We can’t have empirical evidence that rules out 4. — Michael
I disagree. When one demonstrates that BIV is physically impossible, scenarios 2 or 4 were never a logical possibility. What was conceptualize from actual functional brains was demonstrated to be false.
Just because one can say or imagine something does not make it possible.
But as a fictitious narrative, one does not need to worry about the support of empirical evidence. — Richard B
since everything would then be an artificial construct — Janus
What if it is not merely not the case, but is also physically impossible that we could be brains in a vat? — Janus
his is not to say that it is metaphysically possible that you are a BIV , but how could you justify the proposition that it is epistemically impossible? — wonderer1
How does it show that you’re in 2 and not 4? — Michael
The thing is, if the fact is that you are a brain in a vat, who has been fed all of your perceptions by a mad scientist, then your belief that a brain in a vat is physically impossible is a result of the way your beliefs developed in response to what the mad scientist has been feeding you. So under this scenario you believe what the mad scientist caused you to believe, and so your belief that a BIV is physically impossible doesn't have an informed basis, and would in fact be false. — wonderer1
You are saying that a BiV brain is different than a real brain, I think. But then tell me this, is BiV perception the same as real perception? — NotAristotle
Simply, if the scientist showed that it is physically impossible to have a functional BIV, BIV is not possible. — Richard B
Yeah might as well be flexible and say we can't know what a BIV actually is, but under the scenario what you think of as real perception would necessarily be the same as BIV perception. — wonderer1
What scientist are you referring to? Under this scenario your belief in scientists would be a function of what the mad scientist (god to you) is feeding you in the way of perceptions, so any beliefs about brains that you have would be a function of the virtual reality presented by the mad scientist tending your vat.
The mad scientist might have fed you sensations that resulted in you having a notion of a brain that is utterly unlike what is in the vat. You don't have knowledge of what is in the vat or even the physics of vat world, so you can't have a scientific proof of the impossibility of the thing in the vat in vat world. — wonderer1
This thinking resembles what authors do when they produce fictitious narratives, borrow from their real life experience and make up fantasy tales with no intention of claiming that they are talking about real life events. This type of philosophical thinking is doing the same, but with the delusional attempt in trying to potentially say something of the world we live in. — Richard B
Wittgenstein's "On Certainty" said it best, "505. It is always by favor of Nature that one knows something." — Richard B
Perhaps I see more value in considering thought experiments than you do? Einstein's thought experiments played an important role in human understanding of relativity theory. Suppose we consider the merits of thought experiments, as a technology for stimulating human minds to look at things from a different perspective? — wonderer1
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