Mary's Room: A philosophical thought experiment

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Eleanor Nelsen |

TED-Ed

• January 2017

Imagine a neuroscientist who has only ever seen black and white things, but she is an expert in color vision and knows everything about its physics and biology. If, one day, she sees color, does she learn anything new? Is there anything about perceiving color that wasn't captured in her knowledge? Eleanor Nelsen explains what this thought experiment can teach us about experience. [Directed by Maxime Dupuy, narrated by Addison Anderson, music by Martin Pinon].