Youre not meant to accept the idea as if it was truth, you are supposed to ponder it and realise you cannot be certain of truth.
You might believe it if your personal situation seems far fetched, detached or painful, what does a multi-billionaire think vs a starving african for instance?
@MDEMONIC689 The only thing I can be absolutely certain of is my own existence, but if I stop thinking then I cannot know if I exist anymore. However, reality mostly regards degrees of certainty and probability. Using the barest minimum of axioms we can build a coherent, logical, working model of the universe. What different people *think* about reality has no bearing on reality itself.
The human awarness of own existance is a tricky feature. I regard it as a freaky coincidence rather then a necessity for life support. If elaborated upon itself, it leads to tragic/comedy dialogs, that end nowhere.
I have those idiotic thoughts about my own existance since I was able to form a structured thought, meaning since I was 3-4 years old.
Vast majority of life forms on Earth do very well for hundrets of millions of years without being plagued by pointless conciousness as we are.
I simply learned to ignore those thoughts because they are pointless. It's a similar issue to a question: why almost every week someone is winning a jack pot in lotto, and I don't.
But now look at this, how can this be a simulation if we age and grow and then die like how LIFE is intended to be? If we are a controlled simulation, can't the "player" just delete us and start over again or does "deleting" mean suiciding?... The world is a constant shiver to me..
Nick Bostrom, i've read some of his stuff. Here's a question. Do you think the size of our brain is restricting our mind capability? If we were really a 'brain in a vat' would it really be a brain like ours in this world? Or would it be much bigger? Or even the size of a 1YiB harddrive (yobibyte is 1000000000000000000000000bytes). Or in the real world would there even be solid objects? There could be no space or time at all. Maybe it's all just electronic signal flow. Like a matrix
@PacifistDub About your question regarding brain size and mental capability;
Scientific investigation has shown that there is probably an optimum size for a sentient, intelligent, biological brain. This is based upon the easily grasped principle that as the biological brain gets bigger, the more time it takes for signals from one end to get to the other, making the brain slower and less intelligent. So while a bigger brain is better, there should be a limit to biological brain size.
@sikthboy but just because it takes longer for the singals to get from one end to another, why does that mean they would be less intelligent? would the signals lower in quality because of the distance?
@PacifistDub Not lower in quality, just a reduced speed. That's lower intelligence because most tests of intelligence have a time limit of some sort. Our brains could get a little bigger, but not much. Much like a computer, there is a trade-off between storage capacity and speed.
actually the vat is ur skull...in cerebral spinal fluid...utilizing mechanisms to interpret the external world limited only to taste, touch, sound, light and smell...we must create mechanisms to observe other phenomena...when u look at a light bulb or your lighted pc screen there is no actual light inside your dark skull...it is a simulated interpretation that your eyes generate for ur brain to interpret as light, but inside is as dark as any closed space
@TheFunnyQQ Can you explain brain in a vat for in simple terms? And what you said in your comment about light and brain interpretation? I think i now understand brain in a vat. Before, i kept not understanding. Let me see if i got this brain. Brain in a vat is simply two question: Are we in reality? or does our brain produce feelings and sensations that we think is reality? If you do help, thanks. :)
@WhiteEmerald1991 One blind sense birth has never seen light. Their imagination is as glowing with activities as anyone else when using other senses to interpret the world. Each sense is a tool plugged into a machine like your hard drive is attached, or your keyboard. The vat is the your skull (or hardware of your computer) and your senses are tools. If limited by only 5, could we be missing something without a 6th, 7th, or 8th tool? This is why we invent microscopes, telescopes and the so on.
@TheFunnyQQ I think the purpose of the BIV argument is that we cannot know what the external world is, whether it is real, or posited inside a machine: Whether the brain is reading the signals of a real world, or a simulated world.
Would it be possible for scientists to communicate with a brain in a vat? Could a brain in a vat be told what is going on in the real world, and able to "speak" to his or her caretakers?
I suppose you wouldn't, but if you were told by a voice you could not see, I don't think the brain would believe that its current predicament is completely normal. So, what if a person wanted to transplant their brain into a vat, and had it done? Would they know that they're a brain in a vat?
@MarxistHero Welcome to the Matrix. Seriously, the movie touched on that very question - one which plagues us all. How can we tell if the experiences we are have anything to do with reality? It is an issue with no solution, a brain teaser. We must simply assume we experience the "real" reality and go about our business.
It makes sense, but I always liked the idea of living forever, like being a brain in a vat. The problem is, I wouldn't want to lose touch with reality.
Have you seen Inception? Makes you think, doesn't it?
Well, I'm asking for a more general and specific reply. Say that I believe I live in reality, or what we would all perceive as real, and I had my brain implanted into a vat, with the full knowledge that I subjected my brain to the procedure.
Theoretically, instead of being human, per se, could I be a physical brain? In your video, the brain had eyes, and was able to see through the glass. Do you think that a brain in a vat could honestly be like that? Very conscious of the "real" world?
If we were a in a simulation, then it's possible for a magical faerie to grant us our wishes to make us real, such as making Bender , the Robot Human, which has happened in Futurama :S
@papasmurfXXX No. Atheists do not believe in a god because there is no evidence to the contrary. I cannot tell if I am a brain in a vat or not - there is no way top determine an answer.
@Freethinker12341 That's essentially what this is. We cannot be certain our experiences are actually real. They may indeed be the product of a most cunning and devious demon who has ensnared our senses for some evil purpose. What we *can* be sure of is that we are a thinking entity, beyond that (if we take skepticism to the extreme) we cannot be certain of anything.
@askegg What we *can* be sure of is that we are a thinking entity,
okay we can't be sure about anything, think about Free-will and Determinism, is everything we think we do , all by our-selves ? Be-side's God's omniscience, to assume God doesn't exist, the simulated reality tells us that there is no reason for us to believe that we can do anything by ourselves, chances are some Programmer who ran the simulation plans everything you are Gonna do, and therefore your decisions aren't really yours.
The Brain in a Vat Scenario is utterly disprovable, it's almost the same argument for Proving God
since we cannot prove that we are a brain in a vat, or have any evidence, we do not believe we are Brains in a Vat through lack of evidence,
this is same for the disbelief in God cause we lack evidence
so we can never get rid of the notion that we're brains in a vat, since we can not get rid of the notion of God, therefore we are not brains in vats cause we disbelieve in god because we lack proof
Brain in a vat is just a metaphor thought out by Putnam, it's the same as the Allegory Cave by Pato and Evil Daemon by Renee Descartes, the point of the argument is that all that reality is is from our thoughts and simply an illusion, or a simulation ...... it does not literally mean that some scientists physically actually put our brains in a computer cause that statement is illogical ... although it does ring a bell, as the Evil Daemon, Mara from Buddhism and the Mad scientist are the same....
We've got to accept Fight Club philosophy, we are nothing but dancing shit....... the brain in a vat simply proves that nothing is true, and that we are just living in nothing but a bunch of bullshit....
Infact, if i was a brain in a vat, who'd brain would that be, that brain could've come from a black guy, or how would i know if I'm a human??? what if i'm just a green reptile that's playing a virtual reality game 10 000 lightyears away from earth?
dude, this brain in a vat argument is nothing but infinite regression, it simply means, that if the scientists put your brain in a vat, how would he know another scientist put his brain in a vat, and it infinitely regresses with an infinite number of brains , and an infinite number of scientists and an infinite number of simulations, the only way to disprove the brain in the vat this is idea of an uncreated god, and eventually is someone dies enough, they'll reach the reality of god....
If we were brains in Vats, then honestly, such a computer would be infinitely large that it would be bigger than a galaxy, and the whole computer collapses on itself
@askegg okay man, so we are a simulation, but simulations are a copy of what has existed, it doesnt' matter if we'ere merely a copy, as long as we Are a copy of something, if nothing was real, then there would be nothing to copy from, and there would be no such thing as a simulation, and the brain would not experience anything cause the supercomputer has nothing to fallow....
@headlesshorsemen75 I was using the word "simulation" in another sense. Perhaps "manufactured" would have been better.
In any case, we cannot ultimately reach a conclusion on this issue. All of us must simply accept that reality exists independent of ourselves, and what we experience is not manufactured.
how is it pointless? until some guy comes to me and gives me a 2 pills? This is crazy, this just means that even my friends are false? but how would i know if someone made 2 brains in one reality, and out of many, the i meet the real other in the simulation.
1.58 not neccesarraly everything is false some things may be true or not be true.... you are just not sure. For example, suppose I am a Brain in a Vat, and in the "real" world there is ice cream. Just by chance, i AM RIGHT. But then again all physical rules could be unknown and anything could happen... so that would be cool!
there is ONLY ONE OPTION in such a theory: to wait for REVENGE through the help of "some God" that will (i.e. "may" or "should") come to save you (or "me," whatever) ... as "The Merovingian" said in the 3-part US film series, The Matrix, "... this is the only reality." Of course, once one comes to this conclusion, then I would imagine that I'd want to be "out of this vat ASAP." And so, I'll do anything to "garner God's attention ASAP." Realistically, probably the best way is to just "think it
My main argument against this is that the mad scientist may also ponder the same question, as soon as a hypothesis falls into infinity it falls apart.
The mad scientist may (in fact he is in a better position to ponder since he is actually doing it) wonder if his own brain is also in a vat being messed around with with other mad scientists outside the "real world", and he may then say "well those mad scientists in the real world will also be able to ponder thier own existence" and so on.
This is why I think the Matrix trilogy actually took this scenario and made sense of it. For this idea to work the origin or creator would have to be a sentient machine.
Don't worry about it man. I can see how what I said would make you think that. Yeah, I meant the origin or creator of the false reality itself. Cause humans would have to create the technology that becomes self aware. Like you said if God created the machine and God was a construct it would fall into an infinite loop.
It is an interesting conept, but not of any consequence to anything. At least it is a soud concept, unlike the ideas featued in some of the other parts of the book.
i am in the process of writing an essay on "am i a brain in a vat?" and i really like the point you made about future technology inevitibly having the potential to replicate sense data, so therefore it is quite probable. if i am to raise this point in my essay who should i say formulated that idea? or was it you?-if so nicely done.
This makes a lot of sense. I can easily see this happening and it seems obvious technology goes in this direction. It makes me sad though. If this is true, which I believe it probably is, it really takes all the meaning out of life. :(
@askegg I believed that there was some kind of afterlife, but didn't really know exactly what. If we are just a simulation, what happens when the program ends? That's what I mean. Then that truly is the end of us...unless it's us on the other end. But most likely, its more like a program. Anyway, that was what I was thinking that was a bit hard to think about.
@MsHolmar When the program ends, it ends. When we end, we end. A part of me wishes to see more, but I can find no rational reason for believing this to be actually true.
@MsHolmar If we are vatted intelligences or even virtual machines experiencing a simulation, the "afterlife" is actually re-awakening to that higher level of implementation, or "reality". But that "reality" may be another higher level of simulation itself. We may be virtual "machines" within a quantum computer intelligence which is called God. So, an afterlife is a misnomer. You are already there. You just perceive that you are here... until your program ends and you "wake up" there.
this is a good example of where Occam's razor should be applied. we can never know for sure but we can beleive we live in true reality (or as close as our sensory perceptions can allow) with an extremely high degree of certainty
Interesting but not falsifiable...so does that entail meaningless, no.
But as Stephen Law suggested from his book, we obviously dont know this as the case. However at least YOU know two things (so one more than Socrates), that you know you exist and that that is the only thing you can ever know given that this is fact. Doubt, of course can be casted all on else...scary...isnt it?
i disagree that this is a necessary axiom. if the goal is to determine what is true and what is not then assuming sensory data is reliable is counterproductive. I also disagree that being a brain in a vat makes it necessarily impossible to determine facts about reality since you would still be interacting with the real object feeding you information.
@affablegiraffable "... then assuming sensory data is reliable is counterproductive"
How else can you sense the world except through your senses? We MUST assume they are reliable in some ways or we could not function at all. Sorry - it's an axiom.
"...since you would still be interacting with the real object feeding you information"
Not necessarily. You may be interacting with the output of such a device, but not the device itself. So you *could* interact with the signals.
Ive thought of this, our whole reality could be a game, or program, or we were sentenced for a crime or some thing and this is the ultimate punishment. anything is possible, another funny theory is everything amd everything in reality is just a manifestation of your subconscious, and you are behind everything! so right now your just communicating with your self. crazy shit huh, reality I tell ya...
I suppose that I am real, because to suppose the opposite is to reject life itself. You cannot live in a reality you admit is false; you will eventually go insane.
"...to suppose the opposite is to reject life itself. "
That somewhat misses the point. The brain in a vat scenario does not equate to you not being alive - quite the opposite. It states that your experiences may not be in fact real.
My bad, flowery language isn't as easy to write as I wish it to be; what I wanted to say was that I reject the notion of being a brain in a vat, because accepting it rejects my life, my 18 years on this planet, as a lie. There is no evidence to support the vat theory thus I reject it, because accepting it voids this reality. pretty much restating your video with flowery bullshit language. sorry for the mix-up I'll work on my poetry :P
LOL Could be true, but speculation over weather or not we are in a vat is almost pointless. Brains are incapable of motion, so there really is not escape. And by the same logic, you may all be figments of my imagionation.
"Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?"
@TheWordsOfGandhi You know, computers have to defragment and get rid of useless information that has no real purpose. Maybe that's what our dreams are.
@MsHolmar Dreams reflect life experience and what is on your mind. As to exactly why we dream, I am not sure. But I think it has to do with the mind experiancing what it needs to that was not (should have been?) in our waking lives.
Actually, dreams "knit together the unraveled sleeve" of our experiences. Meaning, dreams attempt to make sense of your recent memories with your old memories, they do not provide a method for deleting information. Fyi, my source is my Psychology professor.
I had a dream this morning in wich my mum died i fort it was real. I woke from it and felt that i had ben taking life for granted and went along my normal day only to find out at the end of the day when i drempt again this was just a dream too.This went on for a while with diferent dreams until i woke in to the world in wich i am typing this.For a few seconds i was un shore what to think of the "real world"...
(contiued) a dream or illusion? If this is true, then we would dream what we live. If we dream what we live, then theoretically we would live what we dream. Is our life just a dream that is dreamt by another being?
This is just some thoughts. im curious to what you guys have to say.
Are we living an illusion? Is our brain "In a vat" that leads us to believe that we are living a real life? If this is true, then the forms that have your brain in the vat are considered "real" but then you have to adress the problem of what if their brain is in a vat? what if we are living someones dream? What if reality is a dream? If so, when the person wakes up,... do we simply die? Or is that when we sleep? Could their death be our dream? Could we be living our own life which is mearly
It's irrelevant whether we are or not, the only clear course of action is to continue as if we are not, and without evidence there is no reason to believe that we are.
For Descartes, inner states which are 'clear and distinct' are true in virtue of some special relation they have with some entity in the "outer world", while for Putnam, the very notion of individuals being in a propositional attitude that can be regarded as mistaken or veridical, depends on their engagement with other speakers of language in the presence of objects in the world.
(That was a response to the sentence "but it is not clear that this semantic victory, such as it is, goes far enough to address the problem in relation to knowledge.")
I have not read the original argument (yet), however the argument hinges somewhat on our current understandings of human behaviour and probability. The argument does not dismiss the idea, instead suggests it's just not mathematically practical to bother. Perhaps we can rest with this reasoning.
The truly useful purpose of this argument, from what I can see is to debunk certain fantastic claims. For example, I could argue that perhaps I'm in a simulation, and that this simulation is being operated by what I follow, and it is being used as a teaching tool. Now, no matter what you believe to the contrary, you must first prove that we are not in fact living in a simulation, which is, of course, subjectively impossible. =p
I've been wanting to explain this to people ever sense I first heard of it. I consider this video much better than any I might have created, and therefore thank you for explaining it so well.
While the relevance of the argument falls apart as speculation from our current position, it's probably most relevant to someone in Neo's position. At the moment he discovered that such simulations were possible, he should have realized the the new "real" world was almost certainly also a simulation.
Brain in a vat, as a basis to question our experienced reality, holds. What I meant to say was Neo had reached the third option of the following trichotomy: 1. intelligent races will never reach a level of technology where they can run simulations of reality so detailed they can be mistaken for reality (or this is impossible in principle); or 2. races who do reach such a level do not tend to run such simulations; or 3. we are almost certainly living in such a simulation.
Personally I'm quite fond of my vat so I won't be escaping it soon, I could however ask for the operator to kick up the surrounding temp 0,3C please, it's a bit chilly mmmkay?
well I think when you get down to that level of nitty-gritty, you need to know the purpose you're in a simulation vis-à-vis objective evidence. The human mind operates on levels of having a purpose, ergo the point to life would be all fake if we truly believed we are a simulation without evidence, simply because you can't say you know for sure the opposite is true. Concordantly if you have no evidence there is no purpose in believing it. This is similar to the celestial teapot argument.
Preciously. Since there is no way to determine the truth either way we should simply assume what we experience is reality (or at least an internal representation of it).
I think the reason we require 'purpose' is that it's an evolutionary byproduct of being the most intelligent species of the planet. Bacteria doesn't operate on purpose, it just has a simple code that it runs to do whatever it does. But it's also easy to kill directly. The reason it's not evolved out is because there's just too many of them and they live just fine when it's hard to kill them indirectly. Chance actually does run everything, and this is probably a core reason why people make gods.
Actually, pertaining to the description box, I think we are nothing more than sims created by our brains to serve the genes carried in our bodies. The soul, the brain's expression of mind, all that we are as persons is really just a simulation created by the neural supercomputers contained in what we call "our" skulls.
In the grand scheme it doesn't really matter. Your "knowledge" is true from your perspective.
But I find the idea extremely unlikely. Why would the creators of our virtual reality give us the technology to guess what they are doing? Why allow us to develop computers? We could have been stuck in the Middle Ages forever and been none the wiser.
If they are sufficiently diligent in their simulations, then they have no worries in allowing sentient programs to explore their world.
Ultimately though, the entire exercise it futile. Even if we were simulated there is no way to discover this. This is a mental exercise only and (IMHO) has no real value.
I have often wondered (frequently jokingly) whether everything around me, including other supposed human beings, are in fact simply figments of my imagination. After all, the first words of the Dhammapada read, "We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world."
2:40 Descartes neglected to doubt the most dubious claim to which he, as a Jesuit trained boy, had been subjected.
Virtual reality? Try philosophy. Since the rise of science, philosophical metaphysics has been resoundingly refuted. I think that the brain-in-a-vat concept is just another of these fanciful, inaccurate conceptualizations. To say that a thing is conceptually possible is to say almost nothing at all.
While I agree that the scenario ultimately says nothing at all, I am not sure how it has been refuted. I think it has been ignored due to it;s inherent pointlessness.
I did not intend to imply that *all* of philosophical metaphysics has been refuted. My mistake. However, I read an acknowledgment of the shrinking realm of philosophical metaphysics by a professional philosopher.
Perhaps falsified would be a better term in the sense that non-falsified scientific hypotheses have informally supplanted notions such as Leibniz's monads.
I'm a neuromimetic construct... My siblings and I share a neural interactive ecology ^_^
You could say we are all conjoined at the head until the jellyfish tech prosthetic systems are ready to seperate us into individual autonomous units :D (Jellyfish Tech refers to nestled organic and biomimetic systems arranged symbiotically)
Right now there's already so much we can't see, a fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum, sound frequences, tastes, our touch senses are blunt. We also can only see 3 dimensions etc.
It would be no difference if our brain was in a vat or not. Our knowledge is still based on what is consistency within what we perceive as reality.
This is an interesting idea that I thought about during high school and college. I thought it's possible that a simulated reality could be indistinguishable from reality. Then I realized it wouldn't matter if we live in a simulated reality because the simulated reality would still be subject to the ultimate laws of nature and you'd still have to have self consistent truths in a simulacrum.
It is interesting that many people contemplate these things at some stage during their life. Perhaps it points to certain logic structures or representational models being formed or exercised?
Do not forget that simulated world's could have any number of simulated natural laws, which we could not determine due to the veil of perception (a video on this is on the list).
Do you think though that a simulated world although having any number of simulated natural laws, these laws would be consistent within itself? Since we would be a part of this reality and not seperate from it, we could probaby find the laws from experimentation that would govern that world. This wouldn't be all that different from actual reality wherein the modern physics community a lot of scientists say that the laws of physics we experience are just one possibility out of many.
I suppose that depends on the quality of the programming. I think any species sufficiently advanced to create sentient simulated minds would also get the basic of internally consistent simulated natural laws correct. Thus making it impossible to differentiate from natural laws - assuming they are internally consistent.
In other words, the veil of perception would be no different from our veil of perception on the universe we experience. We have one possibility of how the universal laws behave out of many. There are so many constants that could be different in parallel worlds. I think of a simulated reality as another type of parallel universe where the laws that govern that universe are self consistent and can't contradict itself.
I have also wondered, what if we are just microscopic organisms living inside of a type of cell or atom which is our universe, and outside of our little atom of a universe, there is a whole other universe filled with atoms that are entire universes! What if our atoms are other entire universes! Maybe that's why they have such explosive power when divided!
There are an infinite number of what ifs, but because I have no evidence for any of that, I will not presume that it is the truth.
The only issue I saw was grammar in the video itself where it said @5:10 with the person on the left and the simulated minds on the right in the converging speech bubble, "I am might be wrong".
you know nothing jon snow
Bizzer10 1 month ago in playlist Uploaded videos
What if one of us is a real person of every one who ever existed and and everyone else is simulated how can we find the real person...
t192009 2 months ago
Comment removed
williamblakeism 4 months ago
Youre not meant to accept the idea as if it was truth, you are supposed to ponder it and realise you cannot be certain of truth.
You might believe it if your personal situation seems far fetched, detached or painful, what does a multi-billionaire think vs a starving african for instance?
MDEMONIC689 4 months ago
@MDEMONIC689 The only thing I can be absolutely certain of is my own existence, but if I stop thinking then I cannot know if I exist anymore. However, reality mostly regards degrees of certainty and probability. Using the barest minimum of axioms we can build a coherent, logical, working model of the universe. What different people *think* about reality has no bearing on reality itself.
askegg 4 months ago
The human awarness of own existance is a tricky feature. I regard it as a freaky coincidence rather then a necessity for life support. If elaborated upon itself, it leads to tragic/comedy dialogs, that end nowhere.
I have those idiotic thoughts about my own existance since I was able to form a structured thought, meaning since I was 3-4 years old.
Vast majority of life forms on Earth do very well for hundrets of millions of years without being plagued by pointless conciousness as we are.
Tomek9511 3 weeks ago
I simply learned to ignore those thoughts because they are pointless. It's a similar issue to a question: why almost every week someone is winning a jack pot in lotto, and I don't.
Consciousness is a curse rather then a blessing.
Tomek9511 3 weeks ago
what disturbs me is that if being in an ilusion sucks that hard what kind of horrible world is being hidden from us?
TheLakabanzaichrg 4 months ago
But now look at this, how can this be a simulation if we age and grow and then die like how LIFE is intended to be? If we are a controlled simulation, can't the "player" just delete us and start over again or does "deleting" mean suiciding?... The world is a constant shiver to me..
darknessb930 4 months ago
@darknessb930 Why not simply simulate aging, growing, and dying? Who is to say how the simulation should run?
askegg 4 months ago
@askegg I don't know why anyone would play such simulation as to be living LIFE except you are not yourself..
darknessb930 4 months ago
@darknessb930 The motivations are irrelevant, the point it there is no way to be sure this is actually reality. We must simply accept it as an axiom.
askegg 4 months ago
@askegg Doesn't make sense... But whatever, what do we know?
darknessb930 4 months ago
super scientific computer, wooow.
thesparitan 5 months ago
The vat is part of the brain
FlamingLion116 6 months ago
Total Recall :)
Davkiller69 7 months ago
Nothing is true, everything is permitted
DemonicGemini 9 months ago
Impossible I've sometimes cut myself or scratched myself without noticing, wounds don't randomly appear on my body!!... Right?..
bjornrr 10 months ago
Then there is the possibility that this life is a holographic projection. I guess we're stuck in an allegorical cave of sorts.
Requiemxtoxinnocence 11 months ago
Nick Bostrom, i've read some of his stuff. Here's a question. Do you think the size of our brain is restricting our mind capability? If we were really a 'brain in a vat' would it really be a brain like ours in this world? Or would it be much bigger? Or even the size of a 1YiB harddrive (yobibyte is 1000000000000000000000000bytes). Or in the real world would there even be solid objects? There could be no space or time at all. Maybe it's all just electronic signal flow. Like a matrix
PacifistDub 11 months ago
@PacifistDub About your question regarding brain size and mental capability;
Scientific investigation has shown that there is probably an optimum size for a sentient, intelligent, biological brain. This is based upon the easily grasped principle that as the biological brain gets bigger, the more time it takes for signals from one end to get to the other, making the brain slower and less intelligent. So while a bigger brain is better, there should be a limit to biological brain size.
sikthboy 8 months ago
@sikthboy but just because it takes longer for the singals to get from one end to another, why does that mean they would be less intelligent? would the signals lower in quality because of the distance?
PacifistDub 7 months ago
@PacifistDub Not lower in quality, just a reduced speed. That's lower intelligence because most tests of intelligence have a time limit of some sort. Our brains could get a little bigger, but not much. Much like a computer, there is a trade-off between storage capacity and speed.
sikthboy 7 months ago
I stink; therefore, I am. ;)
If this is a simulation...it sucks. If I were in charge, this simulation would be more like Star Wars, with spaceships, aliens, and laser guns.
BionicDance 1 year ago 7
@BionicDance Depends on what the purpose of the simulation is.
SamSpade2010 3 months ago
actually the vat is ur skull...in cerebral spinal fluid...utilizing mechanisms to interpret the external world limited only to taste, touch, sound, light and smell...we must create mechanisms to observe other phenomena...when u look at a light bulb or your lighted pc screen there is no actual light inside your dark skull...it is a simulated interpretation that your eyes generate for ur brain to interpret as light, but inside is as dark as any closed space
TheFunnyQQ 1 year ago 6
@TheFunnyQQ Go the the front of the class - you are completely correct.
askegg 1 year ago
@askegg *taking a bow* thanx
TheFunnyQQ 1 year ago
@TheFunnyQQ Can you explain brain in a vat for in simple terms? And what you said in your comment about light and brain interpretation? I think i now understand brain in a vat. Before, i kept not understanding. Let me see if i got this brain. Brain in a vat is simply two question: Are we in reality? or does our brain produce feelings and sensations that we think is reality? If you do help, thanks. :)
WhiteEmerald1991 6 months ago
@WhiteEmerald1991 One blind sense birth has never seen light. Their imagination is as glowing with activities as anyone else when using other senses to interpret the world. Each sense is a tool plugged into a machine like your hard drive is attached, or your keyboard. The vat is the your skull (or hardware of your computer) and your senses are tools. If limited by only 5, could we be missing something without a 6th, 7th, or 8th tool? This is why we invent microscopes, telescopes and the so on.
TheFunnyQQ 6 months ago
@TheFunnyQQ I think the purpose of the BIV argument is that we cannot know what the external world is, whether it is real, or posited inside a machine: Whether the brain is reading the signals of a real world, or a simulated world.
happyland1234 2 weeks ago
@hellgun949494 Lost. This is a mental exercise without answer.
askegg 1 year ago
@askegg
Would it be possible for scientists to communicate with a brain in a vat? Could a brain in a vat be told what is going on in the real world, and able to "speak" to his or her caretakers?
MarxistHero 7 months ago
@MarxistHero "Would it be possible for scientists to communicate with a brain in a vat?"
If you like, but it would not solve the central problem - how can you tell your senses are actually detecting reality?
askegg 7 months ago
@askegg
I suppose you wouldn't, but if you were told by a voice you could not see, I don't think the brain would believe that its current predicament is completely normal. So, what if a person wanted to transplant their brain into a vat, and had it done? Would they know that they're a brain in a vat?
MarxistHero 7 months ago
@MarxistHero Welcome to the Matrix. Seriously, the movie touched on that very question - one which plagues us all. How can we tell if the experiences we are have anything to do with reality? It is an issue with no solution, a brain teaser. We must simply assume we experience the "real" reality and go about our business.
askegg 7 months ago
@askegg
It makes sense, but I always liked the idea of living forever, like being a brain in a vat. The problem is, I wouldn't want to lose touch with reality.
Have you seen Inception? Makes you think, doesn't it?
MarxistHero 7 months ago
Well, I'm asking for a more general and specific reply. Say that I believe I live in reality, or what we would all perceive as real, and I had my brain implanted into a vat, with the full knowledge that I subjected my brain to the procedure.
Theoretically, instead of being human, per se, could I be a physical brain? In your video, the brain had eyes, and was able to see through the glass. Do you think that a brain in a vat could honestly be like that? Very conscious of the "real" world?
MarxistHero 7 months ago
Could it also be able to use its eyes, provided that they're still attached upon awakening in the real world?
MarxistHero 7 months ago
have you ever heard of the Velveteen Rabbit
If we were a in a simulation, then it's possible for a magical faerie to grant us our wishes to make us real, such as making Bender , the Robot Human, which has happened in Futurama :S
papasmurfXXX 1 year ago
An atheist sais:
We believe that God doesn't Exist due to Lack of Evidence
therefore we Believe we are not a brain in a vat due to Lack of Evidence
papasmurfXXX 1 year ago
@papasmurfXXX No. Atheists do not believe in a god because there is no evidence to the contrary. I cannot tell if I am a brain in a vat or not - there is no way top determine an answer.
askegg 1 year ago
Can someone explain the "Evil Demon" hypothesis
Freethinker12341 1 year ago
@Freethinker12341 That's essentially what this is. We cannot be certain our experiences are actually real. They may indeed be the product of a most cunning and devious demon who has ensnared our senses for some evil purpose. What we *can* be sure of is that we are a thinking entity, beyond that (if we take skepticism to the extreme) we cannot be certain of anything.
askegg 1 year ago
@askegg What we *can* be sure of is that we are a thinking entity,
okay we can't be sure about anything, think about Free-will and Determinism, is everything we think we do , all by our-selves ? Be-side's God's omniscience, to assume God doesn't exist, the simulated reality tells us that there is no reason for us to believe that we can do anything by ourselves, chances are some Programmer who ran the simulation plans everything you are Gonna do, and therefore your decisions aren't really yours.
papasmurfXXX 1 year ago
@papasmurfXXX "okay we can't be sure about anything,"
Now you're getting it.
I am a determinist, so your free will is an illusion.
askegg 1 year ago
God thinks, therefore I am.
bootsdog3 1 year ago
@bootsdog3 Non sequitur.
askegg 1 year ago
The Brain in a Vat Scenario is utterly disprovable, it's almost the same argument for Proving God
since we cannot prove that we are a brain in a vat, or have any evidence, we do not believe we are Brains in a Vat through lack of evidence,
this is same for the disbelief in God cause we lack evidence
so we can never get rid of the notion that we're brains in a vat, since we can not get rid of the notion of God, therefore we are not brains in vats cause we disbelieve in god because we lack proof
BeamSurfer 1 year ago
interesting
IWillRushYou 1 year ago
what is the film you show at the start of the film?
riotguards 1 year ago
@riotguards Robocop.
askegg 1 year ago
Brain in a vat is just a metaphor thought out by Putnam, it's the same as the Allegory Cave by Pato and Evil Daemon by Renee Descartes, the point of the argument is that all that reality is is from our thoughts and simply an illusion, or a simulation ...... it does not literally mean that some scientists physically actually put our brains in a computer cause that statement is illogical ... although it does ring a bell, as the Evil Daemon, Mara from Buddhism and the Mad scientist are the same....
Chachaman111 1 year ago
there's only one solution to this
We've got to accept Fight Club philosophy, we are nothing but dancing shit....... the brain in a vat simply proves that nothing is true, and that we are just living in nothing but a bunch of bullshit....
Infact, if i was a brain in a vat, who'd brain would that be, that brain could've come from a black guy, or how would i know if I'm a human??? what if i'm just a green reptile that's playing a virtual reality game 10 000 lightyears away from earth?
headlesshorsemen75 1 year ago
dude, this brain in a vat argument is nothing but infinite regression, it simply means, that if the scientists put your brain in a vat, how would he know another scientist put his brain in a vat, and it infinitely regresses with an infinite number of brains , and an infinite number of scientists and an infinite number of simulations, the only way to disprove the brain in the vat this is idea of an uncreated god, and eventually is someone dies enough, they'll reach the reality of god....
BeamSurfer 1 year ago
If we were brains in Vats, then honestly, such a computer would be infinitely large that it would be bigger than a galaxy, and the whole computer collapses on itself
BeamSurfer 1 year ago
@BeamSurfer You're assuming the laws of gravity (and others) actually explain the true nature of reality. It may just be a simulation.
askegg 1 year ago
@askegg okay man, so we are a simulation, but simulations are a copy of what has existed, it doesnt' matter if we'ere merely a copy, as long as we Are a copy of something, if nothing was real, then there would be nothing to copy from, and there would be no such thing as a simulation, and the brain would not experience anything cause the supercomputer has nothing to fallow....
headlesshorsemen75 1 year ago
@headlesshorsemen75 I was using the word "simulation" in another sense. Perhaps "manufactured" would have been better.
In any case, we cannot ultimately reach a conclusion on this issue. All of us must simply accept that reality exists independent of ourselves, and what we experience is not manufactured.
askegg 1 year ago
@askegg oh, so you're saying that we create our own reality ?
headlesshorsemen75 1 year ago
@headlesshorsemen75 Certainly not. Reality is is what doesn't go away when we stop believing in it. We all share it and can discover it.
askegg 1 year ago
I better not be running on Vista!
pbplaya5 1 year ago
how is it pointless? until some guy comes to me and gives me a 2 pills? This is crazy, this just means that even my friends are false? but how would i know if someone made 2 brains in one reality, and out of many, the i meet the real other in the simulation.
BeamSurfer 1 year ago
@BeamSurfer You just answered your own question.
askegg 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
also have a great sense of humor naneedj.info
hasanlolane 1 year ago
1.58 not neccesarraly everything is false some things may be true or not be true.... you are just not sure. For example, suppose I am a Brain in a Vat, and in the "real" world there is ice cream. Just by chance, i AM RIGHT. But then again all physical rules could be unknown and anything could happen... so that would be cool!
MrTheLOLOL 1 year ago
when we dream we make a vat for our brains... oops sorry everything dosen't exist I just was dreaming all of it.
MrTheLOLOL 1 year ago
if this was real,what's the reason why this mad scientist would do such a thing?
The only one who would percieve the simulation is me!
avamp69 1 year ago
there is ONLY ONE OPTION in such a theory: to wait for REVENGE through the help of "some God" that will (i.e. "may" or "should") come to save you (or "me," whatever) ... as "The Merovingian" said in the 3-part US film series, The Matrix, "... this is the only reality." Of course, once one comes to this conclusion, then I would imagine that I'd want to be "out of this vat ASAP." And so, I'll do anything to "garner God's attention ASAP." Realistically, probably the best way is to just "think it
dkamran 1 year ago
My main argument against this is that the mad scientist may also ponder the same question, as soon as a hypothesis falls into infinity it falls apart.
The mad scientist may (in fact he is in a better position to ponder since he is actually doing it) wonder if his own brain is also in a vat being messed around with with other mad scientists outside the "real world", and he may then say "well those mad scientists in the real world will also be able to ponder thier own existence" and so on.
MDEMONIC689 1 year ago
@MDEMONIC689
This is why I think the Matrix trilogy actually took this scenario and made sense of it. For this idea to work the origin or creator would have to be a sentient machine.
papertrailTIP 1 year ago
@papertrailTIP
Yeah but who made the sentient machine?, if god is a construct then something had to have made the construct and so on and so on.
Again, i repeat: as soon as a hypothesis falls into infinity it falls apart.
MDEMONIC689 1 year ago
@MDEMONIC689
We're talking about a sentient machine, not God. Humans created the machine. I don't know what's so hard to understand about this.
papertrailTIP 1 year ago
@papertrailTIP
Sorry i misunderstood, you said "origin or creator" and made me think you was presenting a sort of first cause argument.
MDEMONIC689 1 year ago
@MDEMONIC689
Don't worry about it man. I can see how what I said would make you think that. Yeah, I meant the origin or creator of the false reality itself. Cause humans would have to create the technology that becomes self aware. Like you said if God created the machine and God was a construct it would fall into an infinite loop.
papertrailTIP 1 year ago
its simple. It's either happening or it's not, and you cant argue about it
crowman131 1 year ago
It is an interesting conept, but not of any consequence to anything. At least it is a soud concept, unlike the ideas featued in some of the other parts of the book.
SeerTravisTruman 1 year ago
i am in the process of writing an essay on "am i a brain in a vat?" and i really like the point you made about future technology inevitibly having the potential to replicate sense data, so therefore it is quite probable. if i am to raise this point in my essay who should i say formulated that idea? or was it you?-if so nicely done.
Adz777Alex 1 year ago
@Adz777Alex I cannot recall offhand, but I do mention the author of those thoughts in the video.
askegg 1 year ago
@Adz777Alex
You can say at the most that it is possible, but going so far as to claim it is probable is fallacious.
drche420 1 year ago
Comment removed
MsHolmar 1 year ago
This makes a lot of sense. I can easily see this happening and it seems obvious technology goes in this direction. It makes me sad though. If this is true, which I believe it probably is, it really takes all the meaning out of life. :(
MsHolmar 1 year ago
@MsHolmar How so? You need to be biological to have meaning?
askegg 1 year ago
@askegg I believed that there was some kind of afterlife, but didn't really know exactly what. If we are just a simulation, what happens when the program ends? That's what I mean. Then that truly is the end of us...unless it's us on the other end. But most likely, its more like a program. Anyway, that was what I was thinking that was a bit hard to think about.
MsHolmar 1 year ago
@MsHolmar When the program ends, it ends. When we end, we end. A part of me wishes to see more, but I can find no rational reason for believing this to be actually true.
askegg 1 year ago
@MsHolmar If we are vatted intelligences or even virtual machines experiencing a simulation, the "afterlife" is actually re-awakening to that higher level of implementation, or "reality". But that "reality" may be another higher level of simulation itself. We may be virtual "machines" within a quantum computer intelligence which is called God. So, an afterlife is a misnomer. You are already there. You just perceive that you are here... until your program ends and you "wake up" there.
supobostarman 1 year ago
if you are in a vat, why would you need eyes?
megaholymoo 1 year ago
yes but what you gonna do about it?
cjellwood 1 year ago
@cjellwood Nuthin'
askegg 1 year ago
this is a good example of where Occam's razor should be applied. we can never know for sure but we can beleive we live in true reality (or as close as our sensory perceptions can allow) with an extremely high degree of certainty
robertwc82 1 year ago
@robertwc82 Yes. We must simply assume this to be reality and move on. Nothing to see here.
askegg 1 year ago
Interesting but not falsifiable...so does that entail meaningless, no.
But as Stephen Law suggested from his book, we obviously dont know this as the case. However at least YOU know two things (so one more than Socrates), that you know you exist and that that is the only thing you can ever know given that this is fact. Doubt, of course can be casted all on else...scary...isnt it?
MissGrapefruit1 1 year ago
@MissGrapefruit1 There is much we simply must assume in order to function. I am not sure scary is the word for it, but certainly unsettling.
askegg 1 year ago
i disagree that this is a necessary axiom. if the goal is to determine what is true and what is not then assuming sensory data is reliable is counterproductive. I also disagree that being a brain in a vat makes it necessarily impossible to determine facts about reality since you would still be interacting with the real object feeding you information.
affablegiraffable 1 year ago
@affablegiraffable "... then assuming sensory data is reliable is counterproductive"
How else can you sense the world except through your senses? We MUST assume they are reliable in some ways or we could not function at all. Sorry - it's an axiom.
"...since you would still be interacting with the real object feeding you information"
Not necessarily. You may be interacting with the output of such a device, but not the device itself. So you *could* interact with the signals.
askegg 1 year ago
Ive thought of this, our whole reality could be a game, or program, or we were sentenced for a crime or some thing and this is the ultimate punishment. anything is possible, another funny theory is everything amd everything in reality is just a manifestation of your subconscious, and you are behind everything! so right now your just communicating with your self. crazy shit huh, reality I tell ya...
aARIESsSs 1 year ago 3
Youtube can be an invention in my simulated reality. Another entity might live in an existence with some other nonsense. Like talking squids.
Popsfresh 1 year ago
I suppose that I am real, because to suppose the opposite is to reject life itself. You cannot live in a reality you admit is false; you will eventually go insane.
hornylink 1 year ago
"...to suppose the opposite is to reject life itself. "
That somewhat misses the point. The brain in a vat scenario does not equate to you not being alive - quite the opposite. It states that your experiences may not be in fact real.
askegg 1 year ago
My bad, flowery language isn't as easy to write as I wish it to be; what I wanted to say was that I reject the notion of being a brain in a vat, because accepting it rejects my life, my 18 years on this planet, as a lie. There is no evidence to support the vat theory thus I reject it, because accepting it voids this reality. pretty much restating your video with flowery bullshit language. sorry for the mix-up I'll work on my poetry :P
hornylink 1 year ago
The way we know that we're not brains in vats or in the "Matrix", is that the food would be better XD
NaviMath 1 year ago
LOL Could be true, but speculation over weather or not we are in a vat is almost pointless. Brains are incapable of motion, so there really is not escape. And by the same logic, you may all be figments of my imagionation.
LyanneKay1 2 years ago
Physical escape is not really the type of escape refereed to.
askegg 1 year ago
I know how I'm not in a vat.....TV
How the hell can *I* come up with the shit seen on TV?
Not to mention the crazy discoveries made by science.
But if I am in a vat then, DONT UNPLUG ME!!
:)
PsionNinja 2 years ago 8
@PsionNinja me neither please!!! I keep thinking, what if they realize I know I am in a simulation and decide to get rid of me!!!aaaahhhhhh!!!
MsHolmar 1 year ago
@PsionNinja. oh, great. a blue piller.
lygophile 1 year ago
"Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?"
TheWordsOfGandhi 2 years ago 2
@TheWordsOfGandhi You know, computers have to defragment and get rid of useless information that has no real purpose. Maybe that's what our dreams are.
MsHolmar 1 year ago
@MsHolmar Dreams reflect life experience and what is on your mind. As to exactly why we dream, I am not sure. But I think it has to do with the mind experiancing what it needs to that was not (should have been?) in our waking lives.
SeerTravisTruman 1 year ago
@MsHolmar
Actually, dreams "knit together the unraveled sleeve" of our experiences. Meaning, dreams attempt to make sense of your recent memories with your old memories, they do not provide a method for deleting information. Fyi, my source is my Psychology professor.
drche420 1 year ago
I had a dream this morning in wich my mum died i fort it was real. I woke from it and felt that i had ben taking life for granted and went along my normal day only to find out at the end of the day when i drempt again this was just a dream too.This went on for a while with diferent dreams until i woke in to the world in wich i am typing this.For a few seconds i was un shore what to think of the "real world"...
TheWordsOfGandhi 2 years ago
the guy was on acid.
TheWordsOfGandhi 2 years ago
(contiued) a dream or illusion? If this is true, then we would dream what we live. If we dream what we live, then theoretically we would live what we dream. Is our life just a dream that is dreamt by another being?
This is just some thoughts. im curious to what you guys have to say.
plookoo 2 years ago
@plookoo life is a dream , and the dream IS the dreamer and the dreamer is God (or us!)
avamp69 1 year ago
Are we living an illusion? Is our brain "In a vat" that leads us to believe that we are living a real life? If this is true, then the forms that have your brain in the vat are considered "real" but then you have to adress the problem of what if their brain is in a vat? what if we are living someones dream? What if reality is a dream? If so, when the person wakes up,... do we simply die? Or is that when we sleep? Could their death be our dream? Could we be living our own life which is mearly
plookoo 2 years ago
It's irrelevant whether we are or not, the only clear course of action is to continue as if we are not, and without evidence there is no reason to believe that we are.
camino1ca 2 years ago
Skepticism can only be about knowledge. Only what can be a candidate for a knowledge claim can be regarded as 'true' or 'false'.
vessel0of0light 2 years ago
For Descartes, inner states which are 'clear and distinct' are true in virtue of some special relation they have with some entity in the "outer world", while for Putnam, the very notion of individuals being in a propositional attitude that can be regarded as mistaken or veridical, depends on their engagement with other speakers of language in the presence of objects in the world.
vessel0of0light 2 years ago
(That was a response to the sentence "but it is not clear that this semantic victory, such as it is, goes far enough to address the problem in relation to knowledge.")
vessel0of0light 2 years ago
evil scientest is all wrong maybe the brain does not exist
whenevero 2 years ago
What do you make of Dennett's argument that the problem of combinatorial explosion rules out brains in jars and Cartesian demons?
spamatron 2 years ago
I have not read the original argument (yet), however the argument hinges somewhat on our current understandings of human behaviour and probability. The argument does not dismiss the idea, instead suggests it's just not mathematically practical to bother. Perhaps we can rest with this reasoning.
askegg 2 years ago
The truly useful purpose of this argument, from what I can see is to debunk certain fantastic claims. For example, I could argue that perhaps I'm in a simulation, and that this simulation is being operated by what I follow, and it is being used as a teaching tool. Now, no matter what you believe to the contrary, you must first prove that we are not in fact living in a simulation, which is, of course, subjectively impossible. =p
LeksServices 2 years ago
I've been wanting to explain this to people ever sense I first heard of it. I consider this video much better than any I might have created, and therefore thank you for explaining it so well.
While the relevance of the argument falls apart as speculation from our current position, it's probably most relevant to someone in Neo's position. At the moment he discovered that such simulations were possible, he should have realized the the new "real" world was almost certainly also a simulation.
LaughingMan42 2 years ago
How does it fall apart from our current position?
askegg 2 years ago
Brain in a vat, as a basis to question our experienced reality, holds. What I meant to say was Neo had reached the third option of the following trichotomy: 1. intelligent races will never reach a level of technology where they can run simulations of reality so detailed they can be mistaken for reality (or this is impossible in principle); or 2. races who do reach such a level do not tend to run such simulations; or 3. we are almost certainly living in such a simulation.
LaughingMan42 2 years ago
great video!
styrofoamheart 2 years ago
Personally I'm quite fond of my vat so I won't be escaping it soon, I could however ask for the operator to kick up the surrounding temp 0,3C please, it's a bit chilly mmmkay?
LOL! good vid askegg!
Paxmax 2 years ago
Nice video. Definitely a fav
WonderfulPlague 2 years ago
Matrix=win
This video=uber win
KingHeathen 2 years ago
Thank you :)
askegg 2 years ago
well I think when you get down to that level of nitty-gritty, you need to know the purpose you're in a simulation vis-à-vis objective evidence. The human mind operates on levels of having a purpose, ergo the point to life would be all fake if we truly believed we are a simulation without evidence, simply because you can't say you know for sure the opposite is true. Concordantly if you have no evidence there is no purpose in believing it. This is similar to the celestial teapot argument.
Thrashaero 2 years ago
Preciously. Since there is no way to determine the truth either way we should simply assume what we experience is reality (or at least an internal representation of it).
askegg 2 years ago
Comment removed
Thrashaero 2 years ago
I think the reason we require 'purpose' is that it's an evolutionary byproduct of being the most intelligent species of the planet. Bacteria doesn't operate on purpose, it just has a simple code that it runs to do whatever it does. But it's also easy to kill directly. The reason it's not evolved out is because there's just too many of them and they live just fine when it's hard to kill them indirectly. Chance actually does run everything, and this is probably a core reason why people make gods.
Thrashaero 2 years ago
Actually, pertaining to the description box, I think we are nothing more than sims created by our brains to serve the genes carried in our bodies. The soul, the brain's expression of mind, all that we are as persons is really just a simulation created by the neural supercomputers contained in what we call "our" skulls.
BoozyBeggar 2 years ago
In the grand scheme it doesn't really matter. Your "knowledge" is true from your perspective.
But I find the idea extremely unlikely. Why would the creators of our virtual reality give us the technology to guess what they are doing? Why allow us to develop computers? We could have been stuck in the Middle Ages forever and been none the wiser.
rrward 2 years ago
If they are sufficiently diligent in their simulations, then they have no worries in allowing sentient programs to explore their world.
Ultimately though, the entire exercise it futile. Even if we were simulated there is no way to discover this. This is a mental exercise only and (IMHO) has no real value.
askegg 2 years ago
What a mind fuck.
NoMorFear 2 years ago
I have often wondered (frequently jokingly) whether everything around me, including other supposed human beings, are in fact simply figments of my imagination. After all, the first words of the Dhammapada read, "We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world."
TimCubUAkbar 2 years ago 3
mmm, the whole universe, or idea of it, seems a big fiction.
torresut 2 years ago
2:40 Descartes neglected to doubt the most dubious claim to which he, as a Jesuit trained boy, had been subjected.
Virtual reality? Try philosophy. Since the rise of science, philosophical metaphysics has been resoundingly refuted. I think that the brain-in-a-vat concept is just another of these fanciful, inaccurate conceptualizations. To say that a thing is conceptually possible is to say almost nothing at all.
dysturbyte 2 years ago
While I agree that the scenario ultimately says nothing at all, I am not sure how it has been refuted. I think it has been ignored due to it;s inherent pointlessness.
askegg 2 years ago
I did not intend to imply that *all* of philosophical metaphysics has been refuted. My mistake. However, I read an acknowledgment of the shrinking realm of philosophical metaphysics by a professional philosopher.
Perhaps falsified would be a better term in the sense that non-falsified scientific hypotheses have informally supplanted notions such as Leibniz's monads.
dysturbyte 2 years ago
If I'm living inside a computer program, I demand an upgrade. ;)
Brianswers 2 years ago 13
yeah, i'd like to make an order for perpetual feeling high without having to smoke.
Thrashaero 2 years ago
@Brianswers your reprogramme is on its way:))
pirreli5 1 year ago
Ha! " A super scientific computer" What does that even mean?
mrkurt13 2 years ago 2
Actually, I have no idea :)
askegg 2 years ago
I'm pink therefore i'm spam.
mark9165 2 years ago
I think, thus I exists... GAY
hpufo 2 years ago
You can't disprove that I'm a brain in a vat. [Wink.] *Bzzzt!*
otherether 2 years ago
blue pill
red pill
blue pill
red pill
blue pill
red pill
blue pill
red pill
blue pill
red pill
baxizach 2 years ago
Yellow pill
green pill
purple pill
white pill
black pill
orange pill
brown pill
Good luck :D
TheAtheistPaladin 2 years ago
I'm a neuromimetic construct... My siblings and I share a neural interactive ecology ^_^
You could say we are all conjoined at the head until the jellyfish tech prosthetic systems are ready to seperate us into individual autonomous units :D (Jellyfish Tech refers to nestled organic and biomimetic systems arranged symbiotically)
PinkProgram 2 years ago
I would actually make no difference at all.
Right now there's already so much we can't see, a fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum, sound frequences, tastes, our touch senses are blunt. We also can only see 3 dimensions etc.
It would be no difference if our brain was in a vat or not. Our knowledge is still based on what is consistency within what we perceive as reality.
BaileysBeads 2 years ago
Agreed - the entire exercise is futile, but a good way to get people thinking for a bit.
askegg 2 years ago
It's a perfect way to illustrate the problem of induction without having to use daemons.
BaileysBeads 2 years ago
This is an interesting idea that I thought about during high school and college. I thought it's possible that a simulated reality could be indistinguishable from reality. Then I realized it wouldn't matter if we live in a simulated reality because the simulated reality would still be subject to the ultimate laws of nature and you'd still have to have self consistent truths in a simulacrum.
joverlien 2 years ago
It is interesting that many people contemplate these things at some stage during their life. Perhaps it points to certain logic structures or representational models being formed or exercised?
Do not forget that simulated world's could have any number of simulated natural laws, which we could not determine due to the veil of perception (a video on this is on the list).
askegg 2 years ago
Do you think though that a simulated world although having any number of simulated natural laws, these laws would be consistent within itself? Since we would be a part of this reality and not seperate from it, we could probaby find the laws from experimentation that would govern that world. This wouldn't be all that different from actual reality wherein the modern physics community a lot of scientists say that the laws of physics we experience are just one possibility out of many.
joverlien 2 years ago
I suppose that depends on the quality of the programming. I think any species sufficiently advanced to create sentient simulated minds would also get the basic of internally consistent simulated natural laws correct. Thus making it impossible to differentiate from natural laws - assuming they are internally consistent.
askegg 2 years ago
In other words, the veil of perception would be no different from our veil of perception on the universe we experience. We have one possibility of how the universal laws behave out of many. There are so many constants that could be different in parallel worlds. I think of a simulated reality as another type of parallel universe where the laws that govern that universe are self consistent and can't contradict itself.
joverlien 2 years ago
I'm a brain in a vat, or I'm not. So its a 50% / 50% deal, right? :P Another great one!
premed2 2 years ago
I have also wondered, what if we are just microscopic organisms living inside of a type of cell or atom which is our universe, and outside of our little atom of a universe, there is a whole other universe filled with atoms that are entire universes! What if our atoms are other entire universes! Maybe that's why they have such explosive power when divided!
There are an infinite number of what ifs, but because I have no evidence for any of that, I will not presume that it is the truth.
Sintwar 2 years ago
The only issue I saw was grammar in the video itself where it said @5:10 with the person on the left and the simulated minds on the right in the converging speech bubble, "I am might be wrong".
Excellent video :D
storyofacynic 2 years ago
Yeah - I noticed that too :(
Could not be bothered to fix the text, render the project again, and re-upload. It will have to do.
askegg 2 years ago
You could always just annotate over it if you want
Raptor302 2 years ago