Spirits (was RE: [extropy-chat] Qualia Bet.)

[gts]

Mary is trapped in a black and white world, but knows every possible bit  
of knowledge about both old and new physics, about biology, and about  
neuroscience. If there is anything that can be known about these subjects,  
she knows it. She knows the physics and neuroscience of color perception,  
for example the color red.

One day she escapes into the world of color and sees red for the first  
time.

Did Mary just acquire additional knowledge about the color red? I think  
so. But it is not intellectual knowledge. It is phenomenal knowledge.

Seems to me that if her brain can acquire phenomenal knowledge separate  
 from intellectual knowledge, then it must contain matter that experiences  
phenomena, and that this matter is separate from the matter that  
intellectualizes about the phenomena. The film sees the color, the chip  
talks about it.

-gts