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Walden Pod
77 - The Knowledge Argument Against Physicalism - A New Angle
Nov 10, 2024
Explore the fascinating tale of Mary, the color scientist, and her intriguing encounters with her cousin Fred and a colorblind neuroscientist. Delve into the limits of physical knowledge and its inability to fully capture conscious experiences. Philip Goff challenges the ability hypothesis and presents 'phenomenal curiosity' as a threat to moderate forms of physicalism. This thought-provoking discussion critiques various responses to the knowledge argument while shedding light on the nature of consciousness.
23:57
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Quick takeaways
- The case of Mary the color scientist illustrates the limitations of physicalism by showing that experiential knowledge cannot be fully captured through physical explanations.
- Philip Goff argues that phenomenal curiosity highlights the inadequacies of the ability hypothesis and phenomenal concept strategy in addressing consciousness.
Deep dives
Knut Nordby's Colorblindness and Scientific Curiosity
Knut Nordby, a Norwegian neuroscientist, exemplifies the complex relationship between scientific understanding and personal experience in color vision. Despite being colorblind, he expressed a deep curiosity about color perception, which parallels the philosophical thought experiment of Mary. Mary, a color scientist trapped in a black-and-white room, gains firsthand knowledge upon experiencing color, highlighting a potential gap in physicalist explanations of consciousness. This scenario illustrates that experiencing color provides insights that purely physical knowledge cannot, challenging the completeness of physicalism.
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