Epiphenomenal Qualia/What Mary Didn’t Know” and “Postscript on Qualia”
(1) Jackson (in “Epiphenomenal Qualia” and in “What Mary Didn’t Know”) and Chalmers (in “The Hard Problem of Consciousness” and “The Puzzle of Conscious Experience”) both argue against physicalism. (You may take the thesis Jackson calls “physicalism” to be the same as the one Chalmers calls “materialism.”) Jackson, in a subsequent article, “Postscript on Qualia,” now argues for physicalism essentially on the ground that we should not “have opinions that outrun what is required by the best theory of those opinions’ causal origins.” What do you think he means by this? If physicalism is true, where do you think the knowledge argument and the zombie argument go wrong? If physicalism is false, what do you think is the flaw in Jackson’s later argument for it? (Make sure to define clearly what you think Jackson and Chalmers mean by “physicalism,” i.e. materialism.)
regards to the osmosis of pieces into lumps. Mill operator recognizes pieces and lumps of data, the differentiation being that a piece is comprised of various pieces of data. It is fascinating to take note of that while there is a limited ability to recall lumps of data, how much pieces in every one of those lumps can change broadly (Miller, 1956). Anyway it's anything but a straightforward instance of having the memorable option huge pieces right away, somewhat that as each piece turns out to be more natural, it very well may be acclimatized into a lump, which is then recollected itself. Recoding is the interaction by which individual pieces are 'recoded' and allocated to lumps. Consequently the ends that can be drawn from Miller's unique work is that, while there is an acknowledged breaking point to the quantity of pieces of data that can be put away in prompt (present moment) memory, how much data inside every one of those lumps can be very high, without unfavorably influencing the review of similar number
Sample Solution
In “Postscript on Qualia,” Jackson proposes that physicalism should be accepted because we shouldn't “have opinions that outrun what is required by the best theory of those opinions’ causal origins.” In other words, one should accept physicalism as true if it has been established to be the best theory regarding its causal origin. In this case, physicalism is argued to be the best explanation for consciousness and thus should be accepted.
The knowledge argument and zombie argument both suggest that since conscious experience cannot be reduced to purely physical terms it implies that there must exist something beyond physics which explains these phenomena- aka qualia or subjective experience. However Jackson believes that by accepting a well-established physicalist account of our world we can explain certain aspects of consciousness without having to appeal to a mysterious external force.
Essentially, he argues that while it may seem impossible at first, once we accept certain facts about neuroscience/psychology and how the brain works; then it becomes easier to understand why certain mental states occur in response to our environment rather than being caused by some unknowable third entity.
Therefore, while arguments like the knowledge argument or zombie argument may appear convincing at first glance; they ultimately fail due to their reliance on an unknown source for explaining conscious experiences when better explanations exist within existing science & philosophy frameworks such as physicalism/materialism etc.