Prof. Jackson came up with the philosophical thought experiment called “Mary’s Room.” In your own words, explain your opinion about happens when Mary leaves the room and sees color for the first time.

Your first post can answer any of the questions I posted below. If you prefer, you can answer multiple questions. So, your first post can either be an extended answer to one question OR can contain several shorter answers. Your first post must be at least 4-5 sentences long. It must also incorporate material from the posted video and/or the weekly reading. If your first post is less than 4-5 sentences and/or does not reference course materials, you will receive no credit for it. Spelling, grammar, and punctuation will not be extensively graded, though your posts need to be clear and well thought out.

Late posts are accepted with a daily deduction of 10% to your grade.

Activity

Watch the 10-minute video on the mind-body problem, and then consider the following discussion questions.

Where Does Your Mind Reside?: Crash Course Philosophy #22Links to an external site.

Discussion Questions

Prof. Jackson came up with the philosophical thought experiment called “Mary’s Room.” In your own words, explain your opinion about happens when Mary leaves the room and sees color for the first time. Do you think Mary learn something new, despite the fact that she already knows all the physical facts about color vision? (note: I’m not looking for “right answers” here, just your opinions and thoughts!)

In recent years, Prof. Jackson changed his opinion about “Mary’s Room.” He later argued in favor of Physicalism, because of new research which showed that there is a specific region of the brain that is associated with perceiving colors. This means there is a physical (brain) explanation for seeing color, and not some unknowable “qualia” that is beyond explanation. Does this information change your opinion about the “Mary’s Room” thought experiment?

Besides the “Mary’s Room” thought experiment, which uses the example of perceiving colors, can you think of another example of “qualia”? Qualia are instances of subjective, first-person experience that are different from physical properties of experiences. Explain your example.

Phineas Gage survived a terrible accident where a metal rod went through his skull, damaging an important part of his brain (the pre-frontal cortex). Why is Phineas Gage interesting to philosophers? How is his situation a good example of the mind-body problem?

The video provides two kinds of examples of Interactionism – where the mind affects the body, and the body affects the mind. Provide a new example, not from the video, of one of these types of mind-body interaction. Explain how the mind can produce an effect on the body in this situation (or vice versa – the body produces an effect on the mind).

Requirements: states in direction