Comment by A_D_E_P_T

> You have first-person knowledge of qualia. I’m not sure how you could deny that...

I don't deny that. I explicitly rely on it. You must have misunderstood... My claim is not:

1) "There are no qualia"

2) "Qualia are an illusion / do not exist"

My claim is: First-person acquaintance does not license treating qualia as ontologically detachable from the physical/functional. I reject the idea that experience is a free-floating metaphysical remainder that can be subtracted while everything else stays fixed. At root it's simply a necessary form of internally presented, salience-weighted feedback.

> This middle ground would be rejected by almost all philosophers and neuroscientists

I admit that it would be rejected by dualists and epiphenomenalists, but that's hardly "almost all."

As for Mary and her room: As you know, the thought experiment is about epistemology. At most it shows that knowing all third-person facts doesn’t give you first-person acquaintance. It is of little relevance, and as a "refutation" of physicalism it's very poor.