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Religion & Theology
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Essay
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English (U.S.)
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Topic:

Explain Jackson's Mary thought experiment

Essay Instructions:
Topic 2 Explain Jackson's Mary thought experiment. What argument does Jackson base on this experiment? Is his argument sound? Why or why not? Be sure to address (at least) the following issues: Does Mary learn something new when she has her first color experience? If so, what kind of knowledge does she gain? Does the Mary case threaten materialism? Course Material: Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings Author: David J. Chalmers
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Mary`s room
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Mary`s room argument
In Frank Jackson's famous thought experiment, Mary is educated though a black and white books and television. This occurs in a black and white room. Here, she learns everything there is to know about the physical world. If then, the doctrine of physicalism (the doctrine that everything is physical) is true then Mary seems to know all is there is to know. She knows all the physical facts about us and our surroundings, in a wide wisdom of ‘physical` which includes all in completed physics, chemistry, and neurophysiology, and all there is to recognize about the fundamental and relational information consequent upon all this, including of course practical roles (Loar, 1990).
Then finally, Mary emerges from her black and white room and sees a red color for the first time; his argument says that she, Mary, comes to know a new fact about color and therefore dismissing the physicalism argument. If then, physicalism was true then Mary knew everything in this world which was not the case. The argument say Mary come to learn of new things upon her release, the red color which then gives a conclusive evident denying physicalism theory. In this argument, Jackson presents his arguments systematically as follows: Mary in here experiment room knows everything she was supposed to know, physical, about other people; however, Mary before her release does not know everything because after her release she comes to learn about other attributes. Hence, there are other truths about herself and other people which physicalist missed. This argument (Jackson Mary argument) remains one of the most important and controversial arguments in philosophy. It is referred to as knowledge argument (Loar, 1990).
The knowledge argument, bases its argument into two premises that were used to argue that Mary actually come to learn about other people after her release. The first premises, she (before her release) knows all physical there is to know about other people and secondly, she (before her release) does not know all there is to know about other people (because she learns something about them on her release). This idea was also brought forth in the 17th century by philosopher John Locke wrote that he thought it will be decided easily that if a child was kept in a situate where he only saw any other color other than black and white till he was a grown up man, than he would have no more ideas of yellow or green (Nemirov, 1990).
The knowledge argument, cannot be regarded as sound because it only invites the reader or the audience to imagine Mary who is a brilliant neuroscientist has spent all her entire lifetime in a room where she learns only visible colors are black and white. This was facilitated through the use a black and white monitor, and there after she came to know all about the physical facts about a color image. These facts only include the character of informal r...
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