RE: Is there more to consciousnesses than just physics?
nice article. I think I am going to enjoy it a lot to read future articles from you.
I wanted to add one thing to the key question:
"Here's the key question: If we let her out of the room, and she sees a red apple🍎 in colour for the first time, does she learn something new? Does she know something she didn't know before?"
I think that experience is the answer.
She already knew the colour "red". So she is not learning a new thing (the red).
Of course she also don't know something she didn't knew before, for she knows it all.
But when we let her out of that room (at last, poor woman) and she sees this actual red apple, he will experience that what she already knew.
From that point on the only learning she does about it, is how to handle that experience.
On a smaller level you might say her visual part of the brain is learning to connect the info to the new experience, because "red" has never been processed before by the brain.
So a part of the brain is learning to do that, but she as a person isn't learning that.
She just experience a new impuls which she knows, see and feel, but in a whole new way.
(you could even compare this to tripping)
But that is just my humble view on your marvelous article ;)
Philosophers arguing against Jackson make similar points to yours.
But I would still say this - she might know about red, but she doesn't actually know what it looks like! She doesn't know what it's like to experience 'red-ness'.
Either way, I'm glad you liked the article, and if it made you think, then I'm doubly happy.
But by saying:
"She specializes in the neurophysiology of vision and acquires, let us suppose, all the physical information there is to obtain about what goes on when we see ripe tomatoes, or the sky, and use terms like "red", "blue", and so on."
you basically say she does experience the "red-ness" but on a totally different level as you and I.
We have seen the color and been taught it is red, where she learned what red is before ever seeing it. then red is the mere word she has to link to it when te visual part actual sees the red.
She experience something that is the red in this case. But have not linked it to the actual visual of the color itself.
That is a new experience, because if we then tell her that red is blue or green, that is what it is then for her.
Because she experienced something that is true. then, when let out of the room she also experience something that is true. We have a word for that experience, she has not yet.
But she knows she sees red because that is what she has learned, she experience red the same way as she did in that black and white room where she only based it on wavelengths....
She now only has to endure the new impuls of the actual vision of the red....
So she sees what she learned and is experiencing it the same way with the visual exception which is new to her, but not newly learned except the word itself, that as to be linked to the experience.
does she learn something new? No, for she knows what is red and also has experienced red-ness, just not like us.
Does she know something she didn't know before? no, she knew it al the time. she is experiencing a new way of red: the visual experience
I even confuse myself at this point. You certainly got me thinking big time.....cheers for that.
I think I have contradicted myself a few times all ready....
Nah man, you're doing fine. It's getting late here though, so we might have to continue the conversation another day.