The Path Towards Search for Knowledge - Essay Sample

Introduction

The study of the existing knowledge is one of the most extensive fields whereby intensified research and experiments have been invested, only with a sole intention of finding the underlying truth about a particular phenomenon in the world. Since there are so many areas that require philosophical approaches, philosophers have had to dedicate there precious time towards carrying out in-depth researches in the area of their interest to either ascertain, refute, or even come up with a new truth from the same field of study. There has existed so many believes, hypothesis, fallacies and facts that are either related to a specific cultural community or even religion. Moreover, scientific researches have been carried out in the attempt of ascertaining certain fallacies, since there are so many scientific theories that seem to differ from one another, hence arising the need for researchers work hard toward the revelation of the truth that surrounds the matter or argument. However, knowledge may seem to be a sizeable massive pool of ideas, and thus various arguments always arise from different philosophers, who seek to find out on how the earlier works were done and whether they are reliable or they fit the category of the old truths. As a result, so many arguments arise due to differences in the invested ideas, the methodology of the research that is involved in the process of finding the truth and also due to the introduction of new ideas in the same field of study. This paper is therefore dedicated in the analysis process of Frank Jackson's arguments on physicalism, to prove how right he was in his cases, while also finding the studies that relate to his knowledge and even discussions that may seem to be against the understanding and explanations of rank Jackson. This paper shall, therefore, major its focus on the existence of non-physical knowledge and facts as argued out by Frank Jackson, in his philosophical articles.

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The existence arguments related to physicalism has for so long been the underlying truth behind gaining absolute knowledge as argued out by so many other scholars and philosophers. However, Frank Jackson and other Scholars have gone against the idea of physicalism and embraced on the non-physicalism way of gaining absolute knowledge for a given phenomenon. Thus, this paper shows procedural proves on how right Frank was in is ideology of non-physicalism as the only way that leads to complete attaining of knowledge on a particular field.

Mary's Room and Related Earlier Studies

The room in question is a thought experiment that intends to explain the existence of non-physical materials and also achievable knowledge that is only discoverable via conscious experience. The research is aimed at refuting that the knowledge that already exists is only physical knowledge and nothing else. Frank Jackson ideologies were illuminated and inspired from the earlier works that were done by Broad, Feigl and Thomas Nagel.

According to Broad, several comments that revolved around a thought experiment whereby an archangel seems to be of unlimited mathematical competences. The remarks are as follows:

• Broad could exactly comprehend on what the microscopic configuration of Ammonia should be; however, he wasn't able to give a perfect prediction on how the given substance that has the same structure would smell just like ammonia while smelling by the human nose.
• The utmost Broad could manage to predict on as far as this subject is concerned was that, various changes would end up occurring in the mucous membrane an also the in the olfactory nerves amongst so many other changes.
• However, he could not tell whether the changes would have an appearance of a smell that is general, or a particular, peculiar smell of ammonia, not unless he was informed by someone else or he had to smell it.

Thirty years later, Feigl had the same notion just like that of Broad, whereby he pertains himself to a Martian, learning about human behaviour while lacking the human sentiments. However, Nagel seems to have somehow taken a different approach in his arguments. He adopts that idea of humans attempting to understand the sonar of Bat. He argues that, even when being in possession of the entire physical database of sonar in one's mine, it is too difficult to comprehend and completely be in a position to perceive the sonar system of a bat.

Physicalism Explained

Physicalism is defined as the philosophical position that whatever the material that exists is not beyond its physical characteristics and properties and holds on a given rule that every substance exists is physical. It is also referred to as the Materialistic Monism. Moreover, this principle holds on that, the mind is a purely physical construct, and thus, it can be clearly and fully explained by the physical theory while on its continuous path of evolution. There two major types of physicalism namely: Reductive physicalism and Non-reductive physicalism.

Reductive Physicalism. This type of physicalism ascertains that the stages of mental states and also its properties shall eventually get explained via the scientific basis of the thought process. Under this classification, there lie four distinct types of reductive physicalism.

Firstly, is the behaviourism, which argues that the mental states are a pure description of the observable behaviours and hence it is possible to describe such acts.

Secondly is the Type Identity Theory, which suggests that various classes' mental states are a duplicate of multiple kinds of physical rules of the brain.

The third type is the Token Identity Theory. It holds on a particular thought that various mental states are identical to specific instances of the physical state of the brain.

Finally is the Functionalism, which asserts that certain mental states are solely constituted by the role of function, and thus can be attributed by non-mental properties.

Non-Reductive Physicalism. This type of physicality holds on that, even though the brain is fully committed on its presence to the mind, vocabulary and the predicates that are used for the mental descriptions and elaboration are fundamental to the language lower level descriptions of physical science. Its associated types include; the Anomalous Monism, Emergentism, and Eliminativism.

Mary's Experiment

Through the use of an imaginary character in his arguments, Frank successfully manages to bring out his ideology on physicalism, in a clear manner. He makes use of a neurophysiologist called Mary. Mary performs various thoughtful experiments, whose aim is to show out how important it is to realize that there is no complete understanding of a certain phenomenon with the use of only the physical materials available, but also to make use of non-physical materials for a complete understanding. This concept is equated to that of intuition.

Mary is an excellent and a brilliant scientist who carries out an investigation that involves black and white room, through a black and white television monitor. She is so determined in her field of specialization, an area of the neurophysiology of vision, as argued by Frank Jackson.

During her scientific endeavours, she manages to acquire all the necessary knowledge that relates to physical information. She uses an experiment that involves a tomato, in the attempt of determining what goes on when we get to see a ripe tomato or even the sky. Therefore, such words as "blue" for the sky or "red" for a tomato were keywords in her entire description of the experiment. Mary discovers that there is a certain wavelength combination from the sky which can stimulate the retina. Additionally, also how the entire process ends up facilitating the contraction of the vocal chords and the process lungs undergoes in order to manage air expulsion, which leads in the utterance of the combination of the words "This Sky is blue" and so on, all these processes being managed and controlled via the nervous system.

However, from the experiment, various questions are posed that acts as a guideline toward differentiating the black and white point of perception. The first question queries on what happens when Mary ends up getting released from her ordinary and usual room of perception, or even she is given a coloured TV display? Will Mary also be in a position to learn something or anything at all in such a case? If Mary ends up learning something new out of her past experiences, will this imply that her previous experiences were incomplete? In response to this argument is that Mary ended up learning how it feels to see red as after having seen a red tomato. It is from there, when she had the apparent connection of the reality and imagination and how knowledge widens through a physical encounter with the real objects or reality itself. To summarize Mary's arguments, three significant points of view are essential to mention here. The first one is the assumption that Mary has had all the necessary physical information related to human colour vision slightly before she could be released to the reality itself. Secondly, she had some for the info about human colour that she didn't have right before her exposure. Thus an inference is made to conclude that, not all information is physical. Besides, Frank used yet another example in his article, which involves a person named Fred, whose case is capitalized on a colour that he sees, and that colour is common to normal human perception.

Three Versions of Physicalism Arguments

According to Horgan (1984) physical information, while re-laid in the context of knowledge arguments, it becomes quite ambiguous especially between epistemological and ontological reading. Horgan uses three versions that are presented in a practical way of questioning on the validity of a certain phenomenon, and the extent to which the available truth can be proven beyond reasonable doubt. His arguments were formulated according to the following two distinct ways:

Version 1 (V1), the Weaker Version of the Knowledge

This version takes the following assumptions:

1. Mary is squinted with complete and perfect physical understanding related to the facts about the human colour vision, just within the period that she was not yet released.
2. However, Mary lacks specific knowledge related to human colour vision, the fact she requires before being released.
3. there exists some other kind of experience that pertains human colour vision, and that the knowledge is non-physical.

Version 2 (V2) the Stronger Version of the Knowledge Argument

1. Mary is aware of all the bodily truths about the human colour image, just within the period that she was not yet released.
2. however, she lacks some of the events related to the human colour vision before she is released
3. there exists non-physical facts related to human colour vision.

It can, therefore, agreed upon that, the stronger argument version (3b) is ontological, and physicalists would end up rejecting such a claim. Therefore, the weaker version is then taken to be an epistemological claim that strongly supports the denial of the fact that non-physical facts do exist. Even though the knowledge augment that Jackson presents here is open to critic, and both versions may apply, the weightier conclusion is that.

Had the version 2 or the stronger argument version in his mind while he was experimenting. Mary seems to gain additional knowledge and hence realize about the facts that she didn't know in the past, and thus, intuition via version 2 seems stronger than version one.

Version 3 (V3) The Explicit Formulation of Knowledge Argument

This version is a composition of three premises and two-step conclusion. They are as follows:

Premise P1: Mary completely has a complete understanding of the physical knowle...