CF Debate

Knowledge Arguments

Key ArgumentConceivabilityPhenomenologyAnti-Physicalism

Overview

Mary is a brilliant scientist who knows everything about colour vision: all the physical facts, all the neurocomputational facts, everything functionalism (and computationalism) could say about vision. But she has lived in a black-and-white room her whole life. One day she sees red for the first time. It seems she learns something new: what it's like to see red. So there are facts about conscious experience (qualia) that are not captured by physical, functional, or computational descriptions.

Responses

  1. From the inside of an algorithm being implemented, experiences are generated that can only be experienced by the conscious entity supervening on the algorithm (by assumption of CF). But this does not entail that knowledge of the algorithm from the outside necessarily generates the same experience, even if you might reasonably infer the nature of the experience. (Effectively a CF version of the acquaintance response or indexical knowledge response.)

  2. Mary doesn't gain propositional knowledge but gains a new ability (to recognise or imagine red).

  3. Knowledge arguments not only challenge CF, but also any physicalist theory of consciousness. If we are unwilling to support dualism out of principle, then an optimistic agnostic response could say: "we're not sure what answer addresses knowledge arguments, but one must exist, and that answer should be presumed to support CF (as well as other physicalist positions) until shown otherwise)."

    BUT: This is a weak approach compared to committing to an answer and exploring its feasibility. Moreover, other physicalist theories might have different tools or more plausible claims, so this response is better seen as the start of a discussion than its end.

Further reading