Peterdjones comments on Three consistent positions for computationalists - Less Wrong

5 Post author: dfranke 14 April 2011 01:15PM

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Comment author: dfranke 15 April 2011 04:38:26PM *  0 points [-]

My conclusion in the Mary's room thought experiment doesn't challenge either of these versions: something new happens when she steps outside, and there's a perfectly good purely physical explanation of what and why. It is nothing more than an artifact of how human brains are built that Mary is unable to make the same physical thing happen, with the same result, without the assistance of either red light or appropriate surgical tools. A slightly more evolved Mary with a few extra neurons leading into her hippocampus would have no such difficulty.

Comment author: Peterdjones 15 April 2011 06:40:08PM *  0 points [-]

Mary still doesn't have to make anything special happen to her brain have knowledge of anything else. She can still understand photosynthesis without photosynthesising.

Comment author: dfranke 15 April 2011 11:43:49PM *  1 point [-]

She can understand the sequence of chemical reactions that comprises the Calvin cycle just as she can understand what neural impulses occur when red light strikes retinal rods, but she can't form the memory of either one occurring within her body.

Comment author: Peterdjones 16 April 2011 07:12:59PM 1 point [-]

Which, yet again, only matters if there is something special about qualia that requires memory or instantiation in the body to be understood. She can understand the Calvin Cycle full stop.