To describe in writing Beethoven's 9th to a completely deaf person so that he would 'hear' it seems indeed impossible. Likewise with explaining the color red to a blind man, or the scent of vanilla to someone who never experienced it.

To describe in writing Beethoven's 9th to a completely deaf person so that he would 'hear' it seems indeed impossible. Likewise with explaining the color red to a blind man, or the scent of vanilla to someone who never experienced i — Olivier5

Impossibility, a concept I struggle with everyday...even the smallest things seem beyond my reach these days. Yet, the same seems not to be the case for others who seem to have already grabbed the low hanging fruit by the handful...they're now, quite literally, aiming for stars if you know what I mean, I await, as patiently as I can, and patience isn't my strong point, for the silver-tongued devil who will, for certain, put to words all that we regard, as of this moment, as the ineffable. Such a day/time will come (I hope). My fingers crossed, In this dream, here, there, I tossed.

Words will always be saying too much or too little… Oh to be silent! Oh to be a painter!
-- Virginia Woolf

Words will always be saying too much or too little… Oh to be silent! Oh to be a painter!
-- Virginia Woolf — Olivier5

We can split the difference...between too much and too little there's something to be had.

One cannot even know everything that has been written about the color red without knowing what the term "red" picks out. If that correlation has never been drawn, as in Mary's case, the term "red" would be utterly meaningless for it would not have ever had a referent for her.

If Mary's Room tells us anything at all, it is that we are capable of posting/stipulating an impossible set of circumstances. Mary's Room works from a gross misunderstanding of how human thought and belief about red stuff works.

It is physically impossible for one to know everything there is to know about the color red; to understand the current conventional standards; to be somewhat familiar with any ongoing and/or historical issues and/or philosophical 'problems' that may emerge within our discourse about these things; etc.; etc.; etc... if the candidate has never saw and discussed red things.

Knowing everything there is to know about the color(bandwidth/frequency of visible light) we call "red" requires having already seen and talked about red things. We're already talking about red stuff. We can pick out red things. We all pick out mostly the same things too; the red ones. We do all this long before we begin talking about the fact that we have and do. We have all sorts of thought and belief consisting of meaningful correlations drawn between red things and language use long before we begin taking those events into account.

These sorts of behaviours were happening on a grand scale long before we ever invented and/or otherwise acquired the technology that allowed us to begin talking about red things in terms of visible light frequencies and/or spectrums.<---------- That's not the beginning of the process of acquiring knowledge of red things. That's some of the discourse that emerged as a result of our already having picked red things out.

Mary's Room asks us to not consider the fact that knowing all that there is to know about red is a process that always begins with using the term "red" to pick out red things.<-------That requires seeing red things. Mary has never seen red things. Mary cannot possibly know everything there is to know about red.