Subjective Quality, Qualia, and Knowledge Arguments (Vocabulary Flashcards)

Vocabulary flashcards covering key concepts from the lecture notes on color perception, subjective experience, the knowledge argument, and Dennett’s critique.

Subjective color experience

The idea that color perception is tied to an observer’s personal experience, which can differ between people even when physical stimuli are the same.

Color inversion thought experiment

A hypothetical where waking up to inverted color mappings (e.g., red perceived as blue) occurs without any physical changes.

Objectively subjective (definitively subjective)

The claim that there is a subjective element to experience even though there is an objective physical world.

Zombie argument

The notion that a physically identical world could lack consciousness; its conceivability challenges physicalism.

Conceivability vs. possibility

The idea that something may be imaginable (conceivable) but not logically or physically possible; conceivability does not imply possibility.

Mary’s Knowledge Argument

Frank Jackson’s claim that Mary learns what it is like to see color upon seeing color, despite knowing all physical facts beforehand, challenging physicalism.

Mary intuition

The intuition that Mary will gain first-person knowledge of color experience when exposed to color, used to support nonphysical aspects of experience.

Epistemic vs. Merry intuition

A distinction where the epistemic intuition questions whether knowledge of experience can be deduced from physical facts, while the merry intuition asserts it is obvious Mary will learn what it’s like.

Churchland’s critique

Argues Mary’s new knowledge is a new type of physical knowledge, not nonphysical; attributes issues to equivocation on “knows”.

Dennett’s critique

Argues the knowledge argument rests on misleading intuitions; maintains physicalism can explain color knowledge and introduces RoboMary as a counterexample.

Intuition pump

A thought experiment meant to elicit strong intuition; Mary’s room and the Chinese room are classic examples and can mislead if not analyzed carefully.

RoboMary

Dennett’s hypothetical robot Mary with color vision that is fully explained by physical processes; used to argue that color knowledge can be physical and that no nonphysical qualia are required.

Blue Banana alternative

Dennett’s original thought experiment in which Mary is shown a blue banana to probe whether she would have prior expectations about color; later complemented by RoboMary.

Qualia

The subjective, first-person properties of experience—the ‘what it is like’ aspect that some philosophers argue is nonphysical.