The experiment is flawed in that “Mary knows something new” is very loosely defined. We know new things constantly, to begin with. Our neurons change continuously.
As an example- She’ll immediately have a new memory: “I saw the color red for the first time”. Does that count? What about the emotions she might have felt? Elated. Disappointed. Does that count?
You are “knowing new things” just by reading these words.
There’s also the fact we don’t need a thought experiment for this one. There are rare cases where people have been able to gain sight or hearing via operations or devices. Ask them directly! All of them will say that they had many new thoughts when this happened.
That doesn’t imply that qualia exists at all though:
> she has gained a non-physical fact
She now knows how it feels to see the color red. I don’t think that disqualifies this as a “physical fact”. It could be that the subjective experience can be explained in physical terms, but we humans just not have figured it out. In that case Mary would not have that on her notes, would her? After all, this is a complex problem, I don’t expect conscience to be easily explainable in 2 or 3 lines, the same way that “how does the Linux kernel work?” can’t.
As an example- She’ll immediately have a new memory: “I saw the color red for the first time”. Does that count? What about the emotions she might have felt? Elated. Disappointed. Does that count?
You are “knowing new things” just by reading these words.
There’s also the fact we don’t need a thought experiment for this one. There are rare cases where people have been able to gain sight or hearing via operations or devices. Ask them directly! All of them will say that they had many new thoughts when this happened.
That doesn’t imply that qualia exists at all though:
> she has gained a non-physical fact
She now knows how it feels to see the color red. I don’t think that disqualifies this as a “physical fact”. It could be that the subjective experience can be explained in physical terms, but we humans just not have figured it out. In that case Mary would not have that on her notes, would her? After all, this is a complex problem, I don’t expect conscience to be easily explainable in 2 or 3 lines, the same way that “how does the Linux kernel work?” can’t.