Person descriptions. Philosopher Frank Jackson, an anti-physicalist, proposes the knowledge argument against physicalism, which goes as follows:

Suppose that there is a brilliant neuroscientist, let's call her Mary, who for her whole life has lived in a black and white room. Now Mary has learned every physical fact about everything there is to know in life. She's observed the outside world and learned these physical facts by watching other people's experiences and reactions yet all in black and white. One day she is let out of the colorless room and sees a red rose for the first time. Despite the fact that she knows everything physical there is to know about roses and people's reactions to roses, she still learns something new at the instant she sees the color red for the first time.

This knowledge argument can be summed up as so:

P1: If physicalism is true, then one can know all the f

Jackson's argument is pretty convincing in supporting the anti-physicalist view. However, philosopher Levine comes back with a strong argument declaring the knowledge argument as true in one sense yet false in another. Levine's problem stems from the way Mary supposedly "learns" the new information. He agrees that perhaps Mary doesn't learn any new facts, yet argues that she learns old facts in new ways. He believes that the reaction a person has when seeing red for the first time can be explained purely using physical information. Therefore Mary, knowing all physical information, would learn nothing new. However he agrees that Mary could learn something in a new way.

P2: Mary knows all physical information.

P3: When she experiences red she learns something new

Levine claims that Jackson's problem is that he trying to make an epistemological issue into a metaphysical one without an adequate explanation. This explanatory gap makes Jackson's knowledge argument not completely sound. By saying that Mary "learns something new", Jackson is implying that phenomenal properties are physical ones. Yet Levine points out that although Jackson shows that they could be identical, there is no explanation to back it up. Since we can't know that phe

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 843
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)