shallumstuart

i copied that off a site. but its interesting :) i doubt it will be read tho.

The case of the brains in a vat Here is a science fiction possibility discussed by philosophers: imagine that a human being (you can imagine this to be yourself) has been subjected to an operation by an evil scientist. The person's brain (your brain) has been removed from the body and placed in a vat of nutrients which keeps the brain alive. The nerve endings have been connected to a super-scientific computer which causes the person whose brain it is to have the illusion that everything is perfectly normal. There seem to be people, objects, the sky, etc.; but really, all the person (you) is experiencing is the result of electronic impulses travelling from the computer to the nerve endings. The computer is so clever that if the person tries to raise his hand, the feedback from the computer will cause him to 'see' and 'feel' the hand being raised. Moreover, by varying the program, the evil scientist can cause the victim to 'experience' (or hallucinate) any situation or environment the evil scientist wishes. He can also obliterate the memory of the brain operation, so that the victim will seem to himself to have always been in this environment. It can even seem to the victim that he is sitting and reading these very words about the amusing but quite absurd supposition that there is an evil scientist who removes people's brains from their bodies and places them in a vat of nutrients which keep the brains alive. The nerve endings are supposed to be connected to a super-scientific computer which causes the person whose brain it is to have the illusion that... When this sort of possibility is mentioned in a lecture on the Theory of Knowledge, the purpose, of course, is to raise the classical problem of scepticism with respect to the external world in a modern way. (How do you know you aren't in this predicament?) But this predicament is also a useful device for raising issues about the mind/world relationship. Instead of having just one brain in a vat, we could imagine that all human beings (perhaps all sentient beings) are brains in a vat (or nervous systems in a vat in case some beings with just a minimal nervous system already count as 'sentient'). Of course, the evil scientist would have to be outside — or would he? Perhaps there is no evil scientist, perhaps (though this is absurd) the universe just happens to consist of automatic machinery tending a vat full of brains and nervous systems. This time let us suppose that the automatic machinery is programmed to give us all a collective hallucination, rather than a number of separate unrelated hallucinations. Thus, when I seem to myself to be talking to you, you seem to yourself to be hearing my words. Of course, it is not the case that my words actually reach your ears — for you don't have (real) ears, nor do I have a real mouth and tongue. Rather, when I produce my words, what happens is that the efferent impulses travel from my brain to the computer, which both causes me to 'hear' my own voice uttering those words and 'feel' my tongue moving, etc., and causes you to 'hear' my words, 'see' me speaking, etc. In this case, we are, in a sense, actually in communication. I am not mistaken about your real existence (only about the existence of your body and the 'external world', apart from brains). From a certain point of view, it doesn't even matter that 'the whole world' is a collective hallucination; for you do, after all, really hear my words when I speak to you, even if the mechanism isn't what we suppose it to be. (Of course, if we were two lovers making love, rather than just two people carrying on a conversation, then the suggestion that it was just two brains in a vat might be disturbing.) I want now to ask a question which will seem very silly and obvious (at least to some people, including some very sophisticated philosophers), but which will take us to real philosophical depths rather quickly. Suppose this whole story were actually true. Could we, if we were brains in a vat in this way, say or think that we were? I am going to argue that the answer is 'No, we couldn't.' In fact, I am going to argue that the supposition that we are actually brains in a vat, although it violates no physical law, and is perfectly consistent with everything we have experienced, can not possibly be true. It cannot possibly be true, because it is, in a certain way, self-refuting. The argument I am going to present is an unusual one, and it took me several years to convince myself that it is really right. But it is a correct argument. What makes it seem so strange is that it is connected with some of the very deepest issues in philosophy. (It first occurred to me when I was thinking about a theorem in modern logic, the 'Skolem-Löwenheim Theorem', and I suddenly saw a connection between this theorem and some arguments in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations.) A 'self-refuting supposition' is one whose truth implies its own falsity. For example, consider the thesis that all general statements are false. This is a general statement. So if it is true, then it must be false. Hence, it is false. Sometimes a thesis is called 'self-refuting' if it is the supposition that the thesis is entertained or enunciated that implies its falsity. For example, 'I do not exist' is self-refuting if thought by me (for any 'me'). So one can be certain that one oneself exists, if one thinks about it (as Descartes argued). What I shall show is that the supposition that we are brains in a vat has just this property. If we can consider whether it is true or false, then it is not true (I shall show). Hence it is not true. Before I give the argument, let us consider why it seems so strange that such an argument can be given (at least to philosophers who subscribe to a 'copy' conception of truth). We conceded that it is compatible with physical law that there should be a world in which all sentient beings are brains in a vat. As philosophers say, there is a 'possible world' in which all sentient beings are brains in a vat. (This 'possible world' talk makes it sound as if there is a place where any absurd supposition is true, which is why it can be very misleading in philosophy.) The humans in that possible world have exactly the same experiences that we do. They think the same thoughts we do (at least, the same words, images, thought-forms, etc., go through their minds). Yet, I am claiming that there is an argument we can give that shows we are not brains in a vat. How can there be? And why couldn't the people in the possible world who really are brains in a vat give it too? The answer is going to be (basically) this: although the people in that possible world can think and 'say' any words we can think and say, they cannot (I claim) refer to what we can refer to. In particular, they cannot think or say that they are brains in a vat (even by thinking 'we are brains in a vat').

ah ha, guy looks like a pimp.

lol does this clone go by the name of bon?

youre a smart girl bonnie. but im exactly the same. i dunno, i just dont feel the need to. plus the youth of today have to put up with enough stereotypical shit, so i like to not do any of that crap just to spite all the older generation who think that we are all pot smoking degenerates. its my rebellion-less form of rebellion. does that make me just like everyone else becaues im trying to be different? probably. so you cant fucking win. which is a good philosophy for life :P i dont really think that, but pesimissim is good humour. plus drugs are dumb and im happy as i am.

well im offended! especially on Australia Day. Check the flag again mate... im no kiwi. and sex education is in no way taboo here. its a compulsory part of high school education, and contraception is taught heaps and heaps, even in catholic schools. i would know as ive been to a catholic school and a public school. i dont care what some redneck girl whos been pregnant 50 times thinks about abortion, because 99% of the people who get them find it a hard decision, and as a last resort. i bet you could find stories about how some girl has had 5 abortions and couldnt give a shit, but i could give you stories of girls who have had them and its ripped their lives apart. and id bet that there it is only a very small minority who would use abortion on a whim and then do it all again later.

and also, its not like abortion is the easy and quick option. first of all it is expensive to do, and even more expensive when you compare it to the price of a condom. secondly, its hard on the girls, and think of the embarrassment a 15yr old would feel going to their parents asking for money for an abortion. anyone would be an idiot to think 'i wont use a condom because the abortion will be easy if i need it'. even if you have no morals, it still costs money. so i agree with you.

grr youre wrong. contraception is the prevention of a child being CONCEIVED. it doesnt have anything to do with when the child is a human being, because the moment of conception is the moment that contraception is trying to prevent. abortion is not contraception, because it doesnt prevent this point, it merely erradicates the result of conception.

nah im not. i have lots of friends going though. it wouldve been cool. babo, i dont know any korean really. but my cousins hosted this korean exchange student once and we got him to teach us naughty words :P and they are so polite that they dont know the difference hehe.

oh my bad. well i was close! kind of... whats gay then? it sounds like that. mobo... bubo... i dont remember.

doesnt babo mean gay in korean? im not trying to be insulting, i think it does...

not really, contraception is preventing conception. and condoms prevent conception, but abortion kills the conceived baby. so they arent really both contraception. however, im with you on the argument. i know girls who have had them, and believe me its not a whimsical decision for them. it tears them up, but i see the rationale behind it, why destroy 2 lives when you can just destroy the one? on the other hand, if i ever got a girl pregnant i would feel very guilty and horrible about wanting to abort it. so i dont think these arguments are very useful, because every person's situation is different and no one person should decide whats right for everyone. so i say keep it legal, and dont act like it isnt an increadibly hard thing to do.

are you going to the big day out?

lol id imagine you would feel dodgy carrying round the city! sounds fun tho, have a good day :)

yeah epiphones are solid. good guitars

:lol: :lol: happy birthday to bon, happy birthday to bon...etc etc. did you know happy birthday song is under copyright til 2010? i guess that means people cant record it without paying or giving credit to some genius who wrote it. so anyway what'd u get and what are you doing?

hey well done panicator! youre the first one to spell retarded correctly on this thread.

it will be pretty tricky to i think... its kind of really layered and the sound quality isnt so great so it would be hard. EDIT: actually the first time i listened to it was on headphones that sounded heaps shit, but i just listened again and its alot better than i remember. so yeah, bring on tabs!

i didnt take it out of my sig, it was never in my sig... honest.. lol

lol i have 4 members now. i call that success.

i think swallowed in the sea. id like that as a single anyway. til kingdom come also wouldnt suprise me.

i think glastonbury 05 is the best. copenhagen is definately awesome though. but glastonburys version of the scientist is so good.

^ dont bother bonnie. i just wanted to see if it could be done, nothing will come of the place.