experience that being. Knowledge of the physical, such as the mechanisms of the brain and the kinds of mental states that exist, does not include comprehensive details of smelling a rose, or, put in the “what it’s like” framework, which is used to support the Knowledge Argument, what it’s like to smell a rose. That is, physical information does not “capture the smell of a rose” (Jackson). Relying on purely physical information is failing to acknowledge that more information can be learned because the information cannot be conceptualized and manifested in terms that most scientific physical information is presented. We know “what it’s like” but cannot accurately and comprehensively describe it in physical terms.

Jackson effectively utilizes the example of Mary to create an anti-physicalist, pro-qualia argument. Mary is a neuroscientist who has studied the extended neurophysiology of vision in a black and white room for her entire life. She learns that material on a black and white television screen. She knows the exact wavelength combinations and mechanisms involved in seeing that “the sky is blue” – highly complex scientific information – and claims she knows the same for experiencing the color red. The debate arises when Mary finally leaves the black and white room and actually experiences seeing red for the first time. Will Mary learn something new when sees the color red? The obvious assumption is that Mary will learn something new about the world when she has the experience of seeing the color red. Jackson’s argument is essentially that Mary has all the physical information regarding color vision before she leaves the black and white room, but she nevertheless lacks important information about color vision. Because of this, it can be argued that not all information is physical. Mary learns “what it is like” to see red. Thus, Jackson is partially basing his argument on the “What it is Like to Be” approach, an argument also supported by Thomas Nagel.