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ColonelZen

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  1. One of my peeves. Long since written in detail at http://antiphilosopher.com/wiki/index.php/Mary,_A_Philosopher%27s_Whore_of_Color_and_Her_Knowledge_Problem The gist is fairly simple. Mary does indeed learn something new. And she did "know all there is to know about color ...". The resolution is that this is not a paradox. Information is the correspondence between differing physicalities. The correspondence between unmixed light wave frequencies bouncing off objects and reactions in Mary's brain to distinguish them DID NOT EXIST before she left her cloister. Upon exposure to color new information was created in the universe. If her culture was sufficiently knowlegable she might well have known exactly what new neurons and synapses would develop in her brain, and how quickly, and what new firing patterns woud occur. But just as knowledge of diabetes, say, even down to the molecular level doesn't let the sufferer live without insulin, knowing how her brain will change doesn't change it. Only being exposed to the stimulae that generate the new connections do that. The end result is that yes Mary could know before "all there is to know" and still learn something completely new, because her brain and her biophysical reactions are unique, thus the knowledge of her reactions, i.e ways of experiencing color, are brand new information - a physical change in her brain - that did not exist cloistered. I've a cure for philosopher's flying vermin over on antiphilosopher, too. -- TWZ
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