Mary's room

Notes

Claim

Mary's room is a thought experiment] that demonstrates the existence of Some knowledge requires direct experience to fully understand. If we say yes to the question below, we acknowledge that some knowledge can only be gained through experience, that there is a difference between the details of a phenomenon, and the conscious experience of it Subjective experience resists scientific explanation

Explanation

Why it matters

Examples

In this experiment, imagine a scientist who lives in a black-and-white room, with all the relevant information about the color red. The biology of how our eyes process color, about the physics of wave lengths, about products that are usually red, everything, but all of that is in black-and-white.

Then, she is allowed to step outside and sees red for the first time. The question is, does Mary now knows more than she knew before existing the room?

Supporters

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Open questions

Visual

Overview

🔼Topic:: Nature and Limits of Knowledge ↩️Origin:: 🔗Link::