remains to be argued.
Whereas the opposite, that experience, as an extra informational element regarding X, and as the main component of X as it concerns us, adds to our understand of X, is the obvious (correct or not) conclusion.
>* This is true in a very literal way. "How long did that take?" If you give three people a stopwatch and have them record a common event, you will get 3 answers. And the answers will be consistently different in similar ways.*
No, you wont, except within the margin of acceptable error (e.g. time to press the stopwatch button for each, etc).