So I've switched topics for the philosophy of mind paper. Seems I often switch topics. I start thinking and reading about one topic, but then I get drawn to something else. In reading around for the one topic, there's often something that grabs my interest more than the original topic. Sometimes I make a few switcheroos before I finally settle on something.
Now that I think about it, I wonder if switching paper topics is just a subconscious way to procrastinate actually writing the paper? I could see that. But how would I know? I could just say that I'm following my topical bliss when I move from one topic to another. Or that if there's a topic that moves me more than the original topic, then I should write on the moving topic bc it's more interesting to me so I'll be more interested in thinking, reading and writing about it. I suppose it could be these things and still be a subconscious means of procrastination. Hmm. I'd better add navel gazing to this post's categories.
One of my late papers is for phil of religion. My first topic was around Roger White's "Epistemic Permissiveness" article. Now the topic is around God's goodness. I'm sure I moved through a few other topics before finally settling on this. Wrt those late papers, both professors very kindly said they'd still take them. Quite the bit of luck, that.
I wonder if there isn't something positive to just sticking with a topic or being assigned a topic and just setting out to write the paper already. Maybe one day I'll find out!
I switched from Nagel's bats to Chalmers's zombies (briefly) before settling on Jackson's Mary and his knowledge argument. In his "Epiphenomenal Qualia", Jackson argues the following:
- Before her release, Mary has all the physical knowledge about human vision there is to have.
- There's some knowledge about human vision that she doesn't have before her release.
- Therefore, not all knowledge is physical knowledge.
"And the polemical strength of the Knowledge argument is that it is so hard to deny the central claim that one can have all the physical information without having all the information there is to have."
There's something about that #2 that bothers me, but I haven't yet put my finger on it. It seems like he's sneaking in something...maybe an assumption...or perhaps an equivalence...or a characterization of knowledge...there's something tucked in there that I don't care for. I'm thinking it has to do with the knowledge that Mary obtains upon her release and seeing in color. I'm thinking I don't like that idea of knowledge. But there is something new going on when Mary comes out of her room and sees colors for the first time. Is that knowledge? If it is, what kind of knowledge is it? And, even if it is some kind of knowledge, is it really a problem for physicalism? If it isn't knowledge, what is it? And, whatever it is, does it still pose a problem for physicalism?
#1 is a little bothersome, too. This business about saying Mary has all the physical knowledge about human vision and then saying that she doesn't bc she gains some new knowledge when she sees color for the first time. It strikes me that the two premises don't lead to the conclusion, but rather presuppose it. The argument is supposed to prove that physicalism is false, but how do they know that, say, Mary, while she's still in her black and white room, can't have her brain stimulated in such a way that results in her seeing color? If that was possible, then Mary would know that and could undergo that while still in her room. And this observation strikes me as a little odd, so I'm thinking I must misunderstand something in there. Although maybe there's supposed to be something further to know. Maybe it's a difference between undergoing that brain stimulation and seeing color instead of knowing that that would do the trick. But is there really a difference?
I think some people think that this idea that maybe Mary doesn't have all the physical information about human vision can be avoided by saying that God knows everything about human vision. I'm not sure how that's supposed to help. Assuming that God exists and created everything just like we typically think of a creator god, then God is omniscient and of course knows everything about everything, including human vision. But if you plug God into P2, that doesn't make sense bc God can't not know something. Even if you think that perhaps God can't know what it's like for a human to see something in color, there are ways around that. God is omnipotent, so he could imagine what it's like for a human to see color. Or God could take human form and then he'd see as a human, not like a human. Maybe I've got it wrong wrt what attributing complete physical knowledge to God is supposed to do.
Maybe the idea is supposed to run like Kripke's asking if God had to do something extra to make c-fibers and pain identical: did God have to do something extra to make physical knowledge all there is to know? Hmm, I don't know if that's a correct transfer of the idea. I have to go over the reasoning there bc I recall thinking, when I read it, that there seemed to be room for arguing the other way, i.e., that the c-fibers and pain could be used somehow to argue for physicalism. But, alas, I don't recall why I thought that.
Back to it, then.
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