Imagine that at this very moment, right now, you are not who you think you are. You are the subject of scientific experiments conducted by some evil genius. Your brain has been separated from your body and kept alive in a nutrient jar on your laboratory table. The nerve endings in your brain are connected to a supercomputer that feeds and feeds you with the sensations of everyday life. Therefore, you think you are living an ordinary life.
Do you exist? And is it you? And what about the world that exists around you (or in your illusion)?
Sounds awful. But can you conclude with absolute certainty that this is not the case? See, you are already beginning to doubt. How to prove that you are not a brain in a vat?
Deceiving demons
The philosopher Hilary Putnam proposed this version of the brain-in-a-vat as a thought experiment in 1971. But it actually goes back to the idea of the French philosopher Rene Descartes, who thought about the evil genius as early as 1641.
Such thought experiments can be frightening - and should be frightening - but still serve a useful purpose. Philosophers turn to them to find out what beliefs can be trusted and, as a result, what knowledge about the world around us and about ourselves is worth collecting.
Descartes thought that the best way to do this was to begin to doubt everything (de omnibus dubitandum) and build a system of knowledge on the basis of these doubts. Taking this skeptical approach, he argued that only a kernel of absolute certainty would provide a reliable basis for knowledge. He said that in pursuit of the truth, a person should doubt all things at least once in his life.
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Descartes believed that such a philosophical approach was available to everyone. In one of his works, he describes a scene where he sits in front of a fireplace in his house, smoking a pipe. And he asks if it is possible to believe that he has a pipe in his hand and slippers on his feet. Feelings have let him down in the past, and since they have let him down before, they cannot be trusted. Therefore, there is no certainty that his feelings are reliable.
Down the rabbit hole
It was from Descartes that we received the classic skeptical questions so beloved by philosophers, for example: how can we be sure that right now we are not asleep, but awake?
To challenge our fictional knowledge, Descartes imagined the existence of an omnipotent evil demon that tricks us into thinking that we are living our own lives, when reality is very different from everything we know.
The brain-in-a-vat thought experiment and the problem of skepticism are often used in popular culture. Take the Matrix or the Beginning, for example. By watching a filmed version of a thought experiment, the viewer can immerse themselves in a fictional world and get a good idea of philosophical ideas.
For example, while watching The Matrix, we learn that the protagonist Neo discovers that his world is a computer simulation, and his body is actually dangling in a vat of life-supporting fluid. Fortunately, Descartes hands us a saving straw.
While we cannot be absolutely sure that the world is exactly what it seems, we can be sure that we exist. Because every time we doubt, there must be some “I” that doubts. As a result, Descartes' reflections lead to the famous expression: "I think, therefore I am" (cogito ergo sum).
Perhaps you are truly a brain-in-a-vat, and the world around you is a computer simulation. But you exist, which means the rest doesn't matter. As long as the world seems real to us, it will be true.
ILYA KHEL