Brain In A Vat Research Articles

Sosa on epistemic value: a Kantian obstacle

In recent work, Sosa proposes a comprehensive account of epistemic value based on an axiology for attempts. According to this axiology, an attempt is better if it succeeds, better still if it is apt (i.e., succeeds through competence), and best if it is fully apt, (i.e., guided to aptness by apt beliefs that it would be apt). Beliefs are understood as attempts aiming at the truth. Thus, a belief is better if true, better still if apt, and best if fully apt. I raise a Kantian obstacle for Sosa’s account, arguing that the quality or worth of an attempt is independent of whether it succeeds. In particular, an attempt can be fully worthy despite being a failure. I then consider whether Sosa’s competence-theoretic framework provides the resources for an axiology of attempts that does not place so much weight on success. I discuss the most promising candidate, an axiology grounded in the competence of attempts, or what Sosa calls adroitness. An adroit attempt may fail. I raise doubts about whether an adroitness-based axiology can provide a plausible explanation of the worthiness of subjects’ beliefs in epistemically unfortunate situations, such as the beliefs of the brain in a vat. I conclude by speculating that the notion of a belief’s fit with what the subject has to go on, a notion missing from Sosa’s competence-theoretic framework, is crucial to explaining epistemic worth.

Character and Person. John Frow. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Pp. xvi+331.

<i>Character and Person</i>. John Frow. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Pp. xvi+331.

How to Avoid a Robotic Apocalypse: A Consideration on the Future Developments of AI, Emergent Consciousness, and the Frankenstein Effect

One of the greatest compliments I've ever received came from a gentleman who approached me after I had delivered a paper in Vancouver, British Columbia. He said: "You're from the future, aren't you?" He was responding to the manner in which I had considered logical entailments of how future episodes may play out. Although I was trained as a philosopher of science, the majority of my work for the last two decades has been interdisciplinary and collaborative with other fields in the social and physical sciences. As a pioneer in my field - sometimes referred to as experimental philosophy - I often employ the use of thought experiments or "what if?" scenarios to imagine possible future worlds. Thought experiments have been around for thousands of years; from Plato's allegory of the cave (Figure 1), to Rene Descartes' malin genie (Figure 2), to Hilary Putnam's brains in vats (Figure 3).

Additional Reflections on Putnam, Wright and Brains in Vats

Abstract Putnam’s argument against the sceptical Brain-in-a-Vat hypothesis continues to intrigue. I argue in what follows that the argument refutes a particular kind of sceptic and make a proposal about its more general significance. To appreciate the soundness of the argument, I explain, we need to appreciate that the sceptic’s contention is that I cannot know that I am not a brain in a vat even if I am not. This is why in response to the sceptic it is legitimate to make a transition from knowing that a sentence is true to knowing the truth it expresses, which is the crucial move in the argument.

On some common objections to a behavioral approach to psychological categories

This paper addresses several objections that have been leveled against a behavioral approach to psychological categories. It reconstructs and critically assesses (a) the so-called causal objection; (b) alleged counterexamples whereby one can exhibit the typical behaviors associated with a psychological phenomenon without exhibiting the latter, including Lewis’ “perfect actor” case and Kirk’s “zombie”; (c) alleged counterexamples whereby organisms can exemplify psychological phenomena without exhibiting any behavior associated with them, including Armstrong’s imagined brain in a vat, Putnam’s “super-super-spartans” scenario, and related cases; and (d) the holistic objection. Mistaken assumptions in each of these objections are pinpointed. The paper starts with a brief characterization of behaviorism about psychological categories and a summary of the particular version thereof supported here, which draws upon Ryle and Skinner, among others.

Defending the Ignorance View of Sceptical Scenarios

What is the role of sceptical scenarios—dreams, evil demons, brains in a vat—in sceptical arguments? According to the error view, sceptical scenarios illustrate the possibility of massive falsity in one’s beliefs, whereas according to the ignorance view, they illustrate the possibility of massive ignorance not necessarily due to falsity. In this paper, the ignorance view is defended by surveying the arguments in favour of it and by replying to two pressing objections against it. According to the first objection, the ignorance view illicitly introduces thekk-principle into sceptical arguments. In reply I argue thatkkis not less plausible than its main rival, the closure principle. According to the second objection, relying on veridical ignorance-possibilities contradicts the transparency of belief. In reply I introduce a version of transparency that is consistent with the ignorance view.

Simulation, self-extinction, and philosophy in the service of human civilization

Nick Bostrom's recently patched "simulation argument" (Bostrom in Philos Q 53:243---255, 2003; Bostrom and Kulczycki in Analysis 71:54---61, 2011) purports to demonstrate the probability that we "live" now in an "ancestor simulation"--that is as a simulation of a period prior to that in which a civilization more advanced than our own--"post-human"--becomes able to simulate such a state of affairs as ours. As such simulations under consideration resemble "brains in vats" (BIVs) and may appear open to similar objections, the paper begins by reviewing objections to BIV-type proposals, specifically those due a presumed mad envatter. In counter example, we explore the motivating rationale behind current work in the development of psychologically realistic social simulations. Further concerns about rendering human cognition in a computational medium are confronted through review of current dynamic systems models of cognitive agency. In these models, aspects of the human condition are reproduced that may in other forms be considered incomputable, i.e., political voice, predictive planning, and consciousness. The paper then argues that simulations afford a unique potential to secure a post-human future, and may be necessary for a pre-post-human civilization like our own to achieve and to maintain a post-human situation. Long-standing philosophical interest in tools of this nature for Aristotle's "statesman" and more recently for E.O. Wilson in the 1990s is observed. Self-extinction-level threats from State and individual levels of organization are compared, and a likely dependence on large-scale psychologically realistic simulations to get past self-extinction-level threats is projected. In the end, Bostrom's basic argument for the conviction that we exist now in a simulation is reaffirmed.

Serious theories and skeptical theories: Why you are probably not a brain in a vat

Skeptical hypotheses such as the brain-in-a-vat hypothesis provide extremely poor explanations for our sensory experiences. Because these scenarios accommodate virtually any possible set of evidence, the probability of any given set of evidence on the skeptical scenario is near zero; hence, on Bayesian grounds, the scenario is not well supported by the evidence. By contrast, serious theories make reasonably specific predictions about the evidence and are then well supported when these predictions are satisfied.

The Radicalism of Truth‐insensitive Epistemology: Truth's Profound Effect on the Evaluation of Belief

Many philosophers claim that interesting forms of epistemic evaluation are insensitive to truth in a very specific way. Suppose that two possible agents believe the same proposition based on the same evidence. Either both are justified or neither is; either both have good evidence for holding the belief or neither does. This does not change if, on this particular occasion, it turns out that only one of the two agents has a true belief. Epitomizing this line of thought are thought experiments about radically deceived “brains in vats.” It is widely and uncritically assumed that such a brain is equally justified as its normally embodied human “twin.” This “parity” intuition is the heart of truth‐insensitive theories of core epistemological properties such as justification and rationality. Rejecting the parity intuition is considered radical and revisionist. In this paper, I show that exactly the opposite is true. The parity intuition is idiosyncratic and widely rejected. A brain in a vat is not justified and has worse evidence than its normally embodied counterpart. On nearly every ordinary way of evaluating beliefs, a false belief is significantly inferior to a true belief. Of all the evaluations studied here, only blamelessness is truth‐insensitive.

How you know you are not a brain in a vat

A sensible epistemologist may not see how she could know that she is not a brain in a vat (BIV); but she doesn’t panic. She sticks with her empirical beliefs, and as that requires, believes that she is not a BIV. (She does not inferentially base her belief that she is not a BIV on her empirical knowledge—she rejects that ‘Moorean’ response to skepticism.) Drawing on the psychological literature on metacognition, I describe a mechanism that’s plausibly responsible for a sensible epistemologist coming to believe she is not a BIV. I propose she thereby knows that she is not a BIV. The particular belief-forming mechanism employed explains why she overlooks this account of how she knows she is not a BIV, making it seem that there is no way for her to know it. I argue this proposal satisfactorily resolves the skeptical puzzle.

What's It Like to Be a BIV? A Dialogue

ABSTRACT:Several subjects are fully convinced that they are brains in vats whose experiences are hallucinatory. They confront a ‘skeptic’ who raises the possibility that they are not brains in vats who lack and hallucinate hands but ‘brains in skulls’ who have hands and see them. Familiar responses to skepticism are offered in support of the claim that the subjects know they do not have hands. The philosophical significance of this looking-glass approach to skepticism is also discussed. It is suggested that these familiar responses to skepticism do not achieve anything because, if we begin from the assumption that we are brains in vats, we can employ those same responses to skepticism to support the claim that we know we do not have hands. One interlocutor argues that things are not so dismal. The main conversation is framed by a discussion among night watchmen at some sort of skepticism laboratory.

The Radicalism of Truth-Insensitive Epistemology: Truth's Profound Effect on the Evaluation of Belief

Many philosophers claim that interesting forms of epistemic evaluation are insensitive to truth in a very specific way. Suppose that two possible agents believe the same proposition based on the same evidence. Either both are justified or neither is; either both have good evidence for holding the belief or neither does. This does not change if, on this particular occasion, it turns out that only one of the two agents has a true belief. Epitomizing this line of thought are thought experiments about radically deceived “brains in vats.” It is widely and uncritically assumed that such a brain is equally justified as its normally embodied human “twin.” This “parity” intuition is the heart of truth-insensitive theories of core epistemological properties such as justification and rationality. Rejecting the parity intuition is considered radical and revisionist. In this paper, I show that exactly the opposite is true. The parity intuition is idiosyncratic and widely rejected. A brain in a vat is not justified and has worse evidence than its normally embodied counterpart. On nearly every ordinary way of evaluating beliefs, a false belief is significantly inferior to a true belief. Of all the evaluations studied here, only blamelessness is truth-insensitive.

Is There Really Something Wrong With Contemporary Epistemology?

Analytic epistemology is thriving. Many people, however, think that it has gone wrong. They judge that it has become a new scholastics, narrow-minded, obsessed by a small set of problems, most of them examined through repetitive examples, thought experiments and paradoxes, such as the Gettier cases, stories about fake barns, bank cases, brains in vats and evil demons, or the lottery paradox. Philip Kitcher is one of these critics. In an article called “Epistemology without history is blind” published in Erkenntnis in 2011, he takes his stand from William James, “There can be no difference anywhere that doesn’t make a difference elsewhere” and judges severely the production of contemporary epistemologists. I disagree. Kitcher’s judgment is hasty, and analytic epistemology is not guilty of the sins that he denounces

Of waves and troughs

Of waves and troughs

10.5937/kultura1442034s = The use of thought experiments in philosophy and film

In this article the role of thought experiments in philosophy will be considered as well as the possibility to show these experiments on movie screens. Thought experiments as mental models can create a fertile connection between philosophy and film, mind and sight, concept and image. First, a short typology of thought experiments which are suitable for filmic interpretation will be given, especially those experiments which are dealing with the problems of annulling the difference between reality and fiction, problems of personal identity and ethical paradoxes. Some of these thought experiments will be illustrated on the example of three movies (Vertigo, The Matrix, and No Country for Old Men). Hitchcock's Vertigo shows how one person who plays the role of another person can gradually lose sight of the difference between him/her and the taken personality - this identification has tragic consequences for the main characters in the movie. In their science-fiction trilogy, The Matrix, the Wachowski Brothers explore the possibility that human consciousness is manipulated by some intelligent machines and make implicit use of a philosophical thought experiment as presented in Hilary Putnam's work Reason, Truth and History (the case of 'brains in a vat'). The Coen Brothers are thematizing an ethical paradox in No Country for Old Men: Is it possible for a killer to act in accordance with categorical principles? If this is true, should we endorse such behavior? The end of the article briefly discusses a potential heuristic and didactic relevance of the filmic interpretation of thought experiments for philosophy.

Against Brain-in-a-Vatism: On the Value of Virtual Reality

The term “virtual reality” was first coined by Antonin Artaud to describe a value-adding characteristic of certain types of theatrical performances. The expression has more recently come to refer to a broad range of incipient digital technologies that many current philosophers regard as a serious threat to human autonomy and well-being. Their concerns, which are formulated most succinctly in “brain in a vat”-type thought experiments and in Robert Nozick's famous “experience machine” argument, reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of the way that such technologies would probably have to work. They also considerably underestimate the positive contributions that virtual reality (VR) technologies could make to the growth of human knowledge. Here, we examine and critique Nozick's claim that no reasonable person would want to plug into his hypothetical experience machine in light of a broadly enactivist understanding of how future VR technologies might be expected to function. We then sketch out a tentative theory of the phenomenon of truth in fiction, in order to characterize some of the distinct epistemic opportunities that VR technologies promise to provide.

Scepticism and Reliable Belief * By JOSE ZALABARDO

Nozick (1981) famously advocated a tracking theory of knowledge according to which S knows that p only if S would not believe p if p were false and S would believe p if p were true. These two modal conditions on knowledge, sensitivity and adherence respectively, seem initially to provide a neat solution to the Gettier problem and the problem about scepticism. For instance, the reason you fail to know there�s a barn in fake barn county despite having a justified true belief is that you would still believe there�s a barn if instead you were looking at one of the many barn facades. And while both conditions are met when it comes to your belief that you have hands, your belief that you are not a handless brain in a vat (BIV) is insensitive, and so you cannot know that you are not a BIV. So, your lack of knowledge of the negation of sceptical hypotheses seems to inflict no damage on your putative knowledge of everyday propositions. So far, so good. The problem with the requirement that sensitivity be a necessary condition on knowledge is twofold. First off, given your knowledge that having hands entails not being a BIV, Nozick�s anti-sceptical strategy implies that knowledge is not invariably closed under known entailment. Secondly, there are intuitive cases of insensitive knowledge. Some of these, including Nozick�s own grandmother case, can be handled by insisting that S sensitively believes p just in case S would not believe p using the same method that S uses in the actual world if p were false. But, as Zalabardo notes, method-relativization of sensitivity fails to deal with all such cases, including Sosa�s (1999) rubbish chute. You drop a rubbish bag down the chute in a high-rise condo. Intuitively, moments later you know that �

The Digital Generation: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Within the framework of the new and multiple literacies, we have witnessed an explosion of the use of digital tools and venues (Paul & Wang, 2012, ch. 3). This has resulted in an exponential addition of new words and phrases to our mental lexicon such as e-mail, e-book, vlog, blog,podcast, apps, Facebook, and Google, and the proliferation of gadgets such as the iPhone, iPad, and iPod. In general, if you are a digital native, that means you have grown up with this technology and have never seen a world without it - and you might not even be able to imagine a world without this technology. If you are a digital immigrant like me, that means you have become acclimated to the use of such technology - albeit you might not be as comfortable, fearless, and forthright as the natives (see, e.g., Bauerlein, 2008, 2011b). There are variations in the degrees and types of native and immigrant, due to education level, occupational and economic status, geographic location, aptitude and attitude, and so on.Although there is some available research, it is time for scholars, most of whom are digital immigrants, to explore in depth the effects of this new epoch of digital technology on the behavior and aptitude of our children and young adolescents - the digital natives - in this brave new world of the 21st century. I have been intrigued and flummoxed by the constructs of floating brains and brains in a vat (Davis, 2002) and the multiverse (Hawking & Mlodinow, 2010). Nevertheless, I shudder just a bit when I consider that we now live in a world of multiple realities (Blackmore, 2004), which - for most digital natives and some digital immigrants - entails proceeding back and forth, and sometimes simultaneously, in a world that consists of real and virtual realities (Bauerlein, 2008, 2011b; Heim, 1993).I am not a Luddite. Along with using my computer for word processing, electronic mail, and surfing the Web intelligently and flippantly, I enjoy the service of a cell phone (texting and voice) and, most recently, listening to music on my MP3 player. But the brave new world of today's digital natives seems to be a radical extension of the one envisioned and described by Aldous Huxley in his two best-known books, the 1932 novel Brave New World and an essay first published in 1958, Brave New World Revisited (Huxley, 2005). In these books, Huxley expounded on the vices of living in a world that had become fast paced and was rapidly evolving. Even more interesting, he proffered that our manner of thinking, mores, and habits were shaped pervasively and incessantly by the processes and products of the new technology of his time. Huxley was consumed with the negative effects of overpopulation, forms of population control, and the abundance and availability of recreational drugs and pleasures. In essence, this negative utopia contributes to the adoption of character traits that lean toward materialism, narcissism, and hedonism - particularly, instant gratification. More recently, these same traits were also decried by Postman (1985), who expounded on the decline of rational and reasoned discourse and dialogue prompted by the ubiquity of television, with its intense focus on entertainment, even for nightly news shows. However, Huxley, Postman, and, indeed, many of us, most likely did not imagine the enormous - and purported - mental, behavioral, and physical evolutions that have paralleled the development and use of the new computer technology.I have little doubt that there are benefits (the good), disadvantages (the bad), and serious concerns (the ugly) that have emerged for aficionados during the digital age. There is a summary of the good, bad, and ugly in a recent book on children and adolescents who are - in our professional jargon - typically hearing (e.g., Bauerlein, 2011b). There have also been some articles on related topics such as the merits of using open captions (e.g., Strassman & O'Dell, 2012; see also the review in Paul & Wang, 2012, ch. …

Sceptical Scenarios Are Not Error-Possibilities

On a common view of scenario-based sceptical arguments sceptical scenarios are error-possibilities, i.e. their point is to introduce the possibility of having only false beliefs (about the external world). However, global error is impossible for purely logical/conceptual reasons: Even if one’s beliefs are consistent, the negations of one’s beliefs need not be consistent as well. My paper deals with the question of what the consequences of this result are. Two attempts (made by Muller and Genova) at repairing scenario-based sceptical arguments within the framework of understanding sceptical scenarios as error-possibilities are found wanting. Instead, what should be given up is the assumption that sceptical scenarios are error-possibilities. What is thought-provoking about the scenario of the brain in a vat is not that none of its empirical beliefs are true, but that all of its empirical beliefs fall short of knowledge at the same time. Hence, sceptical scenarios are not error-possibilities, but ignorance possibilities. If this is so, both the closure argument and the underdetermination argument commit a subtle mistake and should be replaced by slightly different arguments. The principle of excluded ignorance-possibilities turns out to be an epistemological principle that is faithful to scepticism’s tenets without misinterpreting sceptical scenarios as error-possibilities.

The Argument from Abomination

The conclusive reasons view of knowledge entails the “abominable conjunction” that I know that I have hands but I do not know that I am not a brain in a vat. The argument from abomination takes this as a reason to reject the view. This paper aims to buttress the argument from abomination by adding a new sort to this list: the logical abominations. These include: “I know that argument is sound and that sound arguments have true conclusions but I don’t know whether the conclusion of that argument is true”. Two standard replies to the argument from abomination are raised. It is argued that the logical abominations open new holes in both.