The
(ontological) knowledge argument: Mary knows all the physical
facts knowable concerning
human color vision before her release from a black-and-white room.
Upon release she experiences color, e.g. a tree with green leaves,
for the first time and says 'wow!'.
The question is did Mary acquire any new information upon release?
"It
seems just obvious that she will learn something about the world and
our visual experience of it. But then is it inescapable that her
previous knowledge was incomplete. But she had all the
physical information possible. Ergo there
is more to have than that, and (a type of) Physicalism is false."
(to paraphrase how it's put in the Stanford Encyclopedia
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia-knowledge/.
The
parallel temporal argument: Xerxes knows all the knowable facts
concerning time before his release from a block-world
room. Upon release he experiences 1. an ontologically privileged
present, and 2. temporal flow, for the first time, and says 'wow!'.
The question is did Xerxes acquire any new information upon release?
Clearly
most B-theorists and Block-worlder's would answer 'no', paralleling
Materialists, and most A-theorists and Presentists would answer 'yes'
paralleling Dualists.
Not paraphrase but adapted from.
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