Jackson's Argument Using The Ability Response

Lewis tried to undermine Jackson’s argument using the ability response. This response distinguishes between ‘knowledge how’ and knowledge that’. Consider two examples:

1. Sue knows that water is H20

2. Sue knows how to swim

If we compare the types of knowledge, we can see that example one is a case of factual learning, whereas example two is a case of ability. There is something inherently different about learning a fact and learning a skill. Knowledge that something is, does not equate to knowing how to do something. Lewis argued that Mary does not gain knowledge in terms of facts but in terms of ability, “She gains know-how not knowledge that” . He argued what Mary gains is the ability to imagine, remember and recognize colours and these are all examples of knowledge-how or abilities. It is these abilities that Mary lacks before she leaves the room and she only procures them when she sees colour for the first time. Lewis expressed the view that because physicalism has no position when it comes to abilities, physicalism is not proved false in

the Mary argument.
There are other, similar versions of this argument namely the knowledge of acquaintance argument. On this view, when Mary leaves the room she does not gain abilities or factual information but acquaintance knowledge. She becomes directly acquainted with what it is like to experience colour using her senses. This is similar to meeting someone for the first time or visiting a place you have never been before, you gain acquaintance knowledge.
In my opinion, neither the ability response nor the knowledge of acquaintance response manages to successfully disprove the knowledge argument. In the case of the ability response, this is due to the fact that Mary, along with the abilities of imagining, remembering and recognizing colour, also gains factual knowledge such as “this is what it is for other people to experience colour” . In my opinion, it is unclear that Mary’s new abilities are accompanied by no factual element. No-one is questioning whether or not Mary has a new experience when she sees colour for the first time, we are questioning whether she gains knowledge that escapes the physical story. I am not convinced by the idea physicalism is not committed to a view on abilities. In my opinion, if Mary gains any new information at all from experiencing colour for herself, then this forces the physcialist to accept knowing all the physical information in the world does not mean you know everything there is to know, leading to the conclusion physicalism is false.
The theory of acquaintance knowledge has very similar difficulties. It is not clear that all that Mary acquires is acquaintance knowledge, without any factual knowledge. I am also unconvinced of the distinction made between acquaintance knowledge and physical knowledge. I cannot comprehend how by visiting a new place, you would not learn any new physical information, for example “this is what it is like for people who have been here before”. Also the word acquaintance is ambiguous as sometimes it seems to refer to knowledge, sometimes to experience.
Watkins and Campbell claimed that Jackson’s position is inconsistent.

To understand the relationship between the physical world and consciousness, Jackson adopts epiphenomenalism . This is the theory that phenomenal qualia are caused by, but do not cause physical phenomena. However, the knowledge argument states Mary gains knowledge when she leaves the room as she experiences new qualia. This cannot be the case if epiphenomenalism is correct. Qualia do not affect the physical world so how can qualia increase a person’s knowledge? Jackson cannot consistently maintain both epiphenomenalism and the knowledge argument. To justify Jackson’s acceptance of both, I believe the sort of epiphenomenalism Jackson defends implies, not that qualia are inefficacious, but only that they have no effect on physical phenomena. Jackson could reply that knowledge from senses is not a physical phenomenon so qualia could cause Mary to gain

it.
The inconsistency objection still holds problems for Jackson. In an attempt to explain our experiences of our own qualia, we give physical explanations. However if the knowledge argument is legitimate, then qualia seems to be “explanatorily irrelevant” to these explanations, including the explanation that qualia cannot be explained in physical terms. David Chalmers calls this “the paradox of phenomenal judgment”. This in my opinion is one of the most serious problems that faces any non-physicalist theory of consciousness due to the fact there seems to be no solution.
Another idea that attempts to refute the knowledge argument is “Hempel’s Dilemma ”. The knowledge argument assumes that the term ‘physical’ has a clear meaning, but in fact, how ‘physical’ should be defined is obscure. It is a mistake to define the physical using current physics as what we know today will undoubtedly be revised and reworked and may be proved incorrect in the future. So should we define ‘physical’ in terms of ideal physics? How can we begin to know what that would look like? Ideal physics could involve new theories we are unable to even imagine. So if we are unable to define the concept of ‘the physical’ how can we decide whether Mary could possibly learn all the physical facts of the world from her black and white room?
This issue could render the Mary case meaningless as we are unable to conclude whether or not consciousness is physical. We can however overcome this difficulty by assuming ideal physics will not be completely unpredictable, like modern day physics, it will be “concerned entirely with structure and dynamics” . This means we can say any structural or dynamic properties can be taught to Mary before she leaves the room.
Jackson himself later rejected the idea Mary gains knowledge when she leaves the room and the knowledge argument as a whole. He stated he had been incorrect in his reasoning regarding sensory experience and expressed his previous theory should be replaced with represenatationalism. This is the view that phenomenal states are representational states. He joins representationalism and the ability hypothesis. “We have ended up agreeing with the ability-hypothesis strategy on what happens to Mary on her release, but I cannot see how the authors knew they were right without going via representationalism” . It is unclear however why Jackson’s representationalism leads him to embrace the ability hypothesis. In my view, Jackson’s rejection of his own theory weakens the knowledge argument because, if the founder of the theory loses faith in it, then it becomes much more difficult to defend.