Brain in a Vat and External Reality

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So a friend of my believes that it is entirely possible that we’re all brains in a vat or that he may just be the only brain in a vat. He says that there is no reality. Everything is reducible to electrical pulses and sensory images. So in his mind, a brain in a vat is experiencing a reality just as real as we are (assuming we aren’t brains in a vat). Just want some thoughts on this.
 
If you experience anything, then those experiences in themselves are objectively real. He should at least admit that.
 
If you experience anything, then those experiences in themselves are objectively real. He should at least admit that.
The key problem is that we assume that there exist an “I” who does experience. I could say that the experience happens without any reference point to an “I”. How you could show me that there is an “I”?
 
The key problem is that we assume that there exist an “I” who does experience. I could say that the experience happens without any reference point to an “I”. How you could show me that there is an “I”?
The “I” is the label that is given to the receiver of experiences. Quite simply, I cannot show you with certainty that a separate receiver of experiences to you exists. But I can give evidence.
 
The “I” is the label that is given to the receiver of experiences. Quite simply, I cannot show you with certainty that a separate receiver of experiences to you exists. But I can give evidence.
Can you be sure that you are the only receiver of experience that you call your own experience?
 
So a friend of my believes that it is entirely possible that we’re all brains in a vat or that he may just be the only brain in a vat. He says that there is no reality. Everything is reducible to electrical pulses and sensory images. So in his mind, a brain in a vat is experiencing a reality just as real as we are (assuming we aren’t brains in a vat). Just want some thoughts on this.
How did that electricity start to produce a universal schematic and the entire chain of cause and effect which is so intelligent. He might have a plausible explanation, its very difficult to say when speaking for others who may have an engineering degree or further with physics etc. They tend to see everything as interconnected. But there is the moral, so there has to be many combined paradigms of cognitive thought and thinking that I don’t know we can speak on in anothers regard.

The problem with the thinking in general is it dismisses the morality and love, and just think when and if their science reaches it futility. Wasted much time with a closed mind as I see it.
 
How did the brain get in the vat?
I was thinking the same the other day with the computer conversation and how they equate the chips with monkee brain power today. The power of 100 monkee brains in the vat. Course the reason for the computer and the monkee comparison is so they seem to be more like humans. The wireless power of 100 monkee brains in a vat.
 
If a brain in a jar receives any kind of experiences, lacking the nerve endings of a body; then someone outside the jar is generating the experiences.

If there are no experiences being had but only memories, then there must have been embodied experiences previously to create those memories.

ICXC NIKA.
 
What’s with all the skepticism lately?

I like Moore’s answer to it. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_is_one_hand
I think there is not a thing wrong with it, in fact I believe it to be the better path.
Moore famously put the point into dramatic relief with his 1939 essay Proof of an External World, in which he gave a common sense argument against skepticism
The argument isn’t about skeptical philosophy, its about proven your point and in this sense the skeptic is simply more discerning The others proudly proclaim they have a theory with no facts, indicated by the 1939 date.
 
Interesting so far. Here’s a question though: is a chair that a brain in a vat experiences just as real as a chair we (embodied brains) experience?
 
Interesting so far. Here’s a question though: is a chair that a brain in a vat experiences just as real as a chair we (embodied brains) experience?
Well, no, in that he can’t get whacked over his (nonexistent) head with it, as you or I could.
:):):)🙂
ICXC NIKA.
 
My brain is in a sort of vat, fed by tubes that supply oxygen and nutrients, informed by signals carried on wires, and protected and maintained by nano-machines.

Let’s see…
  • vat = skull
  • tubes = blood vessels
  • wires = nerves
  • nano-machines = immune cells
Yep, I’m a brain in a vat.

Next question?
 
My brain is in a sort of vat, fed by tubes that supply oxygen and nutrients, informed by signals carried on wires, and protected and maintained by nano-machines.

Let’s see…
  • vat = skull
  • tubes = blood vessels
  • wires = nerves
  • nano-machines = immune cells
Yep, I’m a brain in a vat.

Next question?
Still, a “vat” fitted with eyes, nose, skin, ears, limbs, etc, is perfectly capable of providing genuine experiences to the mind, which is not the current thought conjecture.

ICXC NIKA
 
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