Peterdjones comments on Seeing Red: Dissolving Mary's Room and Qualia - Less Wrong

38 Post author: orthonormal 26 May 2011 05:47PM

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Comment author: Peterdjones 31 May 2011 05:13:15PM 0 points [-]

Mary's situation is similar: Mary is perfectly capable of anticipating any experience related to color, and "seeing red" doesn't change

"Anticipating colour" is vague. She may be able to anticipate "I will see red" without anticipating what it looks like.

that, but allows her to use the functionality built in her hardware much more efficiently, replacing costly and slow verbal reasoning. So Mary's functionality hasn't changed - she's been refactored, and is reacting to that.

Since she knows everything about neurology, why can't she figure out how the refactoring will change her phenomenology? Or can she?