Teh One Who Knocks
08-05-2016, 12:23 PM
By Sean Martin - The Express
http://i.imgur.com/Clepw86.jpg
WE could be living in a virtual reality where our brains our kept in a jar by an evil scientist, an expert has claimed.
Everything we know maybe part of a science experiment being conducted in someone’s laboratory, Laura D’Olimpio, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at University of Notre Dame Australia, says.
She believes that our brains are being kept in a jar and being fed nutrients via tubes, and has challenged anyone to prove that this isn’t the case.
She wrote in an article for academic and research community led media outlet The Conversation: “The nerve endings of your brain are connected to a supercomputer that feeds you all the sensations of everyday life.
“This is why you think you’re living a completely normal life.
“Do you still exist? Are you still even ‘you’? And is the world as you know it a figment of your imagination or an illusion constructed by this evil scientist?
“Can you say with absolute certainty that it’s not true? Could you prove to someone that you aren’t actually a brain in a vat?”
French philosopher René Descartes originally theorised about the brain-in-a-vat in his 1641 Meditations on First Philosophy where he said that our minds are all being controlled from a laboratory.
Ms D’Olimpio added: “It is from Descartes that we get classical sceptical queries favoured by philosophers such as: How can we be sure that we are awake right now and not asleep, dreaming?
“To take this challenge to our assumed knowledge further, Descartes imagines there exists an omnipotent, malicious demon that deceives us, leading us to believe we are living our lives when, in fact, reality could be very different to how it appears to us.
“While such thought experiments might seem glib — and perhaps a little unsettling — they serve a useful purpose.”
However, Ms D’Olimpio says there is no doubt that we do ‘exist’, but just not sure how.
She continued: “At least we can be sure that we ourselves exist, because every time we doubt that, there must exist an ‘I’ that is doing the doubting.
“This consolation results in the famous expression cogito ergo sum, or ‘I think therefore I am’.
“So, yes, you may well be a brain in a vat and your experience of the world may be a computer simulation programmed by an evil genius. But, rest assured, at least you’re thinking.”
http://i.imgur.com/Clepw86.jpg
WE could be living in a virtual reality where our brains our kept in a jar by an evil scientist, an expert has claimed.
Everything we know maybe part of a science experiment being conducted in someone’s laboratory, Laura D’Olimpio, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at University of Notre Dame Australia, says.
She believes that our brains are being kept in a jar and being fed nutrients via tubes, and has challenged anyone to prove that this isn’t the case.
She wrote in an article for academic and research community led media outlet The Conversation: “The nerve endings of your brain are connected to a supercomputer that feeds you all the sensations of everyday life.
“This is why you think you’re living a completely normal life.
“Do you still exist? Are you still even ‘you’? And is the world as you know it a figment of your imagination or an illusion constructed by this evil scientist?
“Can you say with absolute certainty that it’s not true? Could you prove to someone that you aren’t actually a brain in a vat?”
French philosopher René Descartes originally theorised about the brain-in-a-vat in his 1641 Meditations on First Philosophy where he said that our minds are all being controlled from a laboratory.
Ms D’Olimpio added: “It is from Descartes that we get classical sceptical queries favoured by philosophers such as: How can we be sure that we are awake right now and not asleep, dreaming?
“To take this challenge to our assumed knowledge further, Descartes imagines there exists an omnipotent, malicious demon that deceives us, leading us to believe we are living our lives when, in fact, reality could be very different to how it appears to us.
“While such thought experiments might seem glib — and perhaps a little unsettling — they serve a useful purpose.”
However, Ms D’Olimpio says there is no doubt that we do ‘exist’, but just not sure how.
She continued: “At least we can be sure that we ourselves exist, because every time we doubt that, there must exist an ‘I’ that is doing the doubting.
“This consolation results in the famous expression cogito ergo sum, or ‘I think therefore I am’.
“So, yes, you may well be a brain in a vat and your experience of the world may be a computer simulation programmed by an evil genius. But, rest assured, at least you’re thinking.”