Student ID: 4314752
‘Someone could know all the physical facts about seeing red and
yet learn something new when they see red for the first time.’
Does this show that physicalism is false? Explain your answer.
Physicalism is the concept that all facts about mental reality are
physical facts, the theory denies any distinction between mental
and physical reality that dualism might suggest.
In this essay, I am going to explore the stance that it would be
impossible to know all the physical knowledge about ‘seeing red’
without actually seeing it, thus suggesting that someone learning
all the physical facts about colour vision and ‘learning’ something
else new when seeing it does not prove physicalism to be false.
This is because the ‘learning’ the person does when seeing the
colour is learning to visually recognize and remember, something
that is not ‘factual’ cannot be studied. In this essay, I will continue
by explaining Jackson’s thought experiment, “Mary’s Room” and
how my stance and opposing stances relate to what it proposes.
In the “Mary’s room” thought experiment, Jackson proposes a
woman, Mary, is kept in a room where she is only exposed to a
world in monochrome and has never seen colour before. Mary is
studying neuroscience and learns every physical fact there is to
learn about the colour red, such as how the specific wavelength of
light reflected by red enters the eyes, and all physical properties
of the colour. When Mary is finally exposed to a world of colour
and actually sees the colour red, it is proposed that she learns
nothing further as she as already learnt every physical fact about
the colour red.
The Mary’s room experiment is, however, fairly unrealistic making
it almost impossible for us to envisage how she would actually
react to her exposure of colour. It would clearly be impossible for
Mary to have no interaction with red throughout her entire life. All
the facts she has been able to learn about the colour red would
set her up for a physically viewing the colour, she would not
‘learn’ anything factual by seeing it. The ‘knowledge’ she would
gain would be the ability to visually recognize the colour again in
the future. Furthermore, the over determination of Mary’s
‘Someone could know all the physical facts about seeing red and
yet learn something new when they see red for the first time.’
Does this show that physicalism is false? Explain your answer.
Physicalism is the concept that all facts about mental reality are
physical facts, the theory denies any distinction between mental
and physical reality that dualism might suggest.
In this essay, I am going to explore the stance that it would be
impossible to know all the physical knowledge about ‘seeing red’
without actually seeing it, thus suggesting that someone learning
all the physical facts about colour vision and ‘learning’ something
else new when seeing it does not prove physicalism to be false.
This is because the ‘learning’ the person does when seeing the
colour is learning to visually recognize and remember, something
that is not ‘factual’ cannot be studied. In this essay, I will continue
by explaining Jackson’s thought experiment, “Mary’s Room” and
how my stance and opposing stances relate to what it proposes.
In the “Mary’s room” thought experiment, Jackson proposes a
woman, Mary, is kept in a room where she is only exposed to a
world in monochrome and has never seen colour before. Mary is
studying neuroscience and learns every physical fact there is to
learn about the colour red, such as how the specific wavelength of
light reflected by red enters the eyes, and all physical properties
of the colour. When Mary is finally exposed to a world of colour
and actually sees the colour red, it is proposed that she learns
nothing further as she as already learnt every physical fact about
the colour red.
The Mary’s room experiment is, however, fairly unrealistic making
it almost impossible for us to envisage how she would actually
react to her exposure of colour. It would clearly be impossible for
Mary to have no interaction with red throughout her entire life. All
the facts she has been able to learn about the colour red would
set her up for a physically viewing the colour, she would not
‘learn’ anything factual by seeing it. The ‘knowledge’ she would
gain would be the ability to visually recognize the colour again in
the future. Furthermore, the over determination of Mary’s
