know=physical experience

Given that no format has been given by the initial post, I will assume we may provide arguments and rebuttals in all rounds, spare the last (because the opponent would have no room to reply). I would like to address and expand on the core argument "Know=physical experience", before addressing my opponent's round one commentary. I will assume, "a blind person cant know what is on a picture i am showing him" Is either supporting evidence or a secondary argument. I feel this expansion necessary to provide a full discourse since my opponent commentary was so short. I would first like to translate the argument though. It appears to mean "Knowledge is equivalent to physical experience". If this is an incorrect interpretation, then my opponent should clarify this next round. This argument is actually an old philosophical discussion within epistemology, the study of knowledge. Specifically, the argument that all knowledge stems from physical experience is called experientalism, a branch of positivism, which is a branch of empiricism, that is itself a branch of epistemology. This delineation is important because, while the concepts of positivism and empiricism in general will be relevant to the argument, I need only show that the specific branch of positivism known as experientalism, which holds that physical experience is the basis or primary source of knowledge, is incorrect. Knowledge is not equivalent to physical experience, any more than a rhombus is square. While squares are rhombuses, and physical experience can be seen as a form of knowledge, the reverse is not inherently true. Knowledge exists in many forms. I know, for instance, how to multiply. This is an entirely abstract concept outside of physical experience. I will preempt the argument that I had to learn multiplication through physical experience. I can put a baby in water and it will begin swimming. Did the baby know how to swim prior to putting it in the water? No, it didn't, it didn't need to because it is reflexive. That ability was innate. Similarly, our conscious innately provides us the ability to perform abstract thought, which can lead to knowledge. Even if I existed in some Descartian fantasy as a senseless yet conscious mote, if my mind were the same as mine, I would be able to perform such abstractions as math independently of ever having counted blocks or toys or colors when I was very young. If knowledge can be obtained independently of physical experience, this should be considered a hard case against experientalism. As for my opponents commentary, let us return to the blind man. If I present a blind man with a painting, no, he cannot see the painting as someone with eyes can, but that doesn't mean that he can't know what is on the painting. Consider if the blind man only recently lost use of his eyes. While he hasn't seen this painting before, you could describe what is on it, and he would have visual knowledge of it. I can easily similarly describe a painting to you over this medium of text. Imagine an impressionist-era painting of rolling fields of sunflowers back-lit by a cloudy sunset with pink hues. You have not physically seen this painting, but, given that you have seen all its components before (You know what an impressionist painting looks like, you know what clouds and sunflowers and fields look like), you can infer what the painting looks like. This is but a primer though, since it still relies on prior physical experience. This is only to demonstrate how such knowledge could be inferred. Again let us go back to the blind man, except now we will give him no previous physical experience of vision. He can still have a computer analyze almost anything he would want to know about it, and tell it to him. He could analyze what materials it was made from, its texture, weight, size, shape, the color values of any area of the painting, even the directions of brush strokes. An experientialist would argue that it doesn't matter because without the initial physical experience to know what red is visually, for instance, he cannot infer similar knowledge! He would be wrong though, and here is why. No two people on this planet have identical eyes. They don't have identical optic nerves and they don't have identical cerebrums. When you look at a painting, your visual knowledge of it is going to be dissimilar, even if only slightly, to everyone else that views that painting. How different can input and interpretation be before the knowledge is considered different from the source? What if they have partial color blindness? What if they have 20/80 vision and it is blurry to them? What if they have cataracts? What if they only saw the painting while taking hallucinogens? If the match must be perfect, then we have fallen into solipsism. There is no way to obtain perfect visual knowledge of an object, so consequentially no one can 'know' what something looks like under such an interpretation, even if they have 20/20 vision. If the match must be some degree of closeness, but not perfect, then what is the cut off point? There is none that would not be arbitrary or fallaciously determined. What if any perception of the painting counts as knowledge of what it looks like? Well, then the blind man knows what it looks like, though he may possess knowledge of it different than yours. But again, anyone's knowledge of the painting would be different from yours. Just because that knowledge was given to the blind man by auditory description instead of visual examination is not sufficient justification to disqualify it as knowledge of what the painting looks like. I will quickly preempt the rebuttal of, "But he can't know if the description he is told is true". You can not know what you see is true, either. Here again we risk falling into solipsism, where the only irrefutable knowledge is that you experience consciousness. In summary, knowledge can be abstract, such as how to do a non-physical process (math, logic, inference); abstract knowledge does not necessarily come from physical experience, nor is it necessarily subordinate to it; and attempts at forcing such an interpretation are lead to other uncashable philosophical checks, such as unfalsifiability, fallaciusness, or solipsism. As my arguments thus far are almost entirely logical in nature, I have no sources to cite. A good source for more information on experientalism could be found here though: https://books.google.com...