Must We Neglect A Physicalists’ Intuition About Mary?Brown, Steven R. (2007) Must We Neglect A Physicalists’ Intuition About Mary? In: ASSC 11, 22-25 June 2007, Las Vegas, NV, USA. Full text available as:
Official URL: http://eprints.assc.caltech.edu Alternative URL: http://eprints.assc.caltech.edu AbstractJackson’s knowledge argument about Mary is based on the intuition (I) by Jackson that Mary knows all physical facts (i.e., possesses all knowledge of the physical world, an epistemological claim), but has no phenomenal experiences of color (“color qualia”). However, there are actually two competing intuitions in this well-known scenario: Jackson’s, above, and a physicalists’ (P), which claims that without the experiences of color, Mary cannot know all physical facts. I will show in this essay that (P) can in fact be supported though a combination of logic and empirical data, and more strongly than (I). Comments/DiscussionStoljar and Nagasawa , in their thorough introduction to Jackson’s argument, separate the argument into two subclasses of questions. It is what they term “Question 2: Is Her Learning Factual or Nonfactual?” (p. 16), which has been addressed by most of Jackson’s commentators, and has generated a huge literature. What is to me the more interesting question, because I believe it to be more apropos to concerns about the nature of consciousness, is what they term “Question 1: Does Mary Learn Anything New?” (p. 16), addressed, however, as a response to (I). Most of the literature seems focused on the consequences of accepting (I), and proceeding from there. What if one simply rejects (I)? One is then either involved in a shouting match with Jackson’s supporters (since they provide virtually no basis for its acceptance) or one must provide a clear basis for rejecting it. If (I) has grounds for being rejected, or (P) for being accepted, then one need proceed no further. Curiously enough, despite the enormous mass of data supporting physicalism in the empirical sciences, the onus seems to be understood to lie with the physicalists to support their intuition (P), rather than on Jackson to further support his. Nonetheless, I will do the former in this work, and argue that the result, since it is based on empirical considerations, is that the denial of Jackson’s scenario will not resolve the physicalist/non-physicalist issue unless and until physicalists can come up with a testable proposal for generating consciousness from matter.
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