Mary Pysicalism

What would it like for us to see the world in black and white? According to Nagel, we will never know what it is like, but what if this wasn’t the case? Mary does not know what it is like to see color, but she knows everything there is to know about color and the physical facts. When Mary is told to leave the black and white room does Mary learn something new? Yes, Mary must learn new facts about what it is like to experience color in her environment. Would it be possible for Mary, if she knows all the facts about the color to know the color of a red apple for the first time? The Knowledge Argument by Frank Jackson sets out to refute the idea of physicalism and prove physicalism to be false. Physicalism is the idea that everything is physical from ideas and mental processes to every object in the world. Mary must experience a non- physical experience that is only accessible to her inner self called quale. I believe that the Knowledge Argument is a clear statement and it is not possible for Mary to know what it is like to see a red apple and understand beforehand and know what it was like to see the color red of an apple.

It is naïve to believe that we are unlike Mary in one way or another. Locked up in a black and white room; sheltered from new experiences we all must learn if we want to know what it is like. John Locke developed the theory of the “blank slate”. At birth we have experienced nothing. In the world we begin to experience through our senses and learn what it is like. Similar to Mary, I was sheltered from experiences. In high school I was not exposed to alcohol. The example Al-Ghazali cites from his “Deliverance from Error” he relates the drunken man to knowledge.

Not until I came to college or in Mary’s case, left the black and white room, did I experienced what it was like to feel drunk. I observed the behaviors of my friends and could recognize if someone was drunk but never knew the feeling. My mind and body never acquired the feeling of alcohol in my body system. I could act drunk but physiologically my body would new experience the feeling.

An example of a different sense would be taste and my inexperience with sushi. My friends eat sushi in which they experience the taste, texture, sight, and sounds of eating sushi. Using my visual system I am able to experience all the environmental features but do I really know what it is like to eat sushi. If I read every article on the internet, pick sushi up in my hand, smell it, and write down all the physical facts, do I still have the experience of what it is like? I am unable to experience a private quale feeling of what it is like.

Frank Jackson argues that Mary will learn something new and begin to experience what it is like to have the private experience of color. There must be inner quale that only the experiencer has in connection to the new experience. There have been numerous cases

...