Mary's Room

[Demagog]

Here's an interesting thought experiment:

A girl (Mary) has lived her whole life in a black and white room. Those are the only two colors she has ever seen (besides her skin color/hair, but let's assume those are either white or black). She knows everything there is to know about science. Everything. One day she is let out into the world (where there is color). Does she learn anything new?

[icybraker]

Depends on what you mean by "She knows everything there is to know about science". Even if she KNOWS about the colors, she has never experienced it. Suppose I told you there was a 4th dimension, and I told you everything there is to know about it, like the beings that inhabit it and how its rules work. You'd still never really "know" about it, because your whole life, you've been in a three dimensional world and you have a three dimensional mindset.

Same thing applies here. Mary knows about colors, but has never seen them; she will definitely learn stuff.

Another simple answer is this: "Yes, she will learn stuff. Just not science. "

[jmizzle7]

There are different kinds of knowledge here. One is an information-based knowledge, the kind Mary has with regard to science (which apparently is complete). The other is an experience-based knowledge that is incomplete. It doesn't matter what head-knowledge Mary has before she ventures out. Once she sees color for the first time, she will learn visually. She would also need to learn to associate names to the visual representation of color.

This is actually how I learned music. I was born with perfect pitch, the ability reproduce a specific tone without a reference point. When most people learn musical notation, they learn that the note on that specific space is 'A'. But in addition to learning the visual aspect of it, I learned that the note I heard was called 'A'. So every time I hear a note or chord, I know what to call it. This is exactly what Mary will learn when she experiences color for the first time.

[icybraker]

You were born with perfect pitch? >.< You lucky dude.

Yeah, what Jmizzle said.