Is there a rule, in the Mary's room argument, against Mary doing some brain/electricity experiments on herself? ... I would expect that such a capable scientist could learn what it feels like to see red objects without any red light going through her eyeballs.
The way I see it, it's possible to learn ways to produce the sensation of red, but still learn something upon seeing red.
If each brain is wired up differently from birth, but in ways that achieve similar functionality, then Mary could only learn aggregate and past statistics about the ways brains responded to seeing red. She could make a good guess about the range of responses her own brain is expected to have upon seeing red. But until she sees red, she doesn't know which response within that range is the one she gets.
As I understood it, Mary is, in the thought experiment, supposed to be very nearly omniscient - she knows EVERY PHYSICAL FACT about color and human perception of color.
My question is whether she's allowed (before exiting the room) to wire her brain up to a machine that stimulates her neurons exactly as if there was a red thing in front of her.
Would you agree that if she were allowed to use such a machine, then she would know which response her brain in fact would have?
http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1192#more-1192
ADDED: Even if you disagree with ESR's take, and many will, this is the clearest definition I have seen on what qualia is. So it should present a useful starting point, even for those who strongly disagree, to argue from.