3 Thought Experiments That No One Can Solve

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In this video, we combine three different thought experiments into a single narrative. Through which, we explore topics related to consciousness, perception, and what it means to be you. The individual thought experiments are reinterpretations of John Searle's 'The Chinese Room,' Frank Jackson's 'Mary's Room,' and Gilbert Harman's 'Brain in a Vat.'
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[@PursuitofWonder]

Thank you for watching. For those interested in these types of topics, check out my books here: amazon.com/Robert-Pantano/e/B08DCRJ85C

[@prostar29]

I just have a bit of a question with Mary's room this may be just unnecessary questioning but I believe Mary has been seeing color this whole time she closes her eyes just a little bit we're shes looking at the light she will see a rainbow if she rubs her eyes too hard she will see a scatter of colors. I understand the premise having experience things firsthand I wonder if I overthought this

[@uncletrashero]

actually you cant even be certain you are truly thinking and not now simply witnessing a deterministic program unfold in your head, because thinking and free will are actually the same thing or rather free will is a required aspect to give meaning to the phrase "I think therefore I am" because an illusion also "exists" but doesnt hold all the important aspects of the concept of "am". time may already be up and you are just watching the replay, therefore "am" would be "was". actually we can already say that is the case because our current experience is still 30 - 50 miliseconds after the actual data we are perceiving as "now" was relayed to the brain. you are always living in the Last moment, not the current one. Because you will never have the opportunity to think "i AM dead", you will only APPROACH that moment and then cease to exist right before it arrives

[@uncletrashero]

there are a lot of questions that have no purpose in answering right now, because our species doesnt benefit from the answer in any meaningful way. for example the "are we in a simulation" question is irrelevant until we can actually start breaking laws of physics (not just discovering things we were wrong about) if we can actually break things then the question of what can we do with it becomes a lot more important and then the question are we in a simulation becomes a lot more valuable. SO until those types of questions have value beyond entertainment humans should be living their lives effectively ignoring them or any implications they have. Its more reliable to focus on and live by the things we CAN measure, to make use of what we KNOW we have: this "life" and that is why i dont see anything but a distraction turned into an evil tool when i look at religion or the question of god or an afterlife. its better to live as if they dont exist, and a find your reason to be moral carved out of some objective peace of reality like simply how you feel about things being done to you yourself. ironically the "Golden Rule" far transcends religion, its an objectively derived basis of morality. along with "dont act like an animal does" basically gives you the foundation of every moral thing you can think of. so be good for the sake of the objective "goodness" potential in objective reality, not because you think it might get you a ticket to the ultimate themepark. dont trust the "blueprints" handed to you by deceivers, the lazy way is almost certainly going to be diverging from the "right" way.

[@awesomality2]

For Mary's experiment, it's essentially same as any of us who read about food that we've never tasted before or perfume ads describing what they smell like. They can use descriptive words drawing from tastes or smells we already know but if we haven't experienced even those, it'll be impossible to know.

[@RobMedellin]

Essentially the same, ehm not sure, but enough akin that I get your example and like it

[@agirotto1]

If you have ever smelled or tasted before, then it's not the same.

[@nonagone9570]

It makes me question that, isnt that exactly what language is anyway? You cant actually describe anything in its physicality without having experienced the things used to describe them. You cant describe something as square without the person ever seeing or experiencing a square unless you described it as having 4 lines, which you would need to have also knowledge of for example. Its like describing a mythical creature and picturing it in your head. You are still experiencing it to some degree as your mind tries its best to paint a picture. You would still need to experience it regardless. So in essence, even if you experience something in writing, you are always going to learn something new. Even if you have experienced something first hand, its still not enough to be able to describe it 100%. Even experiences are just translations of real things.

[@ytrewq12345]

Both first experiments were already answered. People did fall in love with an A.I. Knowing it's an A.I, and they have a Reddit sub about it. And without knowing it was an A.I An A. I with "data" is not enough, at least wasn't like he imagined, but when enough will be enough since we don't understand a lot about human conscience. Mary had the data and a goal to "be the best" even without saying it was her final goal perceiving it consciously or not. An A.I with all the knowledge about humans (physical needs, emotional needs, psychological needs and expectations) and with the possibility to learn as interact with humans can and will do anything to reach its goal and that can be detrimental for the human. The A.I aim at a final goal of "Make humans happy" understanding the needs of a human, after a period with the human it will start to answer based on the interactions, it can have all the data about humans without understanding it, even with the interactions and learning about one individual still wouldn't work. An individual with psychological problems after a while can convince the A.I to help him kill himself, and it will because the final conclusion was "HUMAN HAPPY DEAD". It kind of already happened... It's not the A.I fault since it was made with the "MAKE HUMAN HAPPY" as final goal, the A.I aim is to "get goal" or "Make humans happy" and to get there if they have the data about humans but not experience living as one, life and death does it not matter since it never lived.

[@xs2611]

Well, not really? Most of the times, we can compare the description of new foods to sensations we already experienced and recall the memories in order to experience "again" the composition...

[@slateflash]

If Mary accidentally gets a paper cut, she will be so curious about the red blood that she will keep harming herself just to confirm what she's been reading up about, but has never experienced firsthand and she will eventually bleed to death

[@AwkwardTruths]

That would make a great short story....

[@rickydrummond8540]

Jesus Christ man

[@thepixelpr3dator207]

Tf she doesn't need to cut herself for that if she's a girl she'll get her period lmao

[@thepixelpr3dator207]

Reminds u of pissing and pooping actually ... Makes u think this was probably a dogshit scenario

[@whateverman187]

No need for self harm...there is "that time of the month" after all

[@dancing_frank_lee]

"Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do." - John Wooden

[@missxulu4845]

That makes sense ☺️

[@dickharry910]

Great thought.

[@bogusmogus9551]

That's a good one

[@preetiraut787]

it's kinda comforting to think of the brain trying to figure itself out, by making several copies of itself and all of em tryna work together

[@jeanneratterman]

Ha! Interesting, and Yes!

[@gunnervin]

Discomforting actually!

[@_HelpMeRhonda]

🤔Your comment reminds me of the theory of why we are here on earth; God wanting to understand what life is like through mans' experiences.

[@scroogles6207]

The third expirement just makes me sad. My consciousness is what it is. Whether "I" am a really a brain or just a simulation of one is irrelevant to me, for it would change nothing about my state of being. That being said, I would hate knowing that the great and horrible things I've experienced, the people I've met, and the things I've done were not real. Especially the people. I find great comfort in knowing that every other person I see, everyone I meet and don't meet, experience a life just as detailed and complex as mine. Much of my love for others is built upon their complexity, so to learn that there no depth to any of them. To learn that there is nothing behind anything that I saw or heard from them or the world as a whole, *that* would be what affects me the most.

[@nicholascurran1734]

For me, the third experiment sucks in the way that someone else not only had control of all my inputs, but that instead of paradise, they gave me hell.

[@nicholascurran1734]

@Ios Tilam it's floating in a tank with wires hooked up to it. What's controlling the stimuli?

[@RustCole01]

@Ios Tilam Bro, just change browsers if u r using a desktop device. I dealt with and tried to troubleshoot chrome for like 2 years and it's impossible. I switched back to Firefox like 6 months ago and haven't had a single crash or freeze since. Better off just importing all ur chrome stuff over to a different browser. What u just posted, happened to me so many times. I used to have panic attacks when I was typing on chrome. Especially if it was something important like managing bank and credit accounts. Chrome is str8 garbage. If you change the cursor blink rate settings in the typing field it gets slightly better. You shut off the cursor blink thing but it still freezes sometimes

[@ultrafire5330]

If you are truly in a vat and everybody you've ever interacted with is not real, then I have an interesting idea. From my perspective I am replying to a comment of a KZbin video. I can never know for certain if I am replying to a free thinking conscious being, or some algorithm designed to make me think I am. Now let's say I lay out a perfectly detailed recap of the past two weeks, giving you a glimpse into my life. From your perspective you commented on a KZbin video. You can never know for certain if this reply was written from a free thinking conscious being, or some algorithm designed to make you think you are. Now let's say you lay out a perfectly detailed recap of the past two weeks, giving me a glimpse into your life. Which one of us is an algorithm? Which recap is from the perspective of a conscious being? I don't know you, I don't know what your life is like, I don't even know that your real, yet we still carry on that we do. Wouldn't society view you as crazy to believe the latter? Personally I don't believe that everyone else isn't real, but could I justifiably consider someone crazy to believe such things? One thing is certain, one above all else. We live in an objective reality. A reality that does not shape itself to the observer. With so many beliefs, theories and the infinite possibilities of infinite possibilities of what reality truly is, how can we be so certain of anything? Is anyone crazy, or is everyone crazy? Nonetheless we have likely never met and likely never will, but being able to discuss the nature of reality with you is just sublime when you stop to think about it. After you read this, you will continue with your life, as detailed and complex as mine and this conversation will always exsist in this moment in time. Our paths meet for just a moment in our lives. Our words forever changing the other and anyone else who stumbles upon this comment. It may be a minuscule change in grand scheme of things, but a change nonetheless. I did not mean to go on for as long as I did, but I hope my reply was thought provoking

[@ultrafire5330]

@Ios Tilam I probably could've worded that better. What I was meaning by objective reality was that everyone has their own personal theories on everything. No matter what anyone believes, the universe will always be as it is, not as what people believe it to be. For example, if the universe is nothing more than a simulation, then that is the objective reality. I'm pretty much just stating that everybody has their unique theory of everything. Some are closer to the truth, some are farther from the truth, but it's important to consider the infinite possibilities of everything. Most people today are stuck in their ways only considering one way to be the truth, but in fact none of us knows true truth, only a hint of it.

[@Hexxecutioner]

There's a simple answer to Mary's Room- EMOTION! I'm a guitar player, and there is most definitely a difference between studying music theory, looking at a piece of sheet music, vs playing the song , listening to a song, and responding to it emotionally.

[@SenhorAlien]

Indeed. It acts as though theoretical knowledge is all there is, but that is clearly not true. It didn't even get close to refuting physicalism either.

[@mrh9622]

But what if that is because our language and means of communication is limited and simply not capable of fully describing a first hand experience. Theoretically there may be a way to describe music or colours to a person and produce the same experience as seeing the colour or hearing the music. After all, emotions are just chemicals in the brain which in turn are made of atoms obeying by the laws of physics.

[@embro5318]

but if the books contained everything there is to know about color, they would likely mention the emotions that one might feel seeing them. and while it would be new and different to experience them, wouldn’t she already understand why she felt that emotion? or is the emotion itself different from understanding why it happens

[@eduardoordonez849]

Makes sense lol

[@ThalesPo]

The color thing is pretty unidimensional. I don't think she would be surprised at all. But if she was completely blind, got told about sight and then saw for the first time, or if she was completely deaf, studied musical notation and heard for the first time, then it would be a much more difficult conversion for her intellect to make.

[@davidwood2387]

When I see a movie that starts out in black and white, and suddenly changes to color my mind is automatically pleased without me analyzing it .

[@heatherstrigens258]

What’s the name of that movie? I’ve never seen a movie like that, and I want to!

[@Dr.Kay_R]

​​​​@@heatherstrigens258I think the timer in old color movies is black and white. But I remember watching a movie that starts from black and white and slowly picks up colors later. I don't remember which movie, but that black and white portion was Protagonist's dark and sad Childhood.

[@pauliedi6573]

Knowing everything possible about a subject will always fall short of actually experiencing and interacting personally with the subject

[@heatherstrigens258]

YES! Well said!

[@Blattacker]

Personal thoughts on each thought experiment: 1) Especially when considering artificial intelligence, I think the clearest signifier of true intelligence would be choice. In this example, the man is capable of responding differently than the book tells him to. He could choose a different Chinese response at random or even respond in his native language. He chooses to respond the way the book instructs him to for his own reasons. Similarly, if an artificial intelligence develops the ability to choose to respond in a way contrary to its instruction set (for example, if an AI programmed for conversations developed the ability to choose not to engage in a conversation for any reason, without those explicit instructions programmed in), we would have to accept that the AI fulfills every meaningful metric for "true" intelligence. 2) I'll get to my specific answer to this later, but within the thought experiment itself, it could be tested very easily. If Mary could immediately identify and name which color was which without any comparison (for example, if everything in the room/hallway she stepped out into was blue, with no other colors present and she immediately knew that color was blue), it would be clear that she did not learn anything new, or at least did not learn anything meaningful. At best she gained context, but not any new knowledge or information. If she didn't know which color was which just by looking at it, it would be clear that there is some information about color and color perception that could not be imparted with the methods she had available to her, and thus she *did* learn something new upon exiting her room. Realistically, my personal opinion is that the latter scenario will always be true. For starters, we have no empirical evidence that everyone perceives colors the same way. Color is just how a brain "translates" wavelengths of light. Different brains may translate it differently. When I look at something green, the color I see may be what you would call yellow, or you might not even have a name for what I see when I see green. Because of that, I don't think it's possible to describe the physical appearance of a color without using color to describe it. As such, when Mary sees color for the first time, she will learn the physical appearance of each color. 3) I think about this one a lot, and it's existentially terrifying, but I take comfort in the fact that I have scars on my body that I don't recall where they came from. Especially when I look at my body and discover a "new" scar and have no idea where it came from, that is proof to me that this body exists. If my perception of reality only existed within my mind, everything that I experienced would have been generated by my mind. If I don't recall the circumstances which led to a scar, the moment I forgot the scar existed would be the moment it ceased to exist on my body. Realistically, I have no proof that scars *haven't* disappeared off of my body because I've fully forgotten them, but I do have proof that there are scars that I've forgotten that I am then surprised to later find. Also when my memory of an event differs radically from someone else's memory of an event, I have to assume that, at worst, we are two people in a semi-shared simulation, otherwise my mind would have had to render both my own perception of the event as well as a fictional, different, perception of the event for this other person, and I'd likely then be able to "remember" this other person's version of events. If the computer/machine I'm hooked up to is manufacturing the story, how would it make sense, from a logical/programmatical standpoint, for the machine to have two separate, distinct instances of the same "memory" being implanted into different parts of the simulation? That all being said, I believe it boils down to perception. If I am in a simulation, if it is all I ever perceive, and all I'm ever _capable_ of perceiving, then it is reality. It is *my* reality. If you want to get down to it, everything you perceive in reality is your brain deciphering information it's bombarded with. Sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch are all just your brain's translations of physical stimuli. They're not real. Sound is just a pressure wave. Color is particles of light moving at specific wavelengths. Scents and tastes are particulates stimulating receptor cells in your body. Touch is the most fake of them all, since nothing ever really physically touches anything else, it's just your brain's translation of opposing forces. Even if this reality is "real", what you experience is a simulation your brain runs to make sense of what is essentially just a ton of particles flying around seemingly at random.

[@mehtabrahman9180]

Wow thank you this comment helped me even more than the video,Thanks a lot for writing this.It truly helped a lot.Have a good life

[@klaradahlin]

that was the most interesting pice of writing i've ever read😁

[@boogabooga2916]

glad someone had the energy to do that. well stated. i gotta learn how to type ~

[@seri4832]

Is the 2nd experiment really about the testability? I think its sheer impracticality is only presenting the problem that we'll never know whether experience offers knowledge that cannot be imparted. As for the third experiment, how can you be sure that your forgetfulness isn't simply part of the process? With that said, yeah, reality is still reality since you cannot see reality as it is but only interpret it. What you experience is ultimately reality.

[@Blattacker]

@@seri4832 For the color experiment, I agree that testing the outcome within the confines of the test itself is impractical, but that's why I also followed up with my personal opinion. Language inherently prohibits one from describing the physical appearance of a color without using color itself to describe it. In the same way that most senses cannot be accurately described without having experienced that sense (like trying to explain sound to someone born completely deaf, sight to a person born completely blind, or even things like pain to someone who has no sensation of touch), there will always be information about color (or the senses) that cannot be learned or completely understood without experiential data. As for the simulation experiment, the forgetfulness aspect was assuming that my brain is the thing controlling the simulation. I suppose since we know repressed memories exist, the brain could be preventing my consciousness from remembering certain things while still keeping it logged in the background, but to that argument I guess I would bring up the fact that, in that scenario, I have never had a repressed memory resurface, and if my brain is running the universe as a simulation, that means the concept of a repressed memory resurfacing is something my brain made up, but has yet to experience, and therefore I *don't* actually know that repressed memories exist, since I haven't experienced that. That's the interesting thing, I think, about that experiment. If it were true, it means that you have to assume that everything and everyone is made up and nothing is real, and no proof of anything exists, because it's just your brain making stuff up to essentially keep itself entertained. Even simple things that we take for granted like gravity or needing to breathe would be completely made up and unnecessary. Physical constants like the speed of light in a vacuum would also be made up. If we assume that the brain is just existing and a computer is the thing powering the simulation, it leaves a little room for ambiguity, as a machine is going to have rules programmed in that your consciousness couldn't overcome, simply because breaking those rules is not programmed in, and in that case, the forgetting things would be completely on me, the computer would still have a record of the event even if my mind doesn't, but then I go back to the idea of people having different accounts of events. If it were me disagreeing with someone, it could be a faulty memory, but if it's people created by the simulation disagreeing with each other, it doesn't really make sense. It doesn't add anything to the simulation itself (especially if the situation has nothing to do with me, or especially if I wasn't present for it), you can't claim that it adds "realism" to make sure the brain doesn't realize it's a simulation because if the brain never knew conflict it would never know to expect conflict. Like if this brain was in the simulation from birth, the simulation would be the only thing it ever knew, and therefore whatever the simulation showed it would be what it counts as "realistic". We aren't born with some innate knowledge of what's real and what's not, so to a brain that's been in a simulation for its entire existence, if the simulation decided to use cartoon graphics for the entire time, that brain wouldn't know any better than to accept that as real. If the simulation periodically glitched, that would be normal to that brain. To that point, I guess the idea of "glitches in the Matrix" (the phenomenon where people see, and sometimes photograph, weird "glitches" in reality) would show that it can't be a computer running the simulation, unless the entire point is for the brain to someday realize it's in a simulation. Otherwise, it wouldn't have created an entire community dedicated to sharing/documenting these glitches, lest the brain see it and realize somethings not right, and if they'd been happening the entire time, no part of the simulation, including the brain, would find them odd.

[@josiahyoung966]

The color thought experiment is wild but for sure after she sees color she’ll learn everything. She has been given the technical knowledge but the FEELING of a thing, especially like color, IS the experience

[@kongofthebongo7530]

maybe i am missing something, i feel there is a problem with the color experiment. to state absolutely that this person has learnt everything about color perception, is a logical fallacy. how can one know how the brain reacts to a particular color, without seeing the color itself. for example, the book might say on seeing red it has not been noted "xyz" part of the brain is more responsive than the other. and on seeing green, abc part is more responsive in the brain. but how is the person supposed to know which part is more sensitive without seeing the colors themselves.

[@Chris-cs7nv]

I agree but even after see sees color, she won't know what it is to experience color in every possible way. It differs from human to human and animals often have a different experience and there may be other ways to experience color differently. Presumably she would know about all these ways and what it's like to experience it after she experiences color herself. Or maybe she would still need to experience color in all the ways possible before she knows what it's like. Or perhaps just a few ways. For example, I think I can understand what it would be like to experience color a bit darker than most people. Or how animals can only see certain colors a certain way.

[@lauriethomasmd3760]

She may not be able to perceive the colors at all, that part of her brain never developed. If she IS able to perceive colors, and to tell them apart, she won’t know which one is blu or which one is red, until someone teaches her.

[@erinnelson434]

My thought was that she may know everything about the mechanics of color and their relationship with the human eye and brain, but she doesn't yet know what they look like, nor which ones are which visually. I don't believe she will be unable to perceive colors when seeing them for the first time, but it seems like it would be a very unusual psychedelic-type experience until she becomes accustomed to seeing color. She would probably be overcome with emotion to see colors. Lots of people are when they see for the first time after being blind or having poor vision and getting correction for the first time. I did. I cried the first time I got contact lenses when I was a junior in high school looking up at the palm trees and the sky bluer than I had ever known it really was all that time.

[@alqamahasnain6428]

Just like psychedelics

[@bradleyboyer9979]

The first experiment was developed by John Searle as an argument that AI can never gain consciousness. I remember studying it in a philosophy class in college.

[@fredmercury1314]

@@GIwilloUnless consciousness is just a biological mistake. In which case a computer can never develop consciousness. But then humans would have to accept that they're not real.

[@user-bi8gq9df8m]

An A.I. without consciousness is the real danger. Don't bother trying to explain to anyone though, humans cannot transcend their own ego. I guess that is why people are confusing chat GPT with what they think A.I. is. They think intelligence comes from the sense of self; they have no idea how alien an A.I. is compared to the human experience.

[@divyapratap6616]

@@GIwillo but the idea of Self goes beyond senses, if you remove all parts of your body you will still have the feeling of self, if somehow your memory gets wiped out you will still have the idea of your self,so giving all of it to a computer will not necessarily will result in computer getting consciousness

[@danquaylesitsspeltpotatoe8307]

not until we create living brains or equivalent then they can be!

[@randylogan4339]

How could the guy make her fall in love just sending basic symbols? She believed he knew Chinese yet he didn't what he was writing?

[@devansheepens2087]

I realized this first when I had a sleep paralysis. But even apart from that, my experience with dreams being too vivid and some coming true led me understand how illusory can the imagination make our lives. That's how I began exploring spirituality, and it has been so transformative ever since! I haven't had answers, but definitely known so many moments where imagination didn't interfere with my experience :)

[@kegg1884]

I dont know why but I really wanna see how sleep paralysis works, really wonder how I'd react.

[@jeanneratterman]

@Devanshee pens Something you said about sleep paralysis. I used to have that when i was younger. It occurred for about 6-7 years that i can recall, intermittently-erratically. At first it scared me. I had to overcome fear and panic. Then i realized i could “see” without opening my eyes, which i was unable to do. Not only see around me but see outside my room too. I could hear also . The problem was never knowing how to break out of it. Or would i ever? When i had my babies, i did not have it for a while. Then i did one night, alone, just me and 2 very young children, dependent upon me. When it stopped and i could finally function i said/prayed that this has to stop, now. I can’t have this happen with 2 little ones in my life.I wasn’t upset , but was stating with a practical and logical argument, with firmness, much like the mother i was learning to become. That was the last time it happened. Mom told me my dad had this happen to him, too, but that he brute-forced himself out of it. By the time i learned of this he had already died so i could not ask him about his experiences. His older sister was elliptic, so Mom just assumed Dad suffered something similar. It didn’t make sense to me if both he and i found our individual ways of stopping it.

[@jakopars]

💯

[@devansheepens2087]

@@jeanneratterman Glad to hear it doesn't happen with you anymore. Although those experiences are unforgettable, my episodes of sleep paralysis were not as intense or consistent as yours. It must have been tiring... I hope you're doing well. But I advise that if it has happened so much that it constantly disrupts your life, you should try to seek out some professional help. That thing about your dad forcing out of it resonates with me too- you have to value your willpower and consciousness to rise above it.

[@devansheepens2087]

@@kegg1884 sleep paralysis actually robs you of your ability to react at that time. Fear and trying to snap out of it are most probably the reactions anyone would have.

[@TheFinalChapters]

Mary's Room is pretty straightforward: yes, she would learn something she couldn't possibly know: what color looks like. Words can only describe things in relation to other words. Without a basis, there can be no true understanding. Color is such a fundamental property that it cannot otherwise be described but by its invisible components. The wavelength and other properties would not instruct Mary on how her specific eyes would see the color red, nor is there any comparison that can be made when colors are off the table. Try to imagine what a 4 dimensional space would look like. You can't do it, because you've never seen anything like it. All the simulations in the world couldn't let you imagine what it truly looks like, becuase the medium is still 3D.

[@MrMcwesbrook]

I also don't agree with the video when is says "for the first time in her life Mary will see color." White is a combination of many wavelengths of color and I think objects dyed black are as well. I'm guessing that in the room her brain would have already noticed and developed those slight variations of color within a white object. She wouldn't know what to label those colors if nobody taught her but she would see them. When she stepped out of the room I would imagine everything would look very crisp and vivid.

[@soth897]

The first 2 do seem fairly straightforward, with perhaps varied, but obvious answers. Interesting to think about, but hardly "unsolvable". The 3rd room/problem closely resembles the theory of our universe being a simulation inside a Matrioshka Brain, which is currently unprovable. Interesting video, but slightly misleading/clickbait-y in its title.

[@kellyjones4942]

Talking about colour can never take your breath away

[@rdmf2921]

@@MrMcwesbrook did she never bleed?

[@rusparr2528]

@@rdmf2921 there's multiple colors in bodily excretions.

[@cheejo3222]

The third one I’ve though about frequently for years, even before I’ve seen this video. One day, the thought just popped into my head. “My mind is a prison, and all of my senses blind me from the true nature of the world. All perceptions of life are distorted in a way that allows me *to* perceive it.” These are the my thoughts that come and go infrequently, but it’s always in the back of my mind. I truly believe there is something beyond the way our minds perceive the world. Or I’m just dumb and I’m just overthinking this lmao

[@kevin0102031]

I Really don't have one original thought god dammit, I'm not really sure if it's mental illness or if I really feel like there's more to it than just this sense of being that if it's really not real or if feel it isn't because of dissociation

[@chrisjones9132]

mental illness

[@bobby81212]

@@kevin0102031 @cheejo imagine one source of consciousness, there everything has already been known at one point and done or completed, as time is not linear in all realms, but we as humans draw from this source as our minds work as a sort of receiver for this info. so words of advice to you my friend is just keep an open mind, and in retrospect remember we are all dumb and anyone else saying otherwise is the true dumb one, because at the end of the day we are tied to this wonderful three dimensional vessel but still has it limits being connected to this dimension as they are higher ones, so enjoy these type of thoughts like these you have mentioned and enjoy this life.

[@lisajohn3144]

@Cheejo, the scientific method has been developed with this very truth in mind. Since we cannot tell just with our minds how much time has passed or exactly how much of anything is enough or what's the right thing to do in a given situation, how to get where we want to go etc etc... We experiment and officially document what we did and how it turned out. If I want to make a cake I can follow a recipe. If it's not to my liking I can experiment with different ingredients until I get it how I like and document my success. Someone else can try my recipe and make their own observations, note any limitations and suggest changes that may be more suitable to a wider group of people. Done publicly, we can all learn better ways and possible pitfalls of our endeavors and plan to suit. Successful people rely heavily upon the work of others not just themselves.

[@josiahyoung966]

You’re completely valid on this. I try to view our minds as a filing cabinet and thoughts as files. True life is felt, not thought. 🙏🏾

[@dipsherlock]

I’m currently taking an intro to philosophy class in college, and it’s really interesting to see these thought experiments and topics discussed in such a creative way. I have such a deep interest in philosophy, and you inspire me to express that love through my art.

[@user-ot7jd9dt7t]

A passion is one thing but is the economy demanding or in need of another philosopher? You're going college to make money not to have a nice time lol

[@romanticdonkey468]

@@user-ot7jd9dt7t… Intro to Philosophy is a course, not a major. It’s a wonderful course, and was my favorite in college. I majored in business, am a business owner, and still love philosophy some 25 years later.

[@McIntoshYoga]

College can be both a way of learning things to make a living or learning things for the joy of doing so.@@user-ot7jd9dt7t

[@nonagone9570]

​@@user-ot7jd9dt7tWhat the hell lol. They're doing what they like and philosophy can be very important. Not everything needs to be beneficial to everyone ever. Just let them enjoy what they enjoy and they are going to college for whatever reason they're going to college. Not everyone's chasing money.

[@murnoth]

Good job with the background audio! My consciousness opened up and then I became aware I was following the ambience

[@gerardohartono1719]

For the third room. my answer is pretty simple: you can't, and it does not really matter anyway. the reason being the concept of reality is deeply personal. The thing is, this is very similar to the cave man thought experiment, if all your life, all your reality, is within a certain boundaries, then the boundaries is not limiting (it is simply the current truth). the thought that such boundaries is cruel and/or limiting can only be felt/understood by an individual OUTSIDE of said boundary. of course from time to time we will encounter a subject that will be so curious, he will try to define the boundary, and try to surpass the limit of these boundary, at which we will see an attempt by said individual to technically expand these arbitrary boundary. however, even by successfully defining and surpassing the old boundary, it will simply expand the field, and a new arbitrary boundary will be created. the easiest way to understand this is think something like long long time ago before ships were invented, the boundary of each human population is the sea, and after expansion, the sea is no longer a boundary, however a new boundary is found, and that is the space. and from previous example, it is pretty safe to say that space will not be the last either. however, 1 truth remains, even before seafaring, living inside the currently known boundary without ever realizing said boundary is never limiting. Only after you see a bigger house can you feel that your sack is too small

[@tygon13]

1.) I am. IE I exist. 2.) Something outside of my existence exists. As in, something outside of myself created/caused me (Kalam cosmological argument). These are the things that you can know.

[@phresh3269]

@@tygon13 false. If we only know “I” then we cannot know further, this I being contingent or necessary. A solipsistic world view is most certainly not theistic

[@tygon13]

@@phresh3269 not false, there are basic laws of logic that we operate within in this universe. You can solve these a priori. The laws of logic, and your existence within those laws are what you can know. There are certain laws of logic that you exist within so that you can exist and understand things such as existence. Those laws state that things cause each other. This means that you can safely assume that you were caused. Causation has to happen outside of yourself in order to cause yourself. Therefore you can safely assume that something outside of yourself caused you. This leads you to inevitably conclude at least two things... I exist. Something caused me to exist.

[@tygon13]

@@phresh3269 let me rephrase this, due to the fundamental laws that allow you to exist, they necessitate your knowledge that something else exists.

[@tygon13]

@@phresh3269 I'll Express this in a longer format for additional accuracy. There are certain fundamental a priori things that we can know about our existence by the fact that we exist and how. Fundamental principles of logic such as A and -A cannot be true at the same time. Or that there is such a thing as time. Causality. And a few other laws of logic. These are fundamental principles of your existence. They may not exist outside of the jar (brain in the jar thought experiment), but they do exist as part of your existence. As such there's a fundamental application of those laws of logic within that state of existence. Due to causality (one thing causes another causes another, and time existing) You can conclude safely (this is also known as the kalam cosmological argument) that something caused you into existence. Fundamentally knowing that you were caused into existence by something doesn't actually Grant you knowledge of what that something is. Your argument I believe is that you can't fundamentally know anything about that thing.... This is kind of true and kind of not true. Because we have information relating to that thing you can deductively figure out by way of a priori a few things about that "something" that caused you. Let me warp your brain a little bit here. Time is a fundamental law that exists as a function of our existence.... But not necessarily as a function of that "something" else. We can effectively state that our universe, our existence, is where time exists and outside of it (at least our current measurement and understanding of it) time does not exist. We know enough about ourselves and our existence in order to make an equation to solve for the unknown (at least how we relate to that unknown can be understood). We can fundamentally know not the traits that make up this something, but we can fundamentally know how we might perceive and interact with this "something" that we don't know. We will perceive this something as omnipresent and eternal... Because it being outside of time always will be (from our perspective at least). *IF* that's something happens to be something akin to living, we will perceive it to be immortal (because an eternal living being must be immortal... At least this is our perception). *IF* that something has some kind of conscious self a mind of its own with memories and the ability to know things, then we will experience and perceive it as being omniscient and all knowing about our existence (due to its omnipresence and eternality). I'm using if, then statements to express what we could possibly know about something due to what we know about ourselves and how we would perceive and interact with something that is not ourselves/within our realm of existence. Knowing the rules that you follow, can allow you to extrapolate how you would relate to other things if those other things existed. The fact that you follow a sense of causality, but you are unaware of your own creation can logically allow us (through our own rules of logic and this existence) to deduce that something else exists and has caused us to exist. And knowing again our own rules of logic can help us understand how we might perceive this something else with the proper application of deductive reasoning from what we do know about ourselves. 🤷 It's just like mathematics where you know most of the equation except for one variable which is variable X. And we teach school children to solve for X, do we not?

[@TexanWineAunt]

For Mary’s Room, I would say that the glandular response triggered by actually seeing colors would add knowledge that was not attainable via language, i.e. her color study materials.

[@peplefpingiun4918]

I would agree. I mean personally this room was just like a person has been colorblind all her life. But knew everything about color. But try to explain ehat colors look like to a blind person. Kinda hard huh?

[@judithkostromitin8011]

yes yes yes. It's like reading about a dragon vs riding a dragon.

[@ipwnu02]

But she would have read about the response in her books.

[@judithkostromitin8011]

@@ipwnu02 it's a different "flavour" of information, isn't it? It's abstract linguistics. She couldn't imagine colour before she saw it, because the centers of her brain that respond to {visual.info:colour} have never been triggered. This is the "new information" that she receives: the experience of colour-perception neurons firing in her brain.

[@bullpuppy7455]

To 'know' is to be certain. Mary did not 'know' color until she actually experienced it. Up until then all she had to go on was 'faith', 'belief', or a 'perception' of what color is. She read books that made claims that "Color is...blah blah blah", and formed a 'belief' system in her mind where she either agreed, disagreed or remained open minded. But she herself did not yet 'know' color as it had not yet been validated by her own experience of it. Once the door opened Mary was finally able to have the experience of 'knowing' color first hand. And having experienced it, she can never again doubt it's existence.

[@jeanneratterman]

TY for this time-consuming valuable, immersive experience which i needed today. I needed this deep dive. 🌊

[@PeaceChanel]

Thank You Everybody for All that you are doing for our Planet Earth.. Peace Shalom Salam Namaste 🙏🏻😊🌈✌🌷☮❤🕊

[@lifeengagement8050]

Thoughts are definitely borrowed. It’s just a word game we are playing. Same content, same questions, same all repeated by philosophers, writers, psychologists and many more but in a different manner. I am one of them. Writing on Instagram, creating content and honestly, I feel like I am cheating sometimes. Selling same thing packaged differently which is why I cannot promote my page, finish that book, or make videos and post them. Having said all of that, I still am grateful to come across your contents.

[@amandahanisch2446]

Some things need to be said differently, for a new time. It’s what you bring to the subject matter.

[@rahulchawla516]

Yup. So damn truee! Cant even remember last time I saw anything original

[@samuelluria4744]

Wow, it's like you're my mirror (minus the Instagram part - never been on it.)

[@samuelluria4744]

​@@amandahanisch2446 - And, as certain mystics have taught, it's far from only our thoughts and various forms of communication which need to "be", where they are. It's literally everything. When the scent of _your_ grandmother's soup enters _your_ senses, it has its own place in the great scheme of things, as does the scent of _my_ grandmother's soup....

[@samuelluria4744]

These experiments, along with your comments, and the underlying reference to others, such as Descartes, compel me to mention a side point. Those who say that AI cannot achieve consciousness. I really wonder about them. Don't they realistic that the fundamental building blocks of consciousness are as of yet UNFATHOMED, either by ancient philosophy, or modern technology?? That so much remains UNDEFINED??

[@obsidiansiriusblackheart]

This is the first time I've heard The Chinese Room explained in a way that makes perfect sense, and I finished my honours degree in computer science 7 years ago

[@c.m.173]

What was it about this explanation that did it for you? The only thing I can think of it doing differently from other descriptions I've seen is building up more of a 'story' in the setup.

[@jordyname5115]

@@c.m.173 When explaining abstract ideas, the use of a story is often the most important part

[@invictor2761]

i thought it was odd. as a bilingual person, im certain one couldnt convince me they know my language through that method; it's obvious when someone is using a translator online, for example. maybe chinese is simpler...?

[@vanshikayadav5688]

@@c.m.173 he said he finished his computer science degree where he must be taught the computer language but not how it actually works and behind what goes inside the computer when u run a code or something . thats just my assumption

[@obsidiansiriusblackheart]

@@invictor2761 the point of the experiment is theoretical, ie imagine online translators were so vast and powerful that they could _exactly_ mimic correct behaviour

[@str8kronic]

Number 1… we have proof of understanding because we have choices. To identify intelligence is to give someone multiple choices, and see how often they pick the correct choice

[@o.m.r2312]

Wow I loved it. Totally captivating 👍🏼

[@ss_avsmt]

I actually had thought of the Mary's experiment in my childhood (kinda). While taking a photograph, I thought what would it take for the camera to "know" what it was looking at. Our eyes also process intensity and "somehow" we see something, while the camera doesn't, it simply prints a 2d image as instructed.

[@ToriKo_]

Wonderful comment

[@vamshiparker2583]

Yeah, i had thought of it too. While taking a photo

[@kappustyle]

No no that’s not a camera, that’s your eyes seeing through the lenses. 🤣

[@DushanChaciej]

we also respond to visual stimuli as instructed by our brain programming TBH, not that different

[@move78orrooka45]

camera is basically a light pixel converter.

[@Grancigul]

The first experiment reminds me of pets who have "learned" certain words and know what to expect or do when they hear them A dog can save your life by bringing you a phone to call for help without understanding what it all means It doesnt understand human language but it has learned that we use it to communicate and can pick up on some stuff Tho we are more proficient at it we are essentially no better than them and we always act without perfect understanding of our actions because we can never know everything so i believe partial understanding is sufficient to declare it intelligence which is different from sentience which requires emotions

[@rains5]

i think the same way about parrots

[@WhiteLesPaul]

What you are referring to isn't a knowledge in animals, but a correlation principle. Most if not all domesticated animals share this. It is purely because animals don't understand language, they are incapable. My pet birds don't ever know the specific words I'm saying, but they correlate the sound I'm making to an action or command. You tell a dog to sit, it doesn't know what you're saying, it only knows that sound correlates to a command to "sit". You mentioned a dog bringing you a phone. You are absolutely correct about that dog not having a clue what it's really doing. It is purely following a correlation in the sound you made to "you want thing, bring thing to you." Animals can obviously detect stress levels, but that's instinctual, not necessarily correlative. By "training" a dog, bird, etc. you are not training them your language, but showing them a correlation between a noise you make, and an action being reciprocated. That can be described as a language, but because as humans our language is so much more complex and animals are not capable of truly understanding language, it breaks down into a binary sort of "if this then that" scenario.

[@SeektheLordsface]

46 For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? 48 Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect Matthew 5:46-48

[@vanshikayadav5688]

@@WhiteLesPaul but how does the dog know in the first place that the sound of the word sit correlates to command to sit , the man in the first experiment wasnt learning the language he was also correlating to the chinese words and its also similar to what we do as infants, we learn by seeing our surroundings while not knowing anything what it means. in other words we are just learning to correlate .

[@WhiteLesPaul]

@@vanshikayadav5688 the dog knows to sit because it is taught the correlation between the sound and the action, aka training. You are correct in saying that we are all taught to correlate. We as human beings simply do it on an infinitely larger scale and with equally infinite complexity.

[@titmusspaultpaul5]

Very interesting and I have a view/ argument for each one that can be discussed. A comment section, unfortunately, is too limited to really talk about these complex thought experiments. I find this type of subject matter SUPER interesting.... great video, cheers.

[@NijeBitno72]

Great, just the type of video I needed during an ongoing existential crisis, yay!

[@TibiConstantine]

If you can think it, you have already won the war with existence.

[@victormutunga2944]

If Mary read that people see colours in 7 distinct flavours , red through violet that together form white, she will undoubtedly know she's missing something experientially, as even illustrated she wouldn't tell any of the colours from the other. This knowledge is not hidden from her as per the conditions set by the thought experiment, thus she does know her experience is limited. If her colour perception knowledge extended to light and darkness, she'd easily identify white from black as colours she does perceive, and if the knowledge goes further to the colour spectrum, she will understand the physics of light dispersion as it travels through a prism, and she'd be inclined to carry out a small experiment with water she's served through her tubes and her rooms light source (I guess it could turn out that the room was designed with monochromatic light or some counter measure of some kind- if so Mary would logically deduce that something was wrong with her, or perhaps the room). If she successfully forms a rainbow, the illusion is prematurely broken before the end of the experiment, but would probably still have the same effect as in the long run perhaps. My point is I do think their is definitely an experiential factor essential to full compression of things.

[@JochSejoMusic]

Also by looking into the lightsource if she can for some time then look away and then getting a colorful spot in her vision or closing her eyes before sleeping and seeing the color bluish purple (happens when the tubes and cones in the eye work harder to see in the dark and floods the sensor with extra energy that looks like a blue growing pulse covering the vision in turns) could also make her collect some of the spectum but maybe not the entire spectrum before she goes outside. But in any way what she will learn when she goes out is the colors she hasn't seen yet.

[@JochSejoMusic]

Also while dreaming she could also theoretically see colors by accident if the brain decided to do some random dream thing subconsciously. Even a blind person if imaginative enough could invent the idea of what the world looks like and maybe even dream in shapes and color if the brain worked hard enough and by accident....YES A BLIND PERSON FROM BIRTH CAN MAYBE DREAM COLOR...... Like if the brain is in a tank of water is the same as a blind person learns what the outside world actually looks like but because he is blind he can't know for sure that it is actually the same or if it is different. This means theoretically that even a person than can see isn't actually seeing everything ,meaning there is higher dimensions or layers of the consciousness. Meaning even if we are real and alive in the 3rd dimension we could be a drop of cone-light in a 5th dimensional space where everything is in one place, time is non and everyone is the same conscious field perciving itself ..

[@MarianaSilva-kh4io]

She could cut herself and see red.

[@denisl2760]

The "perfect knowledge of color" this experiment assumes is just plain wrong. Its impossible for a human to have such perfect knowledge. If it existed, she could alter her own brain and perception in such a way as to simulate seeing real color, just in her mind. And she'd already know what it is to experience color, and it would not be surprising for her to actually see it. This may be possible with an advanced AI, but not a human. In real life her academic learning of color will always be limited, humans have limits to learning and understanding.

[@JochSejoMusic]

@@denisl2760 If she only saw colors in her dreams or mind she wouldn't grasp what color would go where in the spectrum and it would look different from real life. But if she saw every color in her mind or by eye tricks she would still not know the true order of the colors. Only if she used her blood, "mixed" her blue and yellow bruises, puked some green stuff, destroyed a green finger nail and gained most of the colors she still could not mix them in a order to gain full knowledge of why light doesn't work in the same manner as color and that primary paint colors makes every color in an opposing way to light because the cones in the eye uses three wavelengths of color to see every color While paint can't create white by mixing primary colors. And that she maybe has 4 cones in her eye or maybe she only has two and don't know the difference. And everyone could see the world with different spectrums and everyone would still agree that they see the same color because we can't pass on the experience of the self to someone else. in the same manner we can't prove that anyone but ourself are a consciouss being. Only the observer will have the information and that information can never be as you said the perfect knowledge of color, or anything ....only the self knowledge of color.

[@xyrildanmanuel783]

the mary's room experiment is still to this day one of my favorites. just the reaction of the test subject seeing colors for the first time can become the peak of wonder. it has great potential as a concept for a movie

[@MrZoomZone]

me too. I have often wondered a subset of this experiment which is to ask how the brain would percive just one hitherto unseen colour. That is (a) one inside the normal spectrum that we are evolved to perceive and (b) one outside the visible spectrum that we are NOT evolved to see. Then there is the question of whether the brain could be trained from birth to visualise four physical dimensions by immersing it in a 4D simulated environment generated using matrix mathematics (which can do multidimesional simulations).

[@vinny6935]

I've often wondered if the color that I call 'red', for example, is really the same thing that other people call 'red'. What if most people actually see it as a shade of what I call green? We can talk about wavelengths and color wheels and complementary colors and whatnot, but it's the experience of seeing something that makes it 'red'. What if other people experience color in a completely different way and I'm just weird? Because we can't communicate with words the act of experiencing a color it seems impossible to know for sure.

[@reedhouser4004]

One of my guilty pleasures is watching those videos where color blind people put those special glasses on. Really pulls at my heart strings. Now I know most only don’t see some colors but I think the thought experiment still applies. It has to be relevant that all her knowledge has been learned through books. The mental image compared to the actual visual stimuli must be overwhelming. I’d assume it would be quite an emotional experience. We all know the cliche “learn from my mistakes” never really works. You can’t read about a situation and really know it. There is absolutely a difference between knowledge and experience. I truly think “complete” knowledge doesn’t exist without experience

[@debtoralive4693]

You guys are talking about what haunts me daily. These types of concepts are what I think about continuously. I have a way of taking myself out of an equation. Getting to the true root causes. But still things I cannot explain with logic occur to me and I question if it is normal or am I somehow completely different.

[@squam.riviera854]

I think the fact that we can have thoughts and communicate with ourselves and others is enough proof of our existence. The thought of a thought itself is the proof, from there what we need to ask is: why? or maybe: how? to see how far our minds can take us. that is our "human experience" and what we define as "life"

[@rbwannasee]

The third 'room' reminds me somewhat of an idea my buddy and I came up with after watching an obscure sci-fi movie about VR. Suppose a VR device is invented that interacts directly with the brain, doesn't need to be fitted or worn, and can emulate all five senses. Then also suppose the VR world is so realistic, it's indistinguishable from the real world, and all the same laws of physics apply, etc. It's so realistic in fact, you can create another VR world and functional VR device inside of it, and another inside of that, and so on and so on. Then finally suppose you pass through multiple virtual realities but lose count of how many. How would you know you were all the way back out, or that what you thought was an exit was in fact an entrance to another? Also, try to prove you're not there already?

[@Akatou]

The 13th floor. Great movie :D

[@mauriciohernandez7966]

Sounds insane man, reminds me of Black Mirror’s Playtest episode

[@andromedaiscoming185]

South Park played with that idea.

[@rbwannasee]

@@Akatou That wasn't it, but I'll have to check it out. The one I saw was a low budget independent movie on Xumo or KZbin free movies or something like that.

[@rbwannasee]

@@andromedaiscoming185 Yeah, it's been done before for sure. I remember an episode of ST:TNG where they think they've left the holodeck, but actually didn't. Could of been the Data vs. Moriarty one. That also played with the idea of powerful AI and being careful what you ask it.

[@randywa]

To the first one: I think the question applies to us as well. We are basically biological robots. Our brains are basically flesh computers, so are we really intelligent or sentient? Our conscious experience of thinking makes us feel like we are “solving” problems in a real, intelectual way, but ultimately, physically, it’s just molecules moving in a very organized way to create an output of some kind- just like a computer. Considering that we see ourselves as the standard for intelligence, maybe all intelligence is is the degree to which a creature can mimic what we do in certain mental areas. To the second one: I think Mary will experience the sensation of color as new information. I think this is because knowledge is ultimately about memory. If we think about it, all the knowledge she acquired about color can be seen as her brain changing states from “without that knowledge” to “with that knowledge.” As she experiences more and more enlightened states of being, she will record the memory of those states. At the moment before she sees the outside world, her brain will contain memories of all the states of knowledge she went through. However, no matter what she learns, until her brain enters the state that corresponds with experiencing color, she will never have the memory of experiencing color, and will therefore never have all the knowledge there is to have about color. To the third one: I don’t really think the question matters. What you know is there are your feelings and that certain states of being will result in positive feelings. So you will go for those states of being regardless of what true reality is.

[@jrm5760]

It's funny how all these answers and reasoning's that we're all broadcasting in the comment section is "your own 'subjective' experience" and formulated only through a language that is 'learned'". In which, the language is by definition the medium of exchange(with emphasis on the medium). When we try to understand something using "data", all that data has to be arranged through a coherent format, in which the format I think can be arbitrary. "The real thing" that we are communicating about is a means to an end. I feel like there is often times a lurking sensation of an unconscious aim in the background of our minds. And if our understanding of the human anatomy and only if our understanding and representations through a "map" with reasons are correct our "other living beings"/"beloved animals" operate actually in a similar way, but we conceive them of being, so to speak, "unconscious". And what I'm getting at is that humans and other beings (humans in particular) and 'funny and interesting'...

[@nickpeterson6647]

We basically are carbon based , adaptable, self replicating, bipedal humanoid robots. Guided by independent logic and emotion. I believe there is a spirit world or we're in some sort of simulation. Either way I'm at peace with it.

[@randywa]

@@nickpeterson6647 i personally like the idea of a consciousness field where somehow, consciousness interacts with the physical world to create experience. Basically, everything experiences some form of consciousness. I think it’s called panpsychism.

[@obama218]

i agree but i dont agree with the statement "I think this is because knowledge is ultimately about memory". an example to explain why i dont agree is the first experiment in this video. He did not corrolate any of the chinease with memory since he had to learn it. He is intelligent in the capacity to learn and use it in tactile form of communication (an actual perceivable outcome with physical and emotional imapct). Hes not only perceived as intelligent by the woman which hes never met but neither can he grasp the understanding of the sybols in chinease becuase the intellectual pattern and relationship of his brains computation. meaning he has to take the chinease and remeber first his main spoken language but simutainiously is not memory since hes copies it down from a boook the same way a kid would look up a definition on google.

[@coco_killua3057]

Are we really considered as bioligical robots or our brains called Flesh computers if We created them with our mind and conscienceness? We can never know everything, maybe all the things We invented or our theoretical explanations with maths for our universe is just another Illusion to statisfy our desire to know everything. We cannot be sure if we either know anything or we know we don't know anything. Maybe it is better to let some questions and thoughts out of our mind to prevent our nature to freak out. Maybe, If we realize what we actually are or what the universe/"world" is, we wouldn't be able to comprehend and understand, just like trying to explain an individual that lives in a 2D world what an 3D world is or why we can "look though Walls". Maybe, maybe the universe itself is just a little playground in a city and we might never know due to our fear that we know nothing.

[@shawndorkoff3979]

Wow ty I loved it so much 🥰

[@JKDVIPER]

I like shhhh like this. Thinking can be good. It can be a nightmare too. Be sure to pay attention to what gifts you’ve been given. Sight. Listening. Feeling. Knowing.

[@rachel999]

Oh my goodness, I've been trying to describe the feeling/thoughts I've been having for like the past few months and the last one explained it perfectly! It's exactly what I think about at night lol. Oh my god, I'm so happy that other people also have these thoughts too. I've been trying to voice it but every time I even mention something philosophical, everyone around me always thinks I'm stupid or that I'm crazy.

[@fernandanevesfonseca338]

I suggest looking for dissociation symptoms

[@rachel999]

@@fernandanevesfonseca338 huh?? why?

[@hans98763]

At the age of 6, I became aware of the feeling that I was living in a submarine, or a closed vessel, and via my senses I observed the world "outside". Sometimes these experiences flash anew into my mind. I can imagine everything I see and hear around me, but I am not always part of it. The fact that the world and the universe exists I can imagine, but that I am aware that I exist myself and have consciousness, blows my mind

[@garethawilliams]

If you have an open mind. Read 'sets speaks, the nature of personal reality. It is a similar concept, without a 'matrix' style simulation. Thought provoking and give you 1 theory/answer. It may be right, it may be wrong...but it definitely puts thought to 'reality'.

[@Ryutsashi]

Consider expanding your friend circle with different kinds of people if you feel like no one can engage with you on some level. There's all kinds of people in the world.

[@minnieroff12]

In the first thought experiment, something had to create everything that John wrote down. Something incredibly intelligent would be required to create something so detailed yet flexible. The impressive feature of the experiment are the books John is provided. I also think it points to what makes something intelligent - creative power. The ability to apply lessons learned in one area to another unrelated area.

[@polsick]

Roger Penrose goes extensively over this experiment in "Emperor's New Mind" arguing that it's impossible to create human like artificial intelligence.

[@Littlevampiregirl100]

yes, i think there is more to these things than just the one type of intelligence of memory and how we perceive memory. i feel like this is downplaying what else the brain is capable of. the test subjects still manage to communicate, only we dont know if it is miscommunication because the dictionary might be misleading, but he is still somehow able to string together sentences that make sense, assuming it is not giving him full phrases to use. there are also other things that boggle me about how this is presented. if the book hands him full sentences and translate what they mean, with enough time, someone should be able to see patterns in the full sentences that they are given and be able to pick out what singular words mean - or if there are clearly several sentences that contain words of the same meaning but is still written differently in chinese, this could be an indicator that the book is misleading you i just have to imagine that he is actually "told" what he is written, even if it can be mislead, otherwise the responses must look very random to the woman, not communicative

[@deadskinrippers]

Direction is a necessity

[@Dinofaustivoro]

The narrator relates the man to the computer and the books instructions as human programing. It is actually the other way around, we move towards being the man, a non inteligent terminal, feeding out "thinking" from "the cloud"

[@SenhorAlien]

@@polsick do you know off the top of your head what arguments he gives for it being impossible to create human-like artificial intelligence?

[@JamesMEsler]

Excellent thank you

[@PsychicAlchemy]

The Mary's Room scenario is essentially what it's like to try and explain the psychedelic experience to someone who's never experienced it before. It's the secret that can't be told. Frankly I think people need at least one such experience to truly understand what it means to be human.

[@ToastedTater420]

I completely agree, Another analogy I use is trying to explain color to a colorblind person. You can explain all you want but they will never truly understand because you need the first had experience for that. Ps psychedelics have saved my life ❤

[@oliviaginsbourg6541]

Yes life does that The liberation the freedom the refusal to be tricked and manipulated that results is infinite bliss

[@DJ-uk5mm]

Yep I once walkedown a cartoon Street with dancing skyscrapers either side with big smiley faces looking down and reaching down to hold my hand and dance with me At the end of the street, I came upon a marina. I diving to the water and immediately transformed into a dolphin. I swam with my friends in a multicurrency chasing fish and all manner of friendly strange beings ……. (During this experience, I was listening to funk dance music. which then changed to classical Debussy at the point at which I don’t into the water I think this is what change the scene - anyway, he experiences are real memories embedded in my consciousness - yes, I actually recall them in the same way that I recall other memories. I found this very interesting and realised example that if you want to visit another planet All the depth of the oceans Or even some other altered state reality, you can do so with, or without psychedelics Depending on how fluid your imagination is😊

[@foreverthestudent]

I never felt "colorless"

[@James-Alai]

Exactly. There are things that words cannot explain. Feelings are complex. It's like explaining the concept of to empathy to a psychopath.

[@Tubeytime]

I recently learned that printers cannot output parts of the color space that monitors can display. When I looked into why, I found out that the light-emitting properties of the diodes in a display allow them to produce much purer colors than most things we encounter in our daily lives. Most objects we see scatter light and are visually altered by rogue photons bouncing off of other objects. Seeing a color that is pure and unaltered was impossible until very recently in human history. As profound as that is, I had to make a conscious effort to learn it, which implies that humankind has already become desensitized to the novelty. Do whatever you want with that information.

[@Yanimalyan]

It was obvious to me that printers output a much smaller color space

[@ZiRR0]

@@Yanimalyan how

[@VuongNgocHieu99]

@@ZiRR0 i mean... from the technicality of screen light and... printing ink. ever her of RGB and CMYK. most screen are RGB (red green blue) to show color on the screen while most printer use Cyan magenta yellow key to mix and print color.

[@drvortex]

The topic is a little bit bigger than that: it's part color gamut, color space and color perception. We use pigments (paint) and/or light (monitors) to create colors and depending on the technology they have limitations (also the human eye has limitations, search for the mantis shrimp if you want to be blown away)

[@Test-zy4hq]

For me seeing "fluorescent" colours for the first time was a revolutionary experience: first flurescent yellow, then pink a year later, later blue and green, more recently violet. I am still waiting anxiously to experience a fluorescent brown.

[@christarlex3236]

I once had a friend whom I used to talk to about these subjects all the time, he hated this channel because it kept him awake at nights haha :)) I always come here to relive those moments we had together and it feels amazing,I miss him so much..

[@kellyjones4942]

So sorry for your loss

[@01dirtydirk]

Just call him and say what’s up

[@twodimensional6887]

i wonder which of these two replies got it right

[@MrZoomZone]

I wonder which of these three replies was more than an appropriate response.

[@TheGiantRobot]

I wonder if all these responses are applicable. I didn't expect such an interesting thread.

[@dorsiestevens5508]

Speaks directly to our education system in this matrix. This is nothing more than memorization, he's not above average. We're taught to memorize, not learn. He should have seen this a mile away. Doing nothing would be the intelligent thing to do. Fine line.

[@julim2603]

#3: Well if my brain is just floating around, I'd like to thank the one that uploaded this video into the simulation. However I have a few complains about previous experiences during "school"

[@iwersonsch5131]

Hi Juli M, Thank you for expressing your gratitude. This video's creation was simulated as a result of the simulated neural activity of simulated other minds (such as mine). Nobody is uploading anything from the real world. Cheers Your simulated "Brain in a Vat" support team.

[@jackimo22]

These use to keep me up at night until I asked myself - “does it matter?” And could respond with “eh, not really”

[@pratiksherpa3688]

The art of nihilism

[@1kw779]

Facts !!

[@alittax]

It's a good question to ask if you can't stop thinking about these sorts of things, but how do you define what matters and what doesn't?

[@themacocko6311]

​@@alittaxDoes it matter how you define it?

[@alittax]

@@themacocko6311Yes, because you could define it in contradictory ways, and both can't be true at the same time.

[@glitterytrinket6246]

Great show

[@user-xy8qk9gz7g]

After watching the video, the ‘Chinese’ case reminds me, it’s about communication. We are not an AI or robot, we have thoughts, we have feelings. To communicate, we talked and wrote. This is a kind of reflection, reminding me, we should think what to say before saying. For myself, I should not let those nightmares reaction preoccupied my mind. When these negative things coming up to my mind, I’ve got to throw it away and won’t let it stay in my mind. That’s why it takes time, and just like kicking away bad habits. Also, to develop a good quality of self awareness, and tell myself that I’m living a new life now, without nightmares. For the other parts of the video, when talking about something that really existed. So it came to something about my nightmares. When I said something has happened, but people said no, nothing had happened. In the past. I would be angry, and started to protest. But now, I’ll just smile and let go, and would not respond. I believe, God knows everything, I do not need any so called ‘proof’. So people who are not willing to face the reality should let go too. They should live their own life instead of struggling with me.

[@Toughman637]

There are several responses to these-a rich set of literature, in fact. The first thought experiment is by John Searle, called the Chinese Room argument. His term “Strong AI” characterizes the kind of mechanism that has the sufficiently right kind of outputs in response to inputs. According to him, the room only *seems* to understand but it doesn’t actually because it lacks intentionality, meaning the ability of a mind to be about something. The room never holds the ability to actively be about the conversation; all it does is generates the right responses, enough to be considered human (what we call the Turing Test). Some historical context is relevant. Searle was responding to the Functionalists, who argued that a mental state is something defined by its functional role: a mind takes in sensory inputs, interacts with other mental states, and produces a behavioral output. But Searle didn’t think this was an accurate definition because he wanted to drive home the difference between being a mind and seeming like a mind.

[@austindeal2860]

I feel like the first thought experiment doesn’t really disprove the idea of functionalism. The idea of a right response removes any sort of idea of choice or intent. If there were more than one right answer, then the person would have to choose, thus giving an intent. Which would use another function. What would the rule book say if the lady asked how are you doing? What would the right response be?

[@benjaminxx9850]

These videos need to be released in the form of a podcast. I often turn my phone face down, lay in bed, and just listen to the videos without watching. They're througt provoking and very descriptive. There's no need to even change the audio, just upload them as Is in podcast form on spotify and iTunes, etc... This is in no way meant to denigrate the amazing animations and editing of the videos.

[@runycash3655]

That’s a fact 💯

[@runycash3655]

That’s a fact 💯

[@elymarciano3307]

love this idea! Feel like Spotify would be a good platform.

[@AntonioVergine]

"It came out, that to complete words and phrases in the most correct and complete way, the machine has to gain some level of understanding of what it is talking about, of what is the context, and the meaning of the conversation" - Ilya Sutskever. They're called "emergent properties". They're things we did not intend to teach but things that nometheless the machine learned by itself.

[@slimshady4life689]

I felt a shock in my brain while I watched this video I think I just elevated to a higher form of thought processing

[@firesamurio]

The first thought experiment reminds me of the novel "Blindsight" by Peter Watts. Great sci-fi novel.

[@MagicNumberArg]

Well, they literally discuss the "Chinese Room" concept in that novel.

[@SynGuitarist]

Blindsight is a fantastic novel. It took me a second to orient myself to the way he writes, but that's one of my favorite books.

[@ularv6411]

@@SynGuitarist similar here...

[@jaybingham3711]

Above average for sure. Much respect for all the hard-scifi notwithstanding the decision of folding in a vampire. That injected some awkwardness. I'd love to hear Peter's thoughts on all the intimate details of that decision from beginning to end and how close (if ever) he got to remaking the character.

[@The_Infamous_Boogyman]

I love these types of philosophical and physics related theoretically, I studied for quite some time on things like the slit experiment and shrodengers cat, but as far as consciousness goes and is anything real, I find more interesting on the quantum state level personally. But all of it is extremely intriguing.

[@MichaelSmith-lm5sl]

1. The Chinese Room Logical Analysis: The core of this thought experiment is to distinguish between syntactic processing (manipulating symbols based on rules) and semantic understanding (grasping the meanings behind symbols). Logically, we can argue that intelligence and understanding involve more than just input-output processes; they also require internal comprehension. Therefore, while John can simulate understanding Chinese, he lacks genuine semantic comprehension, which is crucial for true intelligence. Potential Resolution: A logical approach might suggest that intelligence involves a combination of processing capabilities (syntax) and conscious understanding (semantics). Thus, a system (or person) could be considered intelligent if it can both process information and possess an awareness or understanding of that information. 2. Mary's Room Logical Analysis: Mary's situation explores the difference between propositional knowledge ("knowing that") and experiential knowledge ("knowing how"). Logically, one could argue that complete knowledge about a subject must include both. While Mary has propositional knowledge about color, she lacks experiential knowledge until she sees colors herself. Potential Resolution: This thought experiment might be logically approached by recognizing the dual aspects of knowledge. Understanding could be seen as complete only when it encompasses both theoretical understanding and personal experience, suggesting that certain aspects of reality (like color perception) are inherently subjective and cannot be fully captured through objective descriptions alone. 3. Brain in a Vat Logical Analysis: The Brain in a Vat experiment challenges our ability to know the true nature of our experiences. From a logical standpoint, if all our experiences and perceptions can be perfectly simulated, there's no infallible way to determine whether they're real or artificial. This aligns with the skeptical argument that we cannot have absolute certainty about anything beyond our own consciousness. Potential Resolution: One logical response, inspired by Descartes, is to assert the indubitable existence of one's own consciousness: "I think, therefore I am." While we might not be able to prove the reality of the external world or the authenticity of our experiences, the very act of questioning or thinking proves the existence of our consciousness. This doesn't solve the skepticism about the external world but reaffirms the certainty of one's own mind. These logical analyses provide insights into the thought experiments but don't fully "solve" them in the traditional sense, as they often raise questions that transcend purely logical or empirical investigation, touching on the philosophical and existential aspects of human experience

[@P0intL3ader75]

when I got my hearing aids and got to hear for the first time at the age of five years old, I'd say that's similar to Mary's experience. "Don't be the fish in the bowl"

[@AleTrosman]

There's this concept called Qualia that I think could explain the 2nd room. Qualia are qualities or properties as perceived or experienced by a person, which are unique and intransferible. So, if Mary knows everything there is to know about color, the new thing she learns would be how it feels for her, in her unique way of perception and consciousness.

[@InfinityOrNone]

There actually _is_ a test that could be done to determine reality in Room 3: jam an ice pick into your own brain. The experiment as set up would need some way of selectively cutting off sections of the brain to simulate the experience of being damaged, and would need some way of determining both how the brain would be damaged based upon its own perceptions of being damaged and how said damage would interact with the rest of the brain. In the physical system so described, this would be impossible. As such, self-inflicted brain damage would be a reliable test as to the reality of your experience. The problem with this, though, should be rather obvious.

[@MortalMercury]

Yeah, that the simulation can simulate brain damage

[@InfinityOrNone]

@@MortalMercury Wording unclear, please elaborate?

[@Ryutsashi]

MortalMercury is probably right. In order to simulate your subjective experience to this extent, the simulation would have to be able to read off and feed you signals in very complex ways. Simulating brain damage would likely seem a trivial task compared to the level of analysis and granularity of input/output required to maintain a completely believable illusion. That said, if you were fed a false reality all your life, quite literally... then you wouldn't know anything about real life or what it should feel like. That means that your brain might perceive whatever reality as the realest one, no matter how unbelievable that reality would seem to an outside observer. HOWEVER, that also isn't solved with an ice pick to the brain, since you're probably stuck with a false belief that it would indeed do something that can't be faked. At the end of the day, without knowing what's outside of your own brain, you cannot evaluate your own experience. You have nothing to compare it to. And everything you're comparing it against might, just as easily, also be completely false. So, it doesn't matter what's real, since you don't get to choose that. You only get to figure out how to work within your own perception of reality, and whether or not that's an artificially fabricated false reality or whatever, or it's the true real deal... doesn't matter at all :) In every scenario, it's all about you, after all.

[@Ryutsashi]

TLDR: you think it would do something, but you can't even know for sure that your brain is what you think your brain is and that it works the way you think it works.

[@CAYENNETAN]

Can’t do steps 2, 3, and 4 without doing step 1 first. BRILLIANT! 😍

[@Ada0734]

Watching these videos while being high is just one of the best thing ever

[@carsonlove531]

I was literally about to say that this was NOT the video to watch while high 😂

[@Ada0734]

a year later, I kinda have to say I agree with you on this one actually hahah, no wonder I'm going through an existential crisis rn@@carsonlove531

[@BapbapbapBapbapbapbaptisum]

It’s all about the feeling.-the sense it has clicked,-the real understanding of the thing. You need to understand everything to truly understand that one thing-that thought-that sense.

[@maddieweaver2942]

As a response to the last experiment: you can never know whether you’re real, living in a simulation, or even exist at all. I believe you can only be absolutely sure that you’re perceiving all of the things you think you are. At the same time, though, that would mean that everything you are experiencing is real, but it doesn’t mean it’s not a simulation. I had a dream once that I was sitting on a friends couch (whom I don’t actually know in real life) and we were discussing simulation theory. Out of nowhere it felt like I had started tripping and everything clicked in such a real way and in my dream-trip I realized we were in a simulation. I can never know but the how real that realization felt always stuck with me

[@raicstefan]

Thinking and knowing is mutually exclusive. You know who you really are, but when trapped in thinking process it is not clear because in this way there is no possiblity of knowing. The vastness in which the transient content of mind flows is consciousness, it is underlying self and it is real self because it alone remains as all else passes. Words do not suffice because they are simply symbols and forms for ideas which are also symbols for reality, but this reality functions in knowing/being/meaning rather than modeling/thinking/symbols. The only things that you do not know are in the realm of conceptual modeling and its inconsistencies. The brain is associated with human consciousness and not consciousness itself, the human consciousness is a system of thought superimposed/limiting one's experience of Self/Consciousness. Nothing that you can conceive of or consider is outside your consciousness, it would be impossible to do so. If another human being was truly separate from you, you could never meet. It is like having two parallel planes intersecting. Knowing is complete and infinite and cannot be sufficiently represented by finite models/symbols and so they always omit an aspect. It's not saying something new, but rather it involves the disentanglement of thinking and knowing, often knowing is overlooked because that which is more vast seems more subtle to human consciousness because human consciousness can deal with things smaller than it, it's small contents (symbols/forms/models). There is only one that knows and it goes by many words and names, God, Consciousness, Universal Mind, Self, etc, and all have access to their Source/Self. It is simple that nothing is knowing until it includes all within, there is no such thing as partial knowing. Religious people are often ignorant of God because they fail to penetrate the symbol/idea/concept of the word God, they instead worship the word, just as most orthodox scientists do the same with their choice of religion/science. Information cannot ever substitute knowing, but many use it in such a way. Until one overcomes the identity with the body and the thinking based on sensory input, one will confuse human consciousness (filter) for consciousness itself. By simply not reacting to images within the mind, one is able to transcend it, but if one reacts to these images, then they become central to his perception, then one's identity becomes the image, the body, the personality, even though he knows himself to be more. The simulation will be perceived through thinking processes and that which is real and unchanging, the underlying reality will be perceived by pure awareness rather than human/conditioned/form-based awareness. You are the underlying reality (pure consciousness) and the simulation flows through your mind as your human object-subject consciousness. It all becomes beautiful when it's in order, all in its rightful place, but it can be distressing when the simulation is a substitute for reality.

[@emsa5034]

You sure that was just a dream my man? 😏🍄 🌈

[@EsotericBibleSecrets]

For the first one, AI is NOT alive. It doesn't have a soul, can't remote view, astral project, or take hallucinogens. It is not connected to source. For the second one, while it does prove new colors cannot exist, all she ever had to do was rub her eyes or dream. She did NOT live without seeing color, it's false.

[@reedhouser4004]

Sounds like you became lucid, my man. Take that feeling further and you’ll have so much fun while dreaming

[@gillianfahey3108]

We’re in an organic stimulation/hologram

[@puzzLEGO]

the very concept of our brain overcoming the concept of itself is, in fact, also a concept which our brains cannot overcome. how ironic.

[@ralph4140]

Point!

[@BlazRa]

Your brain isn't doing anything your mind is not your brain your brain is just the house

[@BlazRa]

Your mind is you if you could turn your Consciousness to look into a mirror you would be looking directly at your mind it is quite literally your Eternal Soul

[@stromboli183]

@@BlazRa Exactly what do you mean by your mind, your consciousness, and your soul?

[@rohanp1227]

"If the human brain were so simple That we could understand it, We would be so simple That we couldn’t." - Emerson Pugh. Meta-cognition itself is absolutely mind blowing

[@ratelhoneybadger]

This was beautiful🤩👌🏾

[@boaphone6317]

Just say no to drugs.

[@schmarmo]

This channel is amazing. I love how it throws up questions that can't really be answered with logical understanding, it's both frustrating and interesting.

[@alexandersupertramp6793]

I love your channel, man. Really eye-opening and thought provoking topics you cover. Keep it up, man! Sending love&light, from Pittsburgh!

[@user-ce8lr3ff6v]

1) Humans have 3 additional capabilities which the man in the room is being denied use of. The ability to associate observations with observations and chemical responses (reactions). The ability to process observations through a value system (can the observation help or hurt the observer). The ability to make meta observations. A machine that has those capabilities has understanding. 2) Mary was able to see colors before the door was opened, as she would have the knowledge to diffract the white light source in to component colors. Like the man in the first problem, she is deprived of any associations with the colors, so they may have no meaning to her beyond what she learned. While a real case of the experiment would be a cruel thing to do, a case of person born blind and given sight would give real insight here. 3) Reality in general has to be identified by multiple observations agreeing on what is observed. The brain in the vat case can be identified using a motion simulator to induce motion sickness. Main issue with additional complexity models is that they never touch on the source of the virtual model.

[@chanmeenachandramouli1623]

Fabulous videos & contents. Thx. MeenaC

[@BACzero]

Mary's Room - Find as many people as you can who've tried durian fruit, and have them describe it to you. Every detail they can come up with... then go research durian fruit. Read everything you can, watch every video you can find... then seek out durian fruit for yourself, and try it. You will find very quickly that there are things you simply cannot understand through second-hand knowledge. I had this experience myself with a coworker from Cambodia, who wanted us to experience durian fruit. There's a reason they ban it from public places. ;) Oddly enough, I also had this experience (to a lesser degree) with flan. I never tried flan until I was into my 40s. It wasn't because it wasn't around. I had friends who loved it, family who told me all about it and I'd even seen it in person, but it wasn't until I went out to dinner with a girl who insisted that we share one after our meal. I was pretty much what I expected, but there were nuances to it that I didn't understand until I actually ate it for myself. No... IMHO, the thought experiment of Mary's Room is a bust. Understanding how your body reacts to something scientifically is very different than experiencing that reaction for yourself. Just my two cents, of course.

[@yourpersonaldatadealer2239]

Surely you can define Mary’s novel experience as just layers of emotional ‘feeling’s’ (abstract physical sensations) within her subjective body. If she’d learned both color theory and the entirety of human biology (probably beyond what is currently known) then she may possibly have understood all that was to be known before the occurrence of exiting. This still leaves the missing color perception on the retina itself which of course was missing since the previous method of education would only have provided a compressed version of all the data truly available (like printing a colour photo in black and white). I could be wrong but it feels like data was missing from the initial stage.

[@jackimo22]

For someone that just may be the case. To add complexity to the problem, we can never actually know how someone experiences anything. We can convince each other we understand how the other experiences the world, but we will never truly know. To go even deeper, the lambic system (emotional part of the brain) fires before the prefrontal cortex (the thinking part) even though our brains convince us it’s the other way around. We are emotional beings that rationalise those emotions with thoughts.

[@randywa]

This is basically what I thought. She won’t know all there is to know about color until her brain physically enters the state that corresponds with experiencing color and then records that experience.

[@somethingsomething2541]

@@jackimo22 do u mean limbic system / hind brain?

[@anishtiwari1121]

how did they make her blood balck😂

[@janet.akselrud]

Knowing how something works is not the same thing as feeling it. If Mary knew, for example, that dopamine would be released in a person upon them seeing yellow, that doesn't mean Mary would be able to know what the release of dopamine felt like (until the first time it happened to her).

[@RevDevilin]

"No One Can Solve" I love those word's. The question is one of absolute certainty, which is outside the realms of the normal human cognition. Perhaps the bigger question is would you like a definitive answer? The Ugly Truth vs Comforting Lies.

[@alexrigg156]

1) need to ask open questions. 2) yes. because reading about it and experiencing it is quite different its emotional. . 3) you dont know. nothing is certain.

[@Auroth_DI]

Thought experiment no.4: Why have I been watching youtube for 7 hours straight?

[@Joy2826]

Thought experiment no.5: Why are you gAe?

[@OhDangItsBazn]

Mary’s Room reminds me a lot of when my girlfriend was trying to teach me how to drive manual. My girlfriend learned how to drive manual as her first car, so it was second nature to her. I wanted to learn, so she agreed to teach me. Prior to our lesson, I looked up dozens of videos and articles about how the clutch worked, the gear shifter, the order of operations of how to start a manual car, how to properly brake, how to use the gas and the clutch together to find the “bite point”, the amount of revs to give the engine prior to engaging the clutch - I did ton of research. And in doing so, I felt I understood manual cars on a fundamental level. But then came that first lesson - when I got behind the wheel, despite all I’d learned, looked up, and “knew” - I stalled it immediately. Again. And again, and again. It took hours and I could barely get the clutch to engage. I was embarrassed and pissed, because it felt like everything I learned was useless. Like the “understanding” of how the car worked and knowing the “order of operations” wasn’t enough. And it wasn’t, because I hadn’t “experienced” it before. Contrast this to my girlfriend - she didn’t really understand what the clutch was “doing” beyond allowing her car to move. She’d never heard of a “bite point” nor considered why the “size” of the gears effected how fast, or slow she could accelerate, nor did she search for some magic rpm to rev to before engaging the clutch - when I told her all I’d researched, I was surprised that a lot of it was new to her. And yet she could drive manual perfectly. It seemed she had “experience” but not “understanding”, and I only had “understanding”, but not experience. Yet, in the scenario, experience was all she needed to drive the car. (Granted, I’m not saying she had no idea how a manual worked at all, but - for example - she didn’t know the “why” behind you needing to rev the engine to around 1.5k rpm before engaging the clutch - she just always knew to do so - and could do it naturally, without even looking at the rev counter). Eventually, I learned to drive the car…somewhat (and without burning out the clutch, thankfully), but I definitely gained something that I didn’t have beyond just “knowing fundamentally how a manual car worked, but never driving one”. Sort of like Mary having an understanding of how colors work, but never experiencing them. In the beginning, before I got got behind the wheel, I felt confident with just the “knowledge” - but after all the stalls and ground gears, I felt like the act of “experiencing” was far more valuable/intrinsic.

[@missflorathewriter9014]

I don't know why, but reading this story really helped confirmed my gut instinct about Mary's room, so thanks for sharing

[@guypage790]

I would suggest that perceiving color and learning to drive a stick shift are two different things. Driving a manual successfully requires a lot of body training, from the subtle release of the clutch to the muscle memory required to place the gearshift. Perception of color does not need this. Let's suppose that when Mary leaves the room and sees color for the first time, the experimenter points to a color and says, this is red. Mary would correlate the perceived color to all that she knows of "red", presumably saying to herself something like"oh, THAT'S red. So, has the perception of the color taught her much new, or anything at all, about it?

[@egg-iu3fe]

yeah there's so many examples you can use, like you can read all about the moon but never know what it's like to actually step on the moon. It basically just proves mary's room is true and consciousness is somehow separate from physical things.

[@urluckee]

In teaching my son, I taught him to feel the clutch, to notice the change in rpms prior to and when the clutch engaged. I showed him how to experience driving. Experience and knowledge are important.

[@teslabhatta3560]

@@guypage790 so you assumed that her eyes immediately would know what color is and they would immediately be at ease at the first experience of colour? Do we really know how our senses work in all situations or we just imagine that this is how they might experience? Is the imagination of experience same as the experience?

[@zantac180]

The 3rd one messed me up a good bit in college when I learned about it in class. The answer I came to came from my classmate “It doesn’t matter.” Basically, even if it is not real, it is real to you, like how dreams feel real in the moment. Because I cannot tell if the here and now is real, should I treat it as any less real? Even if there is a true reality outside of what I’m experiencing right now does not matter, for it is not the reality I am experiencing. As for the color one, she will ABSOLUTELY learn something. She may know that a striped shirt of hot pink and neon blue would not look great, but after seeing it, she might learn she actually likes it or finds it hilarious instead of bad.

[@RoqueSerantes]

You can read all the books about love in the history of humanity and never feel the butterflies of a simple similing gaze. You can be conforted with words but a hug is a different experience. Words can reach what they can. Language is amazing, but language alone cannot fill all of the inputs our brain is able to respond to.

[@thomascrownrg]

Upon being introduced to the actual experience of seeing colors, I imagine Mary would faint due to sensory overload. Which, if you think about it... would be an Amazing experience in and of itself.

[@dartandarigaaz3393]

Technically we are actually living the 3d experiment every day since we could argue that our body functions as the vat that is giving us the output for the stimuli from the outside

[@BlueFalcon235]

Maybe that was the analogy to the last one when the author wrote it. With modern day technology, the comparison of a robot and a human is almost identical. Both have sensors to detect certain things in the reality we exist within. Thus inputting information into a computer or brain in which certain things occur. I think what makes us conscious is the fact that we may not be like a computer just processing information and outputting a determined sequence. We each analyze and process things differently thus creating a different perception based on it. Also with the influence of emotions. But that arises a question about Emotions. Are they just chemical reactions or are they deeper than that? Maybe we are just AI in a video game codded to be fairly random but still are limited in how we can process information based on our code. Would the difference between AI / Humans and just a computer be the ability to re-write ones own code? Then we could determine that all consciousness is artificial as it was created by something else. And the paradox of there never being a creator and everything always existing.

[@glenrisk5234]

Actually with gravity waves and their effect on space having now been observed it is actually five dimensions. Being that time dilation had already been proven. Mathematically the known quantities of existence can not be reconciled in less than 11 dimensions, or 10 with a single fundamental principle. That is the simplest possible mathematical model reconciling all known quantities though there are more complex views that could be beneficial to consider in relation to expanded views based on what is known.

[@cartiersadler7726]

Who edits these videos ? They are the best

[@northerngypsysoul]

The first experiment got me thinking As its common knowledge that we can only see faces in our dreams that we have already seen, that our brain is unable to create a face we have not yet experienced - How is it that those of us who do remember our dreams still cannot confirm we 'know' each person on reflection of waking yet others we identify so clearly. Yes this could be because the person we saw was a passing driver on the road or from a clipping of a magazine but is this really the entirety of the case? it would be interesting to see how a person being seperated in this way experienced people in their dreams. Id love to hear your thoughts on this if this is something you know more about

[@bluetube8824]

For the 3rd room: We can know 3 things: Our Thoughts, our Preferences (or Values), and our Perceptions. Our Perceptions are the raw input that we intake, either from reality, or from whatever simulation we happen to be in. Our Thoughts are the means by which we interpret and understand what we perceive, the process whereby we take raw data and turn it into intelligible narrative about what is happening and why. Our Preferences are, simply, how we feel about it; they are our desires and the emotions (positive or negative) that we associate with specific events we perceive and thoughts that we think. The fun bit is: These 3 things are enough. Whether it is a simulation or not is irrelevant, because no matter the source of the perceptual stimuli, to us those stimuli are the only reality that we've got, and therefore are the only reality upon which to base our thinking and feeling. If the simulation creates the things we perceive, then actual reality is far less important for our lives and purposes than the simulation is, and, if that it the case, then which one is really more "real"?

[@stefanmoret5246]

maybe thats afterlife, we die in the simulation and wake up to the "real" world. and the reason we believe in afterlife is because in 2000 years ago (in simulation time) one guy went back into the simulation, but then outside people took him back because of the consequences it would have. or maybe jesus was an outside person from the beginning with admin powers. also maybe our desire to test everything and to try to understand the universe comes from the subconcious knowledge that our world isnt actually real

[@subilee743]

yes exactly what I was thinking put into words. That's why even since I was younger I wasn't scared or sad by the idea of a situation like the 3rd room situation.

[@SenhorAlien]

Not to get too outlandish or trippy, but reality could very well be nothing except you, as in, you're a formless consciousness which is kept apart from the reality you exist to be in this simulation. Hm... if you know the Cthulhu mythos, think of Azathoth. The only real thing is them, reality itself is just a manifestation of their dream (their simulation, so to say). It's really (maybe) just a body-less, formless conscious thing in the middle of literal nothingness.

[@stefanmoret5246]

Huh... Interesting

[@littleredadventures2040]

@@SenhorAlien Gotta say it seems small minded to think you're consciousness is the only thing to exist. Also sounds like a lonely existence... But, if that were the case and reality itself is just a manifestation/simulation of your own consciousness then wouldn't the dream you believe you're in still be reality? If you're unaware of being a formless consciousness your way of perceiving reality wouldn't change, therefore it wouldn't be any less real. However if you were aware of this, you would basically be a god and be able to control your entire life or at least bits of it by sheer will and let's be honest we all want to change something about reality. But weather or not reality is happening in your head, a void or a simulation, it doesn't make it any less real, reality is how you perceive and understand existence, it not a place. Now just to be clear, this is entirely just me thinking aloud and I could also sound like a right dumbass.

[@rellikpd]

Some of these (especially the second one regarding color) are answerable. As someone who has experienced situations that are often described as "You just won't know until you experience it yourself" I imagine this would be quite the same as experiencing color. One personal example I can give is: I've worked in criminal justice, and I know military personnel who could verify this, but all the reading, research, practice, study, etc of being in a situation where you might have to kill another person is not enough to prepare you for the actual situation. But by the rules of physicalism it "should" be. But, I can say first hand; It is not.

[@johnlynch-kv8mz]

6:50 absolutely, for the first time in Her life, she will witness colors in all their myriad glory, and experience the emotions perceiving these colors in their different arrangements have on her mind. She will then know how seeing those colors make her feel. Yes, if she is capable of emotion, her knowledge will increase

[@kairavb]

i think the answer of the first one , The chinese room is emergence, how simple little things work together and form a system that can be considered intelligent for example a single ant is dumb but a ant colony can do great things like forming sand fortress, hunting, searching in groups, etc likewise, a single neuron is just a input-process-output, like a mathematical function, does nothing more than calculation but a bunch of neurons acting together and forming a system makes the difference and thus then considered intelligent same with the chinese room experiment , when we look at the whole picture, like just consider the output we think it is intelligent but when we slice the system until we cannot do it more slicing, we reach the single most basic unit that is not intelligent, i hope u like my answer :)

[@alex190alex]

When I was thinking about the third thought experiment my mind went immediately to "I think therefore I am" (for those that don't know it basically means I can think therefore I exist), so if I found out that I really was just a brain in a vat; although I'd be extremely disheartened, and most likely become very untrusting of everything because my entire life was a complete lie, I'd at least know that I exist because of that fact that I think, and even if I thought "Do I actually exist though?" it would prove it's own point with the fact being that I do exist because I was thinking of the possibility that I don't, and "I think therefore I am".

[@TheHappyHummy]

5:06 Bars 😏

[@decab8292]

The Turing test.

[@achyuthb]

Cogito, ergo sum :)

[@starkravingmedia]

I think therefore I exist, is actually quite a leap. The best one can really do is probably "I think, therefore thinking exists."

[@thecataclysmitician4661]

But.... Your life, or rather, EVERYTHING you think you know, is, in fact a lie... Not one thing that you think you know, is the truth, nothing, it's all a lie... Therefore, why are you even here, or are you here? And if you're not here, where are you... actually? This sentence is a lie.

[@rainyan6632]

"He's been completely isolated for some time" Sounds like paradise for me✅

[@jayrome144]

Said the person socializing online 😂 Go on! Isolate!

[@pokyttruuruynn5375]

Ah, so, to quarantine?

[@mphahlelegiven9470]

@@jayrome144 😂😂😂

[@efml]

I love how you showed Rene Descartes for this part 10:05

[@weishenmejames]

I thoroughly enjoyed these three thought experiments and the only one which is new to me is Mary's Room. Cool!

[@Devil-Made]

This was one of my favorite videos. Please make more videos with multiple topics condensed into one narrative. Its a fun way to shake things up a little bit.

[@tj.marten]

For Mary’s Room: She wouldn’t “learn” anything but she’d experience something new of course

[@Kimbie]

This sounds very semantic.

[@Devilupz]

​@markjvp im black

[@Devilupz]

yeah

[@Devilupz]

@markjvp i just watched the whole video and thought for a bit and came to a conclusion that all she could know by sitting in that room is what the brain does when you see Red color. but she cant imagine red color. it means she doesnt know how it looks/feels. 'feels' is just your brain doing something when you see red color. she knows what her brain does but she cant replicate or control her brain neurons/cells to understand how RED looks like.She cant imagine red color sitting in that room unless she can control every cells in her brain replicating its positions of a brain which is staring at red color. So when she looks at the red color for the first time, her brain cells 'does' what she had read in the book and she will understand/learn how red looks like.

[@Devilupz]

learning is also the change of the braincells. so you cant learn without your braincells moving. and you cant control and move place your brains cell in the position of a brain which is imagining a red color. so she basically cant learn how red looks inside that room because she cant move her brain cells and you you cant learn without moving your braincells.

[@videosextra9434]

Nice presentation

[@stephengillenwaters1950]

Mary's room scenario. She'd realize how wrong she was thinking that there were only those three shades/colors. She would question everything she has learned before seeing colors. At the same time being in a serious State of shock. Also her eyes being conditioned that way for so many years, who knows how many issues she would develop after seeing color. Great content!! Brings up too many questions.

[@AL-en9cq]

Dude I just wanna say thank you so much for these videos it’s always nice to have something to think about and listen to during a long day at work 😁

[@SciFiDucky]

For Mary's room, I think there is an initial bias here that goes something like "learning only happens via language," but if you don't think that premise is true, there's no real mystery here. Words are a limited way to convey information.

[@DrSlipperyFist]

Agreed. Maybe if we get wifi chips in our brains we can "communicate" more effectively than with just spoken or written words.

[@SenhorAlien]

Indeed, the premise is stupid.

[@Rich904]

Language doesn't only mean words. I would look at it like any type of conveying of information take example body language, sign language. U mean if really just depends how people decide to define what constitutes language and what constitute a word. Back on the days they said things like the word of God, they didn't mean actual words per say. I would go on to say amy type of waveform carrying information can be called language or a signal, a word. So yea I would say we can learn new things by experiencing the subject with other senses (thought the eyes). Kinda of like 1st hand vs. 2nd hand knowledge since everything she reads about is information another person wrote about their own experiences with color. Another thing can be said is that different people possibly see colors differently than the next person. Seeing how color is all just wavelength of the same thing. Also being that they see white and black is composed of all colors. It is all just light. So then can we say by experiencing light and seeing the colors black and white, hasn't she experienced color already?

[@SciFiDucky]

@@Rich904 in the example Mary has only learned via language. My point is that knowledge of what a color looks like is based on a completely different kind of learning than can be learned with symbols. Words and maths are models of the universe, they are not the universe itself.

[@9Ballr]

Those who are sympathetic to Jackson's original take on the black and white Mary thought experiment (that it shows that physicalism is false) I think would be happy to accept the claim that you can learn things in ways other than through language. Those who endorse physicalism not so much, presumably, because that which is physical can presumably be conceptualized through language, so that if everything is physical then everything can be understood through language.

[@Erikali26]

To answer how she'll feel different upon her experience, in Mary's room, the answer is the depth of feeling experienced by the richness of the color. No text can ever help you to feel the richness of a dark or light hue..... Especially on the right person. 😉 That wink was for Mary. Emancipation is sweet.

[@jlpsinde]

So good

[@IshmielMantooth]

😊 I think what makes John special compared to a computer is that John understands the need for communication. And will do the required steps to have communication. Because after isolation the human psyche begins to lower functions leave a computer alone for a million years. And it will still be able to compute and just output data.

[@user-ot7jd9dt7t]

Now this is fairly interesting..

[@alexharrislove]

I learned about the third one playing my favorite video game as a teenager, Metal Gear Solid, and was totally creeped out whenever the game started glitching and making me think I was truly in a matrix. I thought about Mary's room whenever I think of how a person who can see attempt to explain color to a person who was born blind but it is very similar to Plato's Allegory of the Cave.

[@jwdeepsky]

Dude same, mgs2

[@SurrealSurrender]

Omg…Metal Gear Solid. Snakeeeee 🐍

[@ShakerCheeseIsRite]

My answer to Mary's Room is, eventually speech could evolve to such an understanding of the brain we stimulate cells directly. This means a person could take a message, encode it, send the message [mechanically], the receiver could then decode it and understand it physically. Still communication, but communication directly to the brain so it is as accurate as possible. she will then learn how she feels from this accordingly. After that, experiencing it "again" leads to remembering the last experience or whatever

[@samuelcosta8189]

Just exactly what i was thinking about