Scientific knowledge versus spiritual knowledge

[Angrboda]

Jackson's experiment suggests that it is possible to have the same knowledge, only in different forms…If Mary indeed knows all there is to know about brain states of seeing red then she knows 'about' her own brain state when she sees red.

You’re conflating sensation with conceptualization. Knowing in concept what happens to the brain physically is not the same as knowing what any given experience associated with that brain state feels like. Inside the box, Mary has conceptual knowledge of color perception. Outside the box, she gains sensual knowledge of color perception. To my mind, Jackson’s thought problem is overly complex. I say, if someone has been blind from birth, no amount of book-learning on sight can compare with its visceral experience.

That would be an entirely different case, for the blind do not have by visceral experience what they would possess by book learning. I'm arguing that if Mary knows all about the mental states of people who experience seeing read, then some of that knowledge is the same as the visceral sensation, only acquired in a different form and through different channels. If she is seeing red, she is experiencing via her neurons the same state she knows about conceptually. It isn't 'new' knowledge, it's some of the knowledge she had previously acquired being brought to her in a different way. Just as someone can tell me that aspirin is a pain reliever, and I go on to discover this by having it relieve my headache, that doesn't mean I've learned something new by the experience that I didn't know before.