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When Life Gives You a Brain

Mary's Room: Has the Answer Been in Her Textbook All Along?

21 min • 19 november 2024

Mary's Room, a famous thought experiment, imagines a scientist who learns everything about colour while living in a black-and-white room but has never seen colour herself. For decades, philosophers have used this story to argue that science can't explain consciousness -- but what if science already knows exactly what would happen to Mary? Would Mary herself know that she could never see colour normally, even before leaving her room? And what does this tell us about consciousness?



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