[What Came Before]

Seems I can't focus on my php programming for very long...

I once played a game (it was Stalker: Cally of Pripyat) where there's this corridor underground that you explore. The corridor looks pretty a generic abandoned corridor, dusty, cobwebbed. And it goes on for ages.

Except it doesn't go on for ages. As you pass through, without any sound or indicator, it teleports you back down to the start of the corridor. You just keep hitting the same place, but thinking it's seeing something other than what you've already seen.

I was thinking of qualia, like say the colour red, in the same way. You just keep seeing red, you react(/pass down the corridor), but then your back to where you are. That thought experiment where Mary has never seen the colour red - and the question of what she 'learns' when she does see it. Well here the idea is that we are all Mary, over and over again - no one learns anything about the colour. It feels like a raw feel because it'd be like seeing a 'new' face, when your capacity to remember faces has been destroyed. Everyones face would be new and raw, over and over and over again.

The question being, if you humour the scenario, what would you see in red if you could remember, instead of keep seeing it for the first time? Much like if you see a complex painting, at first you don't see all the details, just a vague idea - it takes time and memory to see more. So, would 'red' suddenly start to have details appearing out of it?

[What Came Before]

That's strangely compelling.

I like it!

(you're not the only one to notice a strange relationship between memory and phenomenal experience, Dennet explored it in one of his essays).

Also, could a moderator move this to the philosophy forum? Belongs more there, I think.

[What Came Before]

If you think about it, the lack of memory is a buttress, stopping the semantic creature from essentially spilling out through the details of red, then spilling out through the details of the details of red, and so on. The lack of memory becomes a wall, ensuring a focus, instead of, for example, being entranced by a twig for hours (man, do I love that twig scene apparently...).

Though it's kind of odd this stuff comes under philosophy these days. :\