What am I still doing here?

Waiting for an answer to your question. Duh.

I gotta seriously stop answering my own questions

Mary is a brilliant scientist who is, for whatever reason, forced to investigate the world from a black and white room via a black and white television monitor. She specializes in the neurophysiology of vision and acquires, let us suppose, all the physical information there is to obtain about what goes on when we see ripe tomatoes, or the sky, and use terms like ‘red’, ‘blue’, and so on.

She discovers, for example, just which wavelength combinations from the sky stimulate the retina, and exactly how this produces via the central nervous system the contraction of the vocal cords and expulsion of air from the lungs that results in the uttering of the sentence ‘The sky is blue’. What will happen when Mary is released from her black and white room or is given a color television monitor? Will she learn anything or not?

Sorry but I left Lockean metaphysics behind me a year ago and never looked back.

Qualia is Lockean? I though it was more modern than that.

That Mary looks like an easy, avaliable girl, what's her phone number?

Unfortunately I can't remember precisely, but that thought experiment originates from a letter sent to John Locke while he was writing An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. It was explored far more thoroughly by Russel and others during the turn of the twentieth century, but the base model comes from the distinction between primary and secondary qualities of objects.

You know that won't mean anything to most of us, right?

Update:

WHOOOSH

Don't worry BM, I know what he was talking about...for the most part ;)

Well I don't!

SHOE IS ON THE OTHER FOOT NOW BULLET MAGNET :tard:

All those times you, Max and Nate (and WoF sometimes) have talked about maths or crazy science mumbo jumbo and I had no idea what the christ you are talking about.

How does it feel?

Secure in the knowledge that his specialisations were well chosen, I suspect.

Most probably. :monster:

Science is fun, let's have some troll science.
This is the science thread now, right?

BM doesn't know something? I give him another 24 hours before he physically extracts Laser's knowledge through his laptop/PC, once again making him the most intelligent being in the Universe.

What knowledge does best is illuminate vast vistas of mystery that you had no idea existed. That's why university graduates feel like they know hardly anything about anything, while their school-leaver selves thought themselves pretty broadly educated.

I only seem like I know a lot because I usually talk about things I know about, and I hope that you guys learn from it. I just wish the balance tipped the other way more often, because I want to learn too.

BM just tried to find the most polite way to call all of us "know nothing retards".

Can I ramble on about bees? I haven't done that for months. You'd all learn so much!

Jesus Christ no!

So, maybe?

If I can ramble on about ponies.

And I'm guessing that's a no. :(

NO RAMBLING! ABOUT ANYTHING!

If you can actually teach me some useful things about ponies, like the objective distinction between a pony and a small horse, I'd be delighted to listen.

I think everyone does that.

Sure, but not everyone cultivates the false impression that they know everything as expertly as it seems I have.

I only meant that I try to explain what I talk about (perhaps not always successfully) and that you guys should talk about the interesting things you know more often. For my benefit.

Well that's the problem, you don't tell us what you don't know already enough.

He doesn't know this thing we call love.

Nah, handsome chap like BM, if he put himself out there I reckon women would flock to him.

Are you the nerdy guy from Zombieland?