Document Type : Research Paper
Author
Master's Degree in Philosohy, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran.
Abstract
What is the relation between phenomenal concepts and physical concepts? In this paper, I try to propose an answer to this question with regard to the Knowledge Argument and Mary Thought Experiment. I neither argue for nor against the knowledge argument. I am not going to prove whether dualism or physicalism is true. All I do is to analyze the Mary Thought Experiment and see if the story of Mary goes smoothly the way the knowledge argument tells us. I argue that Mary's story has at least one crucial inconsistency. If she has learned a completed physical science of optics and neuroscience, then she has no concept of color because physical sciences are just purely mathematical formalizations. Therefore, after release, she can not relate her phenomenal Experience of redness to her physical lessons. Then I argue that for Mary's story to go smoothly the way the knowledge argument tells it, the physical and the phenomenal concepts should be somehow related to each other through an extra course for her. Then I try to define a relation between physical and phenomenal by putting the argument into the formalization of set theory. I conclude that whatever relation one could define between Physical and phenomenal, this relation must be an equivalence relation. Otherwise, the Mary thought experiment would fail, and there would be no need to talk about something as a phenomenal concept independent from the physical. Finally, I argue that this conclusion is compatible with physicalism and dualism both. So, it can set a new stage for the debate between them.
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