Re: Problem for physicalist evolutionists

someone2 <glenn.spigel2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 24 Mar, 22:24, j.wilki...@xxxxxxxxx (John Wilkins) wrote:
someone2 <glenn.spig...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 24 Mar, 17:45, someone2 <glenn.spig...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 24 Mar, 12:37, j.wilki...@xxxxxxxxx (John Wilkins) wrote:

<snip>
In other words was the knowledge that you had, that the optometrist
didn't, what it was like to be you. That it was an indication of what
it was like to be you that he was asking you for.

Asked and answered. No, it is not "what it is like to be me" it is "what
happens to perception when you are colourblind".

This is the Mary Problem, and perhaps we should discuss it in those
terms.


Well it is what is your perception like, no one is saying you are
colour blind. This perception is a conscious experience/perception,
and if you ask what I mean by conscious experience, I'll borrow from
Thomas Nagel that "the fact that an organism has a conscious
experience at all means, basically, that there is something it is like
to be that organism". In that sense do you acknowledge that the
knowledge you had, that the optometrist didn't was the conscious
visual perception you were having?

No, I don't. How often do I have to say this? Having the experience is
just to experience the perspective. The information contained in the
experience is exactly the same as the information a properly informed
optometrist has.

I just want to be clear that this is distinct from the Mary problem as
it isn't about comparing whether the optometrist having full knowledge
of your neurological firings would be equivalent of having knowledge
of what it was like to be you. Neither of you in the scenario could
give a neurological description of what is going on, neither of you
know that. So it isn't that knowledge that he is lacking and yet you
have. Yet there is a knowledge that you do have, and that he is
lacking.

Not if he's properly informed.
--
John S. Wilkins, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Philosophy
University of Queensland - Blog: scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts
"He used... sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor,
bathos, puns, parody, litotes and... satire. He was vicious."

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Religion center in the brain
    ... :>: leads to notions of perception being what the brain does. ... When I say the whole organism perceives, ...
    (sci.cognitive)
  • Re: Religion center in the brain
    ... the process of perceiving the visual stimulus has occured entirely in the brain. ... if it (the organism) comprised only a head (on a hypothetical ... needed for perception to take place. ... This discussion is wandering all over the place and getting nowhere because the posters have differing notions of "perception", ...
    (sci.cognitive)
  • Re: Religion center in the brain
    ... if it (the organism) comprised only a head (on a hypothetical ... needed for perception to take place. ... Show the disembodied eye a picture of a tree with the question ... because the posters have differing notions of "perception", ...
    (sci.cognitive)
  • Re: Religion center in the brain
    ... :>living organism. ... The organism perceives a visual stimulus, ... :>the process of perceiving the visual stimulus has occured ... needed for perception to take place. ...
    (sci.cognitive)