I don't know, but he seems to be saying that being alive is better than being dead, in general, because the dead aren't aware of anything. — Marchesk

Okay, so if he were saying that, does it follow that one should therefore cling to life at all costs?

What he is saying is with reference to the afterlife. It is better to be ALIVE (in the real sense of alive) than dead. It is better to save your soul than to lose it. Jesus was treated like a dog in this life. And yet, this dog is the one who overcame. His spirit wasn't a dog, his spirit was a roaring lion. Socrates mocked the court who sentenced him - he was making fun of them. The guy bringing the hemlock - what are you doing, why are you crying? Bring it faster, there's nothing to be worried about. That's what Socrates was doing. In the flesh, he was a dog, forced to die. But in the spirit he was free - unlike the others, he didn't cling to a few more years of life. Diogenes! He overcame the great Alexander! While others were cowering in front of Alexander because they sucked up to get a share of the pie, Diogenes openly mocked Alexander and told him to get the fuck out of his light. Alexander respected Diogenes because he gambled with his life, he wasn't a petty dog (in the spirit), clinging to life (in the flesh) for a few more seconds. But rather he was GREAT - that's why Alexander said to all those suckers who were laughing around him - truly if I wasn't Alexander, I would be Diogenes. But it's better to be a dog (in the flesh) and to live (in the spirit), than to be a lion (in the flesh) and succumb (in the spirit).

Take heart. I have overcome the world. If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can look at this mountain and say move - and it shall move. Thus spoke Jesus.

Then you just haven't argued with any of the dream machine advocates yet. They do exist. Their position is basically to hell with truth and reality, experience is what matters, and having the best possible experience trumps everything else.

Based on what I've seen said about the Cyrenaics, my guess is they would have agreed, since pleasure is the only good for them. — Marchesk

I think they're confused myself and if they want to be a brain in a vat then they can certain help each other out and don't need my help.

Yes but it's vacuous. It's empty of content. It makes no difference if you are a brain in a vat, or you are actually a living human being - it makes no difference to the actual business of living. Descartes was fucked up because his skepticism undermined itself. Such skepticism undermines the meaning of truth, and thus renders its own truthfulness non-existent and incoherent - it destroys the context in which talking about truth and falsity makes sense, and then proceeds to talk about truth and falsity. The evil demon, brain in a vat, etc. hypothesis is nonsense - utter nonsense. — Agustino

Not so much. Descartes first conclusion was exactly what you're getting at, which is all that he could know was that he was a thinking thing, which is accurate whether you are a brain in a vat or actually as you appear. His reliance on an all good God to get him out of his solipsism was necessary or he'd be stuck. You've just got to accept that seeing is believing and root it in something. You root it in pragmatism (i.e. what difference does it make?), Descartes in God.

And when you say it makes no difference if you're a brain in a vat, I'm not that's true from an existential analysis. If you knew that your life and your death was just a computer program beginning and ending and that you'd be rebooted upon "death" (i.e. the evil genius would just hit restart), would that not give you a sinking feeling of meaninglessness? When you play a video game, doesn't it affect how you play it if you can reset it when you die?

If you knew that your life and your death was just a computer program beginning and ending and that you'd be rebooted upon "death" (i.e. the evil genius would just hit restart), would that not give you a sinking feeling of meaninglessness? — Hanover

No, I wouldn't thereby feel meaningless. Meaning is determined by things within my world - that's what meaning is. What the demon does is meaningless to me, and must necessarily be.

When you play a video game, doesn't it affect how you play it if you can reset it when you die? — Hanover

Yes it does.

You root it in pragmatism (i.e. what difference does it make?), Descartes in God. — Hanover

No I actually root it in the understanding that certain symbols - such as truth, or deception - lose their meanings if the frameworks that Descartes suggests are the case. But all the evidence that I see around me points to these symbols actually having meaning, and therefore I am forced to reject the evil demon hypothesis.

To wit: if the evil demon exists, in what sense is he deceiving me? Deception only makes sense if there actually is a possibility that I come to know that I am deceived. That's what I call a deception. I thought something, and then new evidence came up, and it turns out I was wrong. But if the evil demon scenario is correct, then I will never know it is the case - and hence practically there is no possibility that I will know of the deception. But if there is no possibility that I will know of the deception, then it isn't really a deception in the first place, because it's not what we understand by "deception" - a meaning we have arrived at within our world.

To wit: if the evil demon exists, in what sense is he deceiving me? Deception only makes sense if there actually is a possibility that I come to know that I am deceived. That's what I call a deception. I thought something, and then new evidence came up, and it turns out I was wrong. But if the evil demon scenario is correct, then I will never know it is the case - and hence practically there is no possibility that I will know of the deception. But if there is no possibility that I will know of the deception, then it isn't really a deception in the first place, because it's not what we understand by "deception" - a meaning we have arrived at within our world. — Agustino

Unless the evil demon has something to gain beyond just keeping you deceived. The Matrix scenario had humans envatted to server as batteries for the machines. Granted, we would actually make a lousy power source and not be worth the effort, but maybe the evil demon is empowered by our being deceived?

Again, for me, in no sense would I be deceived in that scenario. What you mean by deception is simply not what would be happening to me. In the Matrix, the only reason why deception was possible, was because it was possible for Neo to find out that he was deceived, which he did. If such were impossible, then no deception could have been spoken about. So I will wait until the evil demon shows himself, until then I know for all practical purposes that I am not deceived.

After all the Universe has taken some billions of years to give rise to us, whatever process is unfolding here is not going to be subverted by whatever is dreamed up by the Kurzweils and Deutschs of this world, no matter how clever they appear to be. — Wayfarer

I would agree that it is not truly possible to subvert the order of nature and the spiritual order; that is indeed also my view. But the thought experiment is addressed to those who professedly disbelieve in such orders, who believe that anything that is logically possible is actually possible. It is meant to ask them, 'what if you could deliver people instantly to their best imaginable lives'? In the absence of an overarching order, then why shouldn't you deliver them to their best imaginable lives?

You two Aussies have more in common than not it seems >:O

I found it horrifyingly interesting or interestingly horrifying for a couple of seasons. Some of the situations depicted in it highlighted interesting moral dilemmas. But then, for me, it got old real fast.

But if you're already a brain in a vat, then you are merely being offered a better 'brain in a vat' experience. Why not take it?

People of a Humean persuasion claim that it is not rational to expect anything to be the same in the future as it has in the past. This thought experiment is addressed to them, and their ethical commitments. If you genuinely believed that anything is possible then you must believe that it is possible that you could find yourself in the situation of this thought experiment. Your ethics should be ready to cover all contingencies.

It's really a very simple question. If you don't like the 'brain in a vat' scenario then think of it like this: if you were an omnipotent God and you could change creation so that everyone would live their best imaginable fantasy lives. forever if you like, would you do it? Why, or why not?

Anti-theists often use just such an argument against the idea of an omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent God, saying that if He is all those things then he could make that change, or that He should have made it that way from the start, and they say that the fact he doesn't and hasn't proves that he is not omniscient and/ or omnibenevolent and/ or omnipotent. If you think like this, and imagine yourself in such a position as God, then you must be committed to saying that you ought to make the change, no?

What is it that you mean here? I'm trying to understand the sentence and read it a few times but I don't get it. Are you trying to say you don't think you're in the position to decide what would be good for everyone else in the world? — Agustino

Any person that could be in a position to have that choice could not be the person that is writing this post. So it does not mean anything to ask me what I would do in that situation. It is like asking 'who would I be if I were not me?" or 'who would I be if I were born into a different family?'

Any person that could be in a position to have that choice could not be the person that is writing this post — andrewk

How does that follow? Sorry but I don't see it.

I have formed the opinion that you subscribe to the Humean idea that anything is possible. Correct me if I am wrong, but if you do subscribe to that then your ethics should be ready for any logically possible contingency; for example that you might be called upon to decide the fate of humanity.

Although I generally reject all labels and classifications of philosophies, I readily admit that I greatly admire David Hume and find myself more in agreement with what he has written than for any other philosopher that springs to mind.

I do not believe that 'anything is possible'. Like Hume I am very sceptical of ontology, so my definitions of key philosophical terms are epistemological. Further, it seems to me that those are the only meaningful definitions that one can give to such terms.

For me, to say that something is 'impossible' means that if it occurred I would not have to either discard my current tentative theories of how the world works (my science) or admit to having made a mistake of observation or calculation. If I were to find myself in the situation described, my scientific understanding of the world would be destroyed, so under my definition it is not a possible scenario.

Also, bear in mind that, for the scenario to present any sort of a dilemma the subject must be absolutely convinced that the impact of pressing the button would be for everybody to become perfectly happy. When the stakes are as high as that, the level of certainty required is astronomical. As a sceptic, I cannot imagine any experience that would give me that level of certainty about anything. Hence, to be in the position described, I would have to have undergone some unimaginably weird experiences in order to acquire that level of certainty. Those experiences would be so thoroughly powerful and engulfing as to make the subject no longer the same person as they were before.

But if you were a good Humean you would not be wedded to your scientific understanding of the world, since it could be based only on the irrational habit of expecting the world to be the same in the future as it has in the past.

So, your scientific understanding could not possibly be significant when it came to your identification of yourself. Indeed your self could only be the bundle of experiences that have already occurred to you, held together by memory. You should be ready for any kind of different experience imaginable; even the experience of absolute certainty about what would happen if you pushed the button. This would just be to admit that you might become able to feel certain of something through another means than rational argument; that it might be possible that you could feel certain, even though you had no rational warrant for feeling certain. Even in this scenario you would still be you; you would still be this bundle of memories of past events you have experienced.

But if you were a good Humean you would not be wedded to your scientific understanding of the world, since it could be based only on the irrational habit of expecting the world to be the same in the future as it has in the past. — John

I have no interest in being a good Humean. I admire the man, but it's not a religion, and I can differ from him where I like. For instance I never really got what he was talking about in relation to the 'missing shade of blue'.

But I regard your quote as a misinterpretation of Hume's view. He did not think it was irrational to expect anything. He just thought that there was no way to prove that the expectation had a solid logical foundation. At worst that would be 'a-rational', not 'ir-rational', which means something that can be proven to be false. He famously concluded his deliberations on expectations, and whether his dinner would poison him, by saying that he would eat his dinner anyway, and he did not expect it to poison him.

I disagree with your definition of "irrational". For me, the term means the same as 'a-rational'. To be irrational is not to attempt to be rational and to get it wrong, (which would be to be inadequately or inexpertly rational; or to suck at being rational) it is to be motivated to belief by unexamined emotion and/or habit of expectation. In line with this I disagree with you that Hume did not think that it is irrational to expect the future to be like the past. He thought that we could have no reason at all to think such a thing, that there is nothing in the fact that the past has been thus and so, that could rationally justify us in thinking that the future will be thus and so. For Hume, we are not even rationally justified in thinking that it is more or less likely to be thus and so.

I have to say that I am surprised that your ethics cannot enable you to answer this fairly straightforward thought experiment. I can tell you with 100 % conviction that I would never push that button.

In Grim's lecture series; where I first heard of this, he tells us that when put to his students they are roughly divided between the deontologists who would not push the button and the consequentialists that would. So this is not some esoteric thought experiment; university undergraduates are apparently able to readily understand it and respond to it. Am I right to think that you just don't know how to respond, that you don't know what you would do?

It's just a thought experiment to try to see what your ethical and ontological commitments are. Think of it another way; if you could push a button and everyone would instantly be in Nirvana; no effort needed and no questions asked; would you do it? You might say that would have to be a fake, unearned Nirvana, but could there be any difference between absolutely believing you were in Nirvana and actually being in Nirvana? If so, what could the difference be?

Ok, I find it interesting in that it is like holding up a mirror to yourself, that you, or someone else, can view your ethical and ontological commitments objectively.

These are my initial thoughts;

That if I did press the button. The people, myself included, would not be themselves anymore, indeed they would be so removed from themselves, that the thought experiment becomes meaningless. This is why in mysticism (as I see it) the soul develops from , I, to , I am, to, I am that, to the point where it realises, I am that I am. In the final level of development the being would remain the same being when the button is pressed. Prior to "I am that I am", the being would loose their personal identity in the switch. in this prior state beings are formed, held up, propped up by tangible realities in this world as they are, take this away and they (their being) collapse, disappear. If they(their being) are thrust into "I am that I am", again they would be in a fractured, or collapsed state.

Secondly the idea of being in a vat and not knowing it is incoherent as we don't know if we aren't already in that state, that there is any other possibility to this state etc. I know that this is not the point of the experiment. But it does illuminate the issue which you may be enquiring into of the ontological basis of our reality. The implication being that if the button is pressed the beings will be in an exalted state, but it would be in some way false, a a lie, a fabrication. There are two problems with this, firstly as I say, we might already be in that state, life might not be possible without it being fabricated in some way. Secondly if the button were pressed the fact of there being a brain in a vat might become meaningless irrelevant, because we are phenomelogically our being and our experiences and the vat is simply an inconsequential artefact of material processes etc., or might simply disappear.

Third, the ways in which our current way of life would change. Provided there is no vital purpose being served in our living this way of life, then whilst bearing the first two thoughts in mind, I would have no problem with pressing the button. However if there is a vital purpose in us living this life, then I might in pressing the button, pass the buck and that purpose would have to be carried out by some other unsuspecting bunch of beings at a later time. So I would be bottling on my purpose.

Fourth, We might be here performing a service for some other lives, or purpose. What about for example the other animals and plants we share our lives with, or the planet, or the material of this universe? We might be fulfilling a vital custodial role within the wider system and so fulfilling our personal desires and wants in an instant might be a cowardly act of refusal to perform our natural role in nature, a role we might have actually chosen, or offered to perform. In this light, the thought experiment comes across as a conceited flight of fancy.

To be irrational is not to attempt to be rational and to get it wrong, (which would be to be inadequately or inexpertly rational; or to suck at being rational) it is to be motivated to belief by unexamined emotion and/or habit of expectation. — John

I think I can accept that interpretation. But it still doesn't apply to me. I have closely examined the thought processes, the emotions and the habits involved in my acting on the expectation that the future will be like the past. I have found them to be lacking in any rational foundation and have resolved to not fight my instinctive inclinations to follow them.

Having examined something does not entail that one has located a logical ground to justify it. Indeed one of the greatest blessings philosophy - the practice of closely examining one's life, experience and beliefs - has had for me, is to come to believe that almost nothing appears to have any fundamental logical grounding, and to learn to rejoice in that belief.

So it seems that my position that it is not irrational for a sceptic to expect the future to be like the past, as long as she does not claim to have any proof to support that expectation, stands firm under that definition of irrational.

Am I right to think that you just don't know how to respond, that you don't know what you would do? — John

I wouldn't put it like that. I'd say that very few, if any, people in this world could know how they would act, because they are trying to predict the values they would have in a situation in which they would have undergone such monumentally transformative experiences that they could not say how they would act. I would say that those that gave definite answers to the question - in either direction - were exhibiting a lack of imagination and a lack of reflection on what the scenario really entailed.

I'm not convinced that any one of those "x-ists must say" or "could not be committed to x-ism" claims work.

For example, one could easily be a utilitarian who believes that brains-in-a-vat do not qualify as the sorts of creatures that are due moral consideration.

Everyone of those "x-ists must say"/"could not be committed to x-ism" claims depend on (a) the positions in question accepting that the brains-in-a-vat idea is a coherent fantasy, and (b) that whether we're talking about a brain-in-a-vat or a locomotive creature with a more complete body etc . doesn't make any difference. But none of those "isms" actually imply either (a) or (b).

Even if we're not strictly talking about a brain-in-a-vat scenario, with something like this:

By pushing the button you cause everyone to live the best possible life as imagined by each one. No personal effort is required to achieve any of this, — John

A utilitarian could easily believe that "no personal effort is required" disables those achievements from having the same quality that achievements have when personal effort is required. The utilitarian could additionally believe that (i) achievements with personal effort required are much more valuable, and (ii) personal effort can't somehow be artificially induced or simulated.

Re the sort of laissez-faire relativist that I am, by the way, including that I'm a truth-relativist, I wouldn't push the button, because I'd not be comfortable making that decision for other people. I'd be fine with people deciding to push the button for themselves, though (where it only affects their own status).

I don't know if I'd push the button for myself.

I'm very happy for you, that you're not suffering to the extent that you would push the button for your personal position. Many people who do suffer would beg to you push it for their sakes, it's amazing how suffering can clarify the mind.

Anyway why not, is it a love, or sentimentality for this life the way it is? (I would consider pressing it to eleiviate the suffering of people in Syria with no medical facilities regardless of my own feelings). Or is it because you think we are doing something constructive and beneficial in the long run?(like Augustinio's perspective). Or is there another reason?

With respect to other people, as I said, I wouldn't be comfortable making that decision for other people. Surely some people would want me to make that decision and some would not. I wouldn't want to force that on the people who wouldn't want it and who wouldn't choose it if they were able to make a decision for themselves.

With respect to myself, I'm unsure if I'd choose to be an ideal brain-in-a-vat because yes, I am happy with my life as it is, and also because I'd hesitate knowing that everything post-decision wouldn't be real, even knowing that post-decision I wouldn't be aware of that.

The people, myself included, would not be themselves anymore, indeed they would be so removed from themselves, that the thought experiment becomes meaningless. — Punshhh

But they would be living the lives that they individually find most desirable; lives that are the expressions of their deepest wishes. Say someone wished to be a great composer; in this scenario they would become that great composer and they would produce wonderful works to universal acclaim and they would also remember all the study and practice they had had to put in to become that great composer. Of course, those memories would not be of anything that had really happened, but they would not know that. This thought experiment is really to determine if we think there is something important about reality, or if what is most important is what we experience, and what is behind that experience doesn't matter.

For example, say you are a physicalist and you believe that there is nothing more to us than our sensory and somatic experiences; experiences which are never optimal but always fraught with contingent imperfections leading to all the routine suffering and dissatisfaction experienced everyday by people. You believe that ultimately all this alternation of suffering and pleasure, satisfaction and dissatisfaction comes to nought; you just die and become 'dirt in the ground', If you could somehow live your life out in a fantasy world where you have everything you want; a perfect relationship and family, the profession you want or no need to work at all, all the pleasures continuously and no dissatisfactions, everything just goes perfectly for you, and then one day your life just ceases, without you having felt any pain or experienced any sickness; why would you not choose that, if you thought that death is the end and there are no ultimate consequences that comes with that, or any, choice?

But in the scenario your life is indistinguishable form your present life except that you are superlatively intelligent, a creative genius, a brilliant benefactor, as rich as you like, loved by everyone; all the things you could want.

And you are provided with all the memories of having made the efforts necessary to become the great person you are.

For the consequentialist all that matters are the consequences, and the consequences of this scenario are the best imaginable.

But in the scenario your life is indistinguishable form your present life except that you are superlatively intelligent, a creative genius, a brilliant benefactor, as rich as you like, loved by everyone; all the things you could want. — John

Well that's no fun is it? It's not about BEING those things, it's about BECOMING those things. Being a creative genius - if someone puts me in the skin of Da Vinci now, I'd feel like a cheater. I wouldn't enjoy it. Or being a rich man. Put me in the skin of Bill Gates. I'd feel like a crook! The whole fun is making yourself into a creative genius, or into a rich man, and so forth.

But if you are a truth relativist you believe there is no ultimate truth, and that,concomitantly, there are no ultimate consequences of any actions or experiences, and you are in a position to bestow the greatest gift on everyone. And they will never know what happened; so why wouldn't you bestow the gift?

The whole fun is making yourself into a creative genius, or into a rich man, and so forth. — Agustino

In the optimal, tailored life of your own choosing, you can to do exactly that. In the real world, plenty of people would like to become a genius, rich or famous, but for one reason or another, can't or don't.