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Rabin Poudyal
Rabin Poudyal
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Identity and philosophy · experts disagree

Mary's room

Frank Jackson, Epiphenomenal Qualia, Philosophical Quarterly (1982).

Mary is a brilliant scientist who has spent her whole life in a black and white room, learning about the world through black and white books and a black and white screen. She has learned everything physical there is to know about colour vision: the wavelengths, the retina, the neurons, the whole causal story from a ripe tomato to the word red. One day she is let out and sees a red tomato.

Does Mary learn something new when she sees red, and if she does, what follows about the claim that everything is physical?

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