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Phenomenal Knowledge without Experience

“…Unger imagines that scientists construct a man who is "cell-part for cell-part, cell for cell, nervous structure for nervous structure identical to" a man who both knows what it's like to see red and has come upon this knowledge the ordinary way (Unger 1966: 50). Others (e.g., Lewis 1988, Alter 1998, Stoljar 2005 imagine cases in which surgeons operate on a person who has never seen red, creating brain structures similar to those found in the brains of people who have seen red.…”

“…But this thesis also seems doubtful. Peter Unger (1966) devised plausible counterexamples over four decades ago, and since then others (e.g., Lewis 1988, Alter 1998, Stoljar 2005) have done the same. One could have phenomenal knowledge of color experiences without having such experiences.…”

Grounding physicalism and the knowledge argument

“…However, one might think that it does commit us to a closely related thesis, namely, that Mary could not have known Δ without undergoing an experience of red. Indeed, there are philosophers who have rejected premise 1 by defending precisely this claim (see Alter 1998; Flanagan 1992; Howell 2007, 2008, 2009; cf. Crane 2003, 2019).…”

The philosophy of phenomenal consciousness

“…The knowledge argument has created a great deal of literature, mostly constituted by attempts to defend physicalism by challenging the thought experiment. Some philosophers claim that Mary could not have all the physical facts in the first place (Alter, 1998), while others argue that Mary's new knowledge is made true by physical facts she already knew (Lycan, 1996). Another physicalist tactic involves denying that Mary acquires new factual knowledge at all: instead she has perhaps gained a set of abilities (Lewis, 1983) or 'become acquainted' with color experience (Conee, 1994).…”