TedTest

From the Ted Talk by Eleanor Nelsen: Mary's Room A philosophical thought experiment

Unscramble the Blue Letters

Imagine a brilliant neuroscientist named Mary. Mary lives in a bclak and white room, she only reads black and white books, and her screens only display black and white. But even though she has never seen color, Mary is an expert in color vision and knows everything ever discovered about its physics and biology. She knows how different wavelengths of light stimulate three types of cone cells in the retina, and she knows how electrical signals travel down the oitpc nerve into the brain. There, they create penttars of neural activity that correspond to the millions of colors most humans can distinguish. Now imagine that one day, Mary's black and white screen malfunctions and an apple appears in color. For the first time, she can experience something that she's known about for years. Does she learn anything new? Is there anything about perceiving color that wasn't captured in all her kneglwode? Philosopher Frank Jackson proposed this thought experiment, called Mary's room, in 1982. He argued that if Mary already knew all the physical facts about coolr vision, and experiencing color still teaches her something new, then mental states, like color perception, can't be completely described by physical facts. The Mary's room thought emnxerpiet describes what philosophers call the knowledge argument, that there are non-physical portierpes and knowledge which can only be discovered through conscious eenicexrpe. The knowledge amreugnt contradicts the theory of picsliashym, which says that everything, iilundcng mental sattes, has a physical explanation. To most people hearing Mary's story, it seems intuitively oibovus that actually seeing color will be totally different than lnanrieg about it. Therefore, there must be some quality of color vision that transcends its physical diertoscipn. The knowledge argument isn't just about color vision. Mary's room uses color vsiion to represent conscious experience. If physical science can't entirely explain color vision, then maybe it can't entirely elpxain other conscious experiences either. For instance, we could know every phyaicsl detail about the structure and function of someone else's brain, but still not understand what it feels like to be that person. These ineffable experiences have properties called qualia, subjective qualities that you can't accurately dcisbere or measure. Qualia are uqunie to the person experiencing them, like having an itch, being in love, or feeling bored. Physical facts can't cptllomeey explain mental states like this. Philosophers interested in artificial intelligence have used the knowledge argument to theorize that retierncag a physical state won't necessarily recreate a corresponding mtenal state. In other words, building a coptemur which mimicked the fitcuonn of every sligne neuron of the human brain won't necessarily create a conscious computerized brain. Not all philosophers agree that the Mary's room experiment is useful. Some argue that her ensitxvee knowledge of color vision would have allowed her to cartee the same mental sttae produced by actually seeing the color. The screen malfunction wouldn't show her anything new. Others say that her knowledge was never ctolmepe in the first place because it was based only on those physical facts that can be conveyed in words. Years after he poosperd it, Jackson actually reversed his own stance on his thought experiment. He decided that even Mary's experience of seeing red still does correspond to a measurable physical event in the brain, not unknowable qualia beyond physical explanation. But there still isn't a definitive answer to the question of whether Mary would learn anything new when she sees the apple. Could it be that there are fundamental limits to what we can know about something we can't experience? And would this mean there are certain ascpets of the universe that lie permanently beyond our comprehension? Or will science and philosophy allow us to overcome our mind's limitations?

Open Cloze

Imagine a brilliant neuroscientist named Mary. Mary lives in a _____ and white room, she only reads black and white books, and her screens only display black and white. But even though she has never seen color, Mary is an expert in color vision and knows everything ever discovered about its physics and biology. She knows how different wavelengths of light stimulate three types of cone cells in the retina, and she knows how electrical signals travel down the _____ nerve into the brain. There, they create ________ of neural activity that correspond to the millions of colors most humans can distinguish. Now imagine that one day, Mary's black and white screen malfunctions and an apple appears in color. For the first time, she can experience something that she's known about for years. Does she learn anything new? Is there anything about perceiving color that wasn't captured in all her _________? Philosopher Frank Jackson proposed this thought experiment, called Mary's room, in 1982. He argued that if Mary already knew all the physical facts about _____ vision, and experiencing color still teaches her something new, then mental states, like color perception, can't be completely described by physical facts. The Mary's room thought __________ describes what philosophers call the knowledge argument, that there are non-physical __________ and knowledge which can only be discovered through conscious __________. The knowledge ________ contradicts the theory of ___________, which says that everything, _________ mental ______, has a physical explanation. To most people hearing Mary's story, it seems intuitively _______ that actually seeing color will be totally different than ________ about it. Therefore, there must be some quality of color vision that transcends its physical ___________. The knowledge argument isn't just about color vision. Mary's room uses color ______ to represent conscious experience. If physical science can't entirely explain color vision, then maybe it can't entirely _______ other conscious experiences either. For instance, we could know every ________ detail about the structure and function of someone else's brain, but still not understand what it feels like to be that person. These ineffable experiences have properties called qualia, subjective qualities that you can't accurately ________ or measure. Qualia are ______ to the person experiencing them, like having an itch, being in love, or feeling bored. Physical facts can't __________ explain mental states like this. Philosophers interested in artificial intelligence have used the knowledge argument to theorize that __________ a physical state won't necessarily recreate a corresponding ______ state. In other words, building a ________ which mimicked the ________ of every ______ neuron of the human brain won't necessarily create a conscious computerized brain. Not all philosophers agree that the Mary's room experiment is useful. Some argue that her _________ knowledge of color vision would have allowed her to ______ the same mental _____ produced by actually seeing the color. The screen malfunction wouldn't show her anything new. Others say that her knowledge was never ________ in the first place because it was based only on those physical facts that can be conveyed in words. Years after he ________ it, Jackson actually reversed his own stance on his thought experiment. He decided that even Mary's experience of seeing red still does correspond to a measurable physical event in the brain, not unknowable qualia beyond physical explanation. But there still isn't a definitive answer to the question of whether Mary would learn anything new when she sees the apple. Could it be that there are fundamental limits to what we can know about something we can't experience? And would this mean there are certain _______ of the universe that lie permanently beyond our comprehension? Or will science and philosophy allow us to overcome our mind's limitations?

Solution

aspects
complete
optic
unique
learning
explain
properties
description
state
single
extensive
states
vision
describe
knowledge
create
obvious
physicalism
recreating
black
patterns
color
function
experience
argument
completely
proposed
computer
experiment
physical
mental
including

Original Text

Imagine a brilliant neuroscientist named Mary. Mary lives in a black and white room, she only reads black and white books, and her screens only display black and white. But even though she has never seen color, Mary is an expert in color vision and knows everything ever discovered about its physics and biology. She knows how different wavelengths of light stimulate three types of cone cells in the retina, and she knows how electrical signals travel down the optic nerve into the brain. There, they create patterns of neural activity that correspond to the millions of colors most humans can distinguish. Now imagine that one day, Mary's black and white screen malfunctions and an apple appears in color. For the first time, she can experience something that she's known about for years. Does she learn anything new? Is there anything about perceiving color that wasn't captured in all her knowledge? Philosopher Frank Jackson proposed this thought experiment, called Mary's room, in 1982. He argued that if Mary already knew all the physical facts about color vision, and experiencing color still teaches her something new, then mental states, like color perception, can't be completely described by physical facts. The Mary's room thought experiment describes what philosophers call the knowledge argument, that there are non-physical properties and knowledge which can only be discovered through conscious experience. The knowledge argument contradicts the theory of physicalism, which says that everything, including mental states, has a physical explanation. To most people hearing Mary's story, it seems intuitively obvious that actually seeing color will be totally different than learning about it. Therefore, there must be some quality of color vision that transcends its physical description. The knowledge argument isn't just about color vision. Mary's room uses color vision to represent conscious experience. If physical science can't entirely explain color vision, then maybe it can't entirely explain other conscious experiences either. For instance, we could know every physical detail about the structure and function of someone else's brain, but still not understand what it feels like to be that person. These ineffable experiences have properties called qualia, subjective qualities that you can't accurately describe or measure. Qualia are unique to the person experiencing them, like having an itch, being in love, or feeling bored. Physical facts can't completely explain mental states like this. Philosophers interested in artificial intelligence have used the knowledge argument to theorize that recreating a physical state won't necessarily recreate a corresponding mental state. In other words, building a computer which mimicked the function of every single neuron of the human brain won't necessarily create a conscious computerized brain. Not all philosophers agree that the Mary's room experiment is useful. Some argue that her extensive knowledge of color vision would have allowed her to create the same mental state produced by actually seeing the color. The screen malfunction wouldn't show her anything new. Others say that her knowledge was never complete in the first place because it was based only on those physical facts that can be conveyed in words. Years after he proposed it, Jackson actually reversed his own stance on his thought experiment. He decided that even Mary's experience of seeing red still does correspond to a measurable physical event in the brain, not unknowable qualia beyond physical explanation. But there still isn't a definitive answer to the question of whether Mary would learn anything new when she sees the apple. Could it be that there are fundamental limits to what we can know about something we can't experience? And would this mean there are certain aspects of the universe that lie permanently beyond our comprehension? Or will science and philosophy allow us to overcome our mind's limitations?

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation	frequency
color vision	5
physical facts	4
knowledge argument	3
thought experiment	2
conscious experience	2
physical explanation	2
mental state	2

Important Words

accurately
activity
agree
allowed
answer
appears
apple
argue
argued
argument
artificial
aspects
based
biology
black
books
bored
brain
brilliant
building
call
called
captured
cells
color
colors
complete
completely
comprehension
computer
computerized
cone
conscious
contradicts
conveyed
correspond
create
day
decided
definitive
describe
describes
description
detail
discovered
display
distinguish
electrical
event
experience
experiences
experiencing
experiment
expert
explain
explanation
extensive
facts
feeling
feels
frank
function
fundamental
hearing
human
humans
imagine
including
ineffable
instance
intelligence
interested
intuitively
itch
jackson
knew
knowledge
learn
learning
lie
light
limitations
limits
lives
love
malfunction
malfunctions
mary
measurable
measure
mental
millions
mimicked
named
necessarily
nerve
neural
neuron
neuroscientist
obvious
optic
overcome
patterns
people
perceiving
perception
permanently
person
philosopher
philosophers
philosophy
physical
physicalism
physics
place
produced
properties
proposed
qualia
qualities
quality
question
reads
recreate
recreating
red
represent
retina
reversed
room
science
screen
screens
sees
show
signals
single
stance
state
states
stimulate
story
structure
subjective
teaches
theorize
theory
thought
time
totally
transcends
travel
types
understand
unique
universe
unknowable
vision
wavelengths
white
words
years