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torekp comments on Three consistent positions for computationalists - Less Wrong
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You're converting "physicalism" from a metaphysical thesis to an epistemological one, or at least adding an epistemological one. That's not the usual usage of the term.
Since qualia are widely supposed to impact physicalism, and since they don't impact ontological theses such as "everthing is material", then it is likely that people who suppose that way have the descriptive/explanatory/epistemological version in mind, however implictly.
I don't understand how Mary's room is supposed to be epistemologically relevant. Supposing that physicalism is true (and that physics is computable, for simplicity) Mary can run a simulation of herself seeing red and know everything that there is to know about her reaction to seeing red, including a comprehensive description of its phenomenology. Yet, she will still lack the subjective experience of seeing red. But this lack has nothing to do with epistemology in the first place.
It does have something to do with epistemology, because the experience delivers knowledge-by-acquaintance, which is a form of knowledge.
Yes, clearly an experience can deliver knowledge. But does experience yield any additional knowledge over a simulation of same? One could plausibly argue that it does not.