- [WT] [Home] [Manage]
/ssh/ - Social Sciences & Humanities
A board for social sciences and humanities history, philosophy, anthropology, psychology...
[Return]
Posting mode: Reply
Name
Email
Subject
Comment
Media ID
File 1
Password (for post and file deletion)
Extra [ Is Spoiler ]
  • Supported file types are: jpg,jpeg,png,gif
  • Maximum file size allowed is 4mb.
  • Blotter updated: 22/10/09
  • 22/10/09 - Trial board for crafts, hobbies and Do It Yourself!
 Show/Hide  Show All
File: 593px-Barin_in_a_vat_en_v2_0_ib4f.png - (119.12kb, 593x600, 593px-Barin_in_a_vat_(en)_v2.png) Thumbnail displayed, click image for full size.
Anonymous 28/7/2009(Tue)04:09:53 No.141209  
Related to this thread:
>>120439

In philosophy, the brain in a vat is an element used in a variety of thought experiments intended to draw out certain features of our ideas of knowledge, reality, truth, mind, and meaning. It is drawn from the idea, common to many science fiction stories, that a mad scientist might remove a person's brain from the body, suspend it in a vat of life-sustaining liquid, and connect its neurons by wires to a supercomputer which would provide it with electrical impulses identical to those the brain normally receives. According to such stories, the computer would then be simulating a virtual reality (including appropriate responses to the brain's own output) and the person with the "disembodied" brain would continue to have perfectly normal conscious experiences without these being related to objects or events in the real world.
Expand All Images
>>
Anonymous 28/7/2009(Tue)04:15:20 No.141214
File: brain-in-a-vat_ib4f.jpg - (16.56kb, 205x212, brain-in-a-vat.jpg)
The simplest use of brain-in-a-vat scenarios is as an argument for philosophical skepticism and Solipsism. A simple version of this runs as follows: Since the brain in a vat gives and receives the exact same impulses as it would if it were in a skull, and since these are its only way of interacting with its environment, then it is not possible to tell, from the perspective of that brain, whether it is in a skull or a vat. Yet in the first case most of the person's beliefs may be true (if he believes, say, that he is walking down the street, or eating ice-cream); in the latter case they are false. Since, the argument says, you cannot know whether you are a brain in a vat, then you cannot know whether most of your beliefs might be completely false. Since, in principle, it is impossible to rule out you're being a brain in a vat, you cannot have good grounds for believing any of the things you believe; you certainly cannot know them.
>>
Anonymous 28/7/2009(Tue)04:42:21 No.141243
File: Meditationes_de_prima_philosophia_-_Renatus_Cartesius_ib4f.jpg - (45.3kb, 391x661, Meditationes_de_prima_philosophia_-_Renatus_Cartesius.jpg)
This argument is a contemporary version of the argument given by Descartes in Meditations on First Philosophy (which he eventually rejects) that he could not trust his perceptions on the grounds that an evil demon might, conceivably, be controlling his every experience. It is also more distantly related to Descartes' argument that he cannot trust his perceptions because he may be dreaming (Descartes' dream argument is preceded by Zhuangzi in "Chuang Chou dreamed he was a butterfly".). In this latter argument the worry about active deception is removed.
>>
Kashmir Norris 28/7/2009(Tue)10:35:09 No.141852
The world does not exist anywhere except your mind. By extension to minds, nothing exists. ;)
>>
Anonymous 29/7/2009(Wed)01:31:33 No.143388
>>141852
Minds? There is only one mind, I'm just part of your mind.
>>
Elizabeth Blavatsky 29/7/2009(Wed)09:10:21 No.154067
The human brain have an innate ability to detect where "false" information are coming to him.
This if previously the brain itself have experienced reality.

Human capabilities simply exceed the skill to analyze themselves, leaving philosophy to a mere "world of thought" that can affect only reality's perception, but never the opposite.
>>
Anonymous 29/7/2009(Wed)01:39:22 No.180311
>>154067
>The human brain have an innate ability to detect where "false" information are coming to him.

I disagree.
A phantom limb is the sensation that an amputated or missing limb (even an organ, like the appendix) is still attached to the body and is moving appropriately with other body parts. Approximately 50 to 80% of individuals with an amputation experience phantom sensations in their amputated limb, and the majority of the sensations are painful.[4] Phantom sensations may also occur after the removal of body parts other than the limbs, e.g. after amputation of the breast, extraction of a tooth (phantom tooth pain) or removal of an eye (phantom eye syndrome). The missing limb often feels shorter and may feel as if it is in a distorted and painful position. Occasionally, the pain can be made worse by stress, anxiety and weather changes. Phantom limb pain is usually intermittent. The frequency and intensity of attacks usually decline with time.

As you can see, the brain is easily fooled.
>>
Melissa Keehl 01/8/2009(Sat)11:40:11 No.192637
I think when I notice that I'm getting no new visual sensory information I would conclude that I'm no longer in my skull (which has eyes) but indeed in a vat....or somebody gouged out my eyes..when I try to reach for my eye sockets, and realize I neither feel my hand move nor the holes where my eyes had once been, I think then I'll assume I haven't a skull. Perhaps I won't know I'm particularly in a vat...but I know I'm not in a skull pretty quickly..
>>
Sigmund Langley 02/8/2009(Sun)03:11:24 No.193344
>>192637
The idea of a brain in a vai is that you will see and fell like any one else. You will see yourself in the mirror, you will feel your own skin, your limbs, the wind in your face and the cold floor in your feet, but they are all just electrical impulses generated by a computer.
>>
Nicholai Fei 12/8/2009(Wed)06:43:47 No.208704
>>193344
Perhaps the same could be said of all senses </Dracula>

[ File Only] Password
3.14chan Google Search                                       



share.chan3 imageboard banner exchange
pichan 314chan 3.14chan πchan


The Chan Top List

[sci / ssh / geek / sug]