Re: A troubling paradox...

"Jim Balter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Patty wrote:
> > Jim Balter wrote:
> >
> >> The point of the quote is the claim that *even then*, the blind
> >> person would not know "what red is like".  It's meant as an
> >> argument against physicalism.  See, e.g.,
> >> http://host.uniroma3.it/progetti/kant/field/ka.html
> >>
> >
> > It strikes me that factsAbout(x) is not the same thing as
> > experienceOf(x) ... and as every school girl knows that to read a book
> > about how to ride a bike is quite another thing from learing to ride a
> > bike.  In the case of Mary, she has all the factsAbout(seeing-red) ...
> > we could even with a slight of hand give her
> > factsAbout(experienceOf(seeing-red)); but she will not get
> > experienceOf(seeing-red) unless we let her out of the room.
> >
> > But I fail to see how this is a legitimate argument against a suitably
> > phrased physicalism.  A set of facts is a set of facts, a set of
> > experiences is quite another thing.
>
> At issue is not merely the experience of seeing red,

The blind_man argument exposes the experience of seeing red as the *primary*
constituent of knowledge *about*.

It is via identity with. All other knowledge *about* X is secondary; which
is why the sighted person has difficulty getting the blind man to understand
*fully* what seeing *is*.


> but
> (allegedly) the *knowledge* of "what red is like".
> The claim is that *all* the facts should include
> *all* knowledge.  I agree that there's a sleight of hand
> involved, but it's a very subtle one -- I'd argue that
> calling something "knowledge" doesn't make it knowledge,
> at least not of the sort that matters here.
>
> Your treatment would apply to zombies as well (they can ride bikes and
> look at red things), but supposedly we're conscious, and all these
> thought experiments are based on *that* distinction.
>
> Now that I think of it though, I wonder if zombiephiles
> would claim that zombies, even those that ride bikes,
> don't know how to ride bikes.  And if they wouldn't claim that,
> then why don't zombies also know what red is like?
> Seems to make the whole zombie concept, in fact the whole
> dualist concept, incoherent, eh?
> I now recall that Dennett has been working with this theme lately,
> posing thought experiments about RoboMary to his students --
> he sent me an email about it in response to a query,
> but I think it's on a disk in a bag in a box on a shelf somewhere.
> Let's try google ... okay!
> http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/robomaryfin6.htm
>
> -- 
> <J Q B>
>