anotherpanacea

The argument for a separate status for the mental extends ultimately to the claim that there is something it is like to hope, believe, or experience redly, and that this likeness is irreducible to any other form of explanation that depends only on third-person arguments. In one form, this can be seen in Frank Jackson’s argument about Mary the color scientist who has never experienced color first-hand.

For our purposes, we shall take Mary and put her in a slightly modified situation. Let us imagine that, rather than a color scientist, Mary is a princess, and that her parents have proclaimed that she is never to experience pain. (This can be referred to, with tongue firmly in cheek, as Miller’s “The Matter of Mary, the Pampered Princess” for further citation.) Now our Princess Mary has had maids constantly on the lookout for the slightest cause of pain, and they have been unusually successful. She never receives the slightest bump or bruise, even during the difficult process of learning to walk, because her surroundings are always perfectly padded and her falls are all safe because there are no sharp edges anywhere in the castle. Her meals are extremely regulated so as to prevent the pangs of hunger, and her exercise is moderated so as to keep her fit without ever experiencing the burn of lactic acid. Without exhaustively describing the measures these servants have used, let us assume that her life is free from suffering, as befits royalty.