Talk:Mary's room

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Socrates
Philosophy Portal
This article is within the scope of the WikiProject Philosophy, which collaborates on articles related to philosophy. To participate, you can edit this article or visit the project page for more details.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the quality scale.
??? This article has not yet received an importance rating on the importance scale.


Contents

[edit] Clean up

Hi all. I recently made some changes and added some stuff to the article. It seems like the article could use a lot of work. A few things I did:

  • Added Jackson's original statement of the thought experiment
  • Added references & notes
  • Removed side note about the occipital lobe experiment that was pretty inappropriate for an encyclopedia article and had no source or reference cited
  • Generally tried to clean up the article

That's about it. Hope I didn't step on anyone's toes, but this article needs improvement. - Jaymay 07:44, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Masked Man

The masked man section has no place here. It is clearly not a masked man fallacy (because of the 'everything', as evidenced by the following:- 1. Mary knows everything about her father. 2. Mary does not know who the masked man is. 3. Ergo, Mary's father is not the masked man. This is NOT invalid. Being the masked man would be part of 'everything about her father', and so if she does not know whether he is or not, proposition 1 would be falsified.

So, "1. Mary knows everything about the physical science of colour 2. Mary does not know everything about colour, 3. The physical science of colour differs somehow from colour The said fallacy is involved in inferring 3 as the conclusion." is invalid. Think of simple set theory. 1. Mary is in possession of everything in set A (physical facts on colour). 2. There is something in Set B (everything about colour) which Mary is not in possession of, which by definition cannot be in Set A. 3. Ergo, there is at least one item in set B which is not in Set A, and 3 is a valid conclusion. 167.127.24.25 (talk) 14:29, 21 November 2007 (UTC)Andy Mac

[edit] Title of the thought experiment

This is called the Jackson(-Nagel) thought experiment, not the "Mary's Room" thought experiment. This page should be redirected to one with the appropriate title. Nortexoid 01:10, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

...perhaps one with the location of the article --Wetman 04:25, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)
This thought experiment and/or argument does not go by one name for certain. The thought experiment really doesn't seem to have a set name in the literature. "Mary's room" seems fine, I suppose. The argument related to the thought experiment does have a pretty set name: "the knowledge argument". I added that into the intro paragraph and added a reditect (see knowledge argument). My opinion: I think we should have the title of the article be the "knowledge argument", which would, of course, include info on Mary's room. We could then redirect "Mary's room" to the "knowledge argument". I'm just trying to think of what a philosophy student, etc. would come looking searching for this info under. "Knowledge argument" is more common. - Jaymay 07:44, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
It's called the knowledge argument at Standford's article as well. Richard001 04:25, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Related scientific experiments & facts

That bit about the occipital lobe is breaking the thought experiment. its interesting, lets keep it, but how about a different heading or something?

A link should be included to a page detailing the related experiment (which actually took place) where kittens were raised in a room with no straight lines whatsoever, then released into the real world. --Monguin61 22:10, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
I recently removed the bit about the occipital lobe and all that. Real scientific experiments related to Mary's room are interesting, but not the place for an encyclopedia entry on the thought experiment. However, if anyone insists on having these interesting facts placed in the article, please provide sources and references--since they're supposed to be facts. - Jaymay 07:44, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Origin of the thought experiment

The Qualia page says the knowledge argument was made In Frank Jackson's "Epiphenomenal Qualia" (Jackson 1982). does anyone know which is correct? There is a fair amount of overlapp between this page and the qualia page. lets define how these pages differ before someone comes and merges them Spencerk 07:08, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

It was made originally in "Epiphenomenal Qualia". I provided the quote as the primary statement of the thought experiment in this article. - Jaymay 07:44, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Black and White or Grayscale?

"Her food, her books, and even the color of her skin are all in black and white." That can't be right, can it? If she's to never see even shades of gray, she'll have to be deprived of light completely because shadows and lighting make things different shades of white or depths of black. I've changed "black and white" to Grayscale. --Mr. Billion 00:55, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Guess you are right Spencerk 01:21, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
I'd make sure to stick to Jackson's formulation of the argument. I've put the quote in. He says that she has to "investigate the world from a black and white room via a black and white television monitor". I think this is intended to mean that she has to look through something that keeps her from seeing color. That is, her skin is not gray or black and white or whatever. She just has a visual apparatus that makes her only see in black and white (grayscale). That's the main point. - Jaymay 07:44, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Color

"Though this has no effect on the validity of the argument, research into the neural basis of sensation and perception suggest that Mary, if she is not exposed to colour before the critical period required to form proper normal perception, may not be able to correctly process colour, as the occipital lobe may not have developed to allow her to perceive colour."

Is the color white not all colors combined when concerning light? I'm not a physics genius or anything but this occurred to me and it seemed like this needs to be clarified. So if anyone knows, feel free to add a comment. --D03boy 05:03, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] zombie nights

First: does not the philosophical zombie already exist?: a robot can be programmed to recognise (by physics) the colour red. Second, Mary will learn, when she actually sees red for the first time, that this new qualia is the one associated with that one particular wavelength, one type of retinal response, etc, she'd learned in the room. Thus if nothing else she has made the association, and this making-of-association is a (trivial) learning experience. Once made, this learning: the association between the qualia red and the physical parameters that define red that she learned previously in her room, will have altered her brain and memory for ever. So she has learnt something, regardles of whether she said Wow or not. Third: it is not valid to claim mentalism is the physical event making a mental event that does not change the physical world: the mental/brain is itself part of the physical world; the physical event out there, once perceived by the sense organs, then causes brain neuron activity and possibly some sort of engram, heat is generated, chemicals are consumed and recreated, enzymes and genes do their thing - there is no thought that is not also a physical activity in the brain - entropic and physical. The truth is that we are entirely physical, reducible and mechanistic, but that the gross orders of complexity that are the brain make its workings ineluctable and irreducible. Knowing about cogs does not make the watch, knowing how to make a watch does not give you the qualia of time, especially when sitting in a dentist's chair. Lgh 00:09, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Ah but Dualism (philosophy of mind) is the idea that our minds are not matter which is something I think you should consider.--24.57.157.81 04:02, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] qualia and thought

Having though a little about the subject I have surmised that the difference between a sterile firing of an engram in the brain: a pure cognition [cerebral] circuit event if you like (as in Mary's room), and qualia, is that qualia (when Mary sees red) may involve responses in other organs outside the brain. Specifically, qualia may be defined (fairly arbitrarily I admit] as that which causes hormone release in distant organs from the brain. Let me elaborate: on experiencing qualia one probably not only gets brain hormone and paracrine action happening, limbic activity, oxytocin, and other; but also releasing hormones produced and signals sent to pituitary and distantly to adrenals resulting in adrenalin and noradrenalin, cortisol and so on. Hence the feeling of excitement generated by qualia. This is the key point: the sense of an emotional connection to the perceived event is only possible through extra-brain hormone mediation. Useful? Lgh 01:33, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think the hormonal system is complex enough to provide a unique response to every perceptual quale. Emotions are sometimes said to be accompanied by qualia, and are uncontroversially connected with the release of hormones and neurotransmitters. 1Z 11:58, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

you're right - it is not a useful distinction. Lgh 03:47, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Time domain perception of color?

In this experiment, is color-blind Mary allowed to momentarily place a sheet of color gel in front of objects in order to investigate how objects appear under different wavelengths? For example, human vision is not sensitive to polarization, yet humans can polarize their sunglasses and tilt their heads. Just as a half-deaf Dalmatian turns its head to locate sounds, so can a human turn a polarized lens to gain a sense of light direction, and theoretically so could color-blind Mary wave a set of color gels to gain a time domain perception of color. She might perceive an apple as "early" or the sky as "late". Does any of the literature endorse or attack this argument? --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 14:22, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

No. It is stipulated that there is nothing coloured in Mary's Room, which would include gel sheets. 1Z 09:08, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Then how can Mary manipulate the world in order to investigate it? Specifically, the gel sheets would not be inside the gray room but outside it, in front of the camera. --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 02:49, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Specifically, if Mary cannot manipulate anything outside her room, how does she decide to "specialize[] in the neurophysiology of vision"? --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 20:31, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
She does it inside the room. 1Z 16:27, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
To what does "it" refer in your response? What does she see on TV, and what control does she have over what she sees on TV? --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 20:06, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

It = "specialise in the neurophysiology of vision". What have your concerns to do with theis encycolpedia article? THis is is not a usenet discussion. 1Z (talk) 20:21, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

I want to understand the conditions of the experiment so that I can make meaningful contributions to the article. What control does Mary have over what appears on the TV? --Damian Yerrick (serious | business) 21:10, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
YOu can find out about the argument by reading the literature. But the point is that this process of trying to find loopholes is besides the point. Jackson can just close a loophole by issuing a revised experiment. 09:24, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
How would I go about that? Are these documents available on the Internet? Or would I have to get them through interlibrary loan? --Damian Yerrick (serious | business) 12:54, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

is —Preceding unsigned comment added by Peterdjones (talk • contribs) 09:24, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mary's skin color?

Wouldn't Mary's skin, eyes, and lips be colored differently from everything in the room, which she can see by turning the TV off and using it as a mirror? --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 20:31, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

We can stipulate that they are not.1Z 16:27, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

She's a goth, she wears black lipstick, dyes her hair black, wears black clothes, and has white pale skin.211.30.63.154 (talk) 16:43, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Coloured after-images of black and white objects

The sensory impression of a colour can be generated by pure black and white objects because the colour sensitive cells in the retina, the cones, differ in sensitivities and time lags. When they are overworked by a long gaze at a black and white object until their sensitivity is grossly reduced by fatigue, an after-image is emerging when the eyes are closed and darkened by the palms. I have described this experiment here and I consider it a refutation of Mary's Room thought experiment.

Of course, this is not a refutation of qualia. I only conclude that Mary's Room does not support the notion of qualia.

Mousetrapper (talk) 09:29, 5 March 2008 (UTC)