Brain-in-a-vat argument v. Our universe is a simulation

[DBT]

This kind of freshman bong hit really needs to be quelled. Reality is a baseball bat beating your skull in until you die. That’s not a metaphor. That’s not a “yeah, but what if?”

Bat. Skull. Death.

It doesn’t matter what the universe “is” or how you “perceive it” or how, ew, hard the problem is of consciousness.

Bat. Skull. DEATH.

Never to return.

Fin.

Yes. At which point that particular brain generated experience of the world and self comes to an end.

 

[Speakpigeon]

This kind of freshman bong hit really needs to be quelled. Reality is a baseball bat beating your skull in until you die. That’s not a metaphor. That’s not a “yeah, but what if?”

Bat. Skull. Death.

It doesn’t matter what the universe “is” or how you “perceive it” or how, ew, hard the problem is of consciousness.

Bat. Skull. DEATH.

Never to return.

Fin.

The death of somebody else is just as illusory as the flagrance of flowers in springtime and the show you're watching on television. These things do mean something to us, but they are illusory because the world outside our mind is not our perception of it.

The only reality we know in itself is the perception of X, not X itself, and this should be obvious to all rational people, where rationality is facts + logic.

Hence, the death of John in 1963 was illusory to all of us because both John and 1963 were illusory.

The idea of your own death is just a metaphor. Presumably, not one knows themselves dead, right? We have to infer the possibility, and indeed the certainty, of our own future death from the illusion we have of the death of other people. And we're quite sure about it of course, and we can feel very emotional about the death of somebody else, but the possibility of the religious belief of life after death is proof that we're not quite so absolutely certain after all, and we're not because we don't know death when alive and we're no longer here to experience death once we're dead.

So, yes, it is a metaphor.

People just so love to pretend they know stuff.

They say "DEATH", you see, not "death", as if that could make any difference. "DEATH" is still just a word, and using capital letters won't make death a reality.

But, yeah, I guess you're allowed poetic licence.
EB

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Blah blah blah regurgitation. The wheel was already invented thousands of years ago. This is all very old news, yet you—and many itt—are acting like freshman college kids smoking their first bong hit thinking it’s something newly discovered.

We all know. Hard problem of consciousness. And................?

You aren’t advancing anything or revealing anything. You are simply rehashing what millions of others who came before you have already spent their entire lives fretting over ad nauseam.

So, yeah, ok, welcome to five thousand years ago. And.......? Move the fuck on already and get to a relevant, new, salient point because this is just yesterday’s intellectual garbage you’re dumpster diving through.

What NEW insight are you sharing? What NEW idea do you have?

Those are, of course, rhetorical questions because there is nothing new to share. Hasn’t been for thousands of years when this topic was FIRST contemplated on the steps of the Acropolis.

These threads are all like stumbling upon a first grade classroom where a kid just blurts out, “Hey everyone, look at me. Did you know that 2 + 2 = 4? I just discovered this and now let me tell you all about it from my arcane knowledge of this thing that no one else knows about and I just discovered....”

Yes, we derive knowledge. No, we cannot directly experience anything outside of the skull. Yes, that could mean—and actually does mean—that our reality is illusory and constructed and does not accurately reflect an objective world. No, this does not matter. No, we are not in any way effected by it. No, the word “accurate” is not an absolute nor does it need to be. Yes, a baseball bat—aka the external world—can does and will impact our skulls and kill us all.

These are ALL well known, well trodden, well regurgitated issues that have been far more thoroughly discussed by far more intelligent people for literally thousands of years now with nothing new ever added to the mix and countless blowhards who all think they are the ones to first discover or have some unique understanding or grand new insight and they never do.

Why? Because it’s not that difficult to figure out. A finite observer—with limited processing capacity—cannot directly experience a universe that consists of (or amounts to) infinite information. So it must make models/choices/edits in the amount of information it processes, which in turn necessarily results in the trivial loophole of the hard problem that others can point to and say, as if relevant, “Hey! Because of this we COULD all be hooked up to a machine.”

Yeah. We could. And...............................?

Could isn’t revelatory. Could isn’t salient. Beyond freshman bong hits, could is jack all.

Plus, anyone with half a fucking brain cell already knows this is the case because of dreams. We ARE hoooked up to a machine already; a machine that generates a selective, subjective reality. That is our nature and always has been.

So, again, it’s not anything new or revelatory for you freshman to keep coming along and waking up and saying, “Hey! loook what I just discovered!” You didn’t discover it. You don’t have any new ideas to contribute to it. You’re just endlessly regurgitating the same awakening process that your superiors have already exhaustively deconstructed and reconstructed ten billion times before you.

It all—ALWAYS—comes down to this final, ultimate realization: the constructed self simply must take on faith—based on the preponderance of the evidence—that their senses are relaying and their brains are processing more or less accurate models, on threat of death of the body.

That’s the full and total summation of EVERYTHING you have all been regurgitating. That is the end game that billions of others have played billions of times before any of you were even born.

Faith, based on evidence. That’s it. That’s the big reveal at the end of the hard problem yellow brick road.

Congratulations. You’ve all finally graduated to sophomore status and can move on to more interesting topics other than “We derive all of our knowledge.” No shit, Sherlock. And.......?

 

[Marvin Edwards]

There is a fundamental difference the Brain-in-a-vat argument and the idea that our entire world is a simulation running on a computer.

The Brain-in-a-vat seems within the reach of even human technology. In other words, it is a highly convincing and realistic scenario. A brain in a vat would presumably take the simulated physical world to be the actual world.

The idea of a simulation, that the world itself, including the brain experiencing this world, could be a simulation is much more fantastic and therefore somewhat more difficult to accept as a possibility.

The main sticking point, however, is that we still have no explanation as to how our subjective experience could possibly be a property or consequence of the way our brain works. The idea of a simulation requires that we accept the idea that our subjective experience would be a creation of the simulation and therefore, fundamentally, an illusion.

In the Brain-in-a-vat, the nature, or indeed natures, of both our brain and our subjective experience remain exactly as we believe them to be. With the idea of a simulation, both our subjective experience and the physical world are turned into illusions.

The Brain-in-a-vat, although more realistic and conceivable, is nonetheless more metaphorical in its motivation. It doesn't even try to suggest that you really are a brain in a vat. Rather, it is an argument, a logical argument to explain why we cannot be certain of the reality of our perception of the physical world and, hence, of the reality of the physical world itself as we think of it.

The idea of the simulation is not an argument. It is a metaphysical claim about reality. A such, it is to be seen as connected with the idea that consciousness is a process and, therefore, to the idea that computers can become conscious. All that would be required would be that the software got to a sort of critical threshold of complexity.

The Brain-in-a-vat, on the contrary, suggests a decisive epistemological dualism between our own mind that we know and that we therefore know that it exists (Descartes' "I think, therefore I am") and the material world that we can only believe in, and that therefore we don't know that this material world really exists.

In effect, these two ideas are polar opposite. The Brain-in-a-vat says the physical world may not exist, while the simulation says that our subjective experience may be just an illusion.

To the extent that they are polar opposite, I don't see how anyone could see these two ideas as equally convincing. If you find them equally convincing, it is likely because you haven't understood at least one of them.
EB

I always group brain-in-a-vat with solipsism ("I'm the only thing that exists and the rest is a dream I'm having"), but it makes sense I guess to add "life is a simulation" to the same group. The resolution for all three is that it would make no difference. If you cannot step out of the illusion, then the illusion is for all practical purposes reality.

 

[DBT]

Objective reality has a way of gatechrashing illusions.

 

[skepticalbip]

Brain-in-a-vat argument v. Our universe is a simulation

Either is, at best, an exercise and excuse for those who enjoy mental masturbation.

Last Thursdayism is no different but an idea that, at least, is argued with tongue firmly pressed in into the cheek.

 

[steve_bank]

There is a fundamental difference the Brain-in-a-vat argument and the idea that our entire world is a simulation running on a computer.

The Brain-in-a-vat seems within the reach of even human technology. In other words, it is a highly convincing and realistic scenario. A brain in a vat would presumably take the simulated physical world to be the actual world.

The idea of a simulation, that the world itself, including the brain experiencing this world, could be a simulation is much more fantastic and therefore somewhat more difficult to accept as a possibility.

The main sticking point, however, is that we still have no explanation as to how our subjective experience could possibly be a property or consequence of the way our brain works. The idea of a simulation requires that we accept the idea that our subjective experience would be a creation of the simulation and therefore, fundamentally, an illusion.

In the Brain-in-a-vat, the nature, or indeed natures, of both our brain and our subjective experience remain exactly as we believe them to be. With the idea of a simulation, both our subjective experience and the physical world are turned into illusions.

The Brain-in-a-vat, although more realistic and conceivable, is nonetheless more metaphorical in its motivation. It doesn't even try to suggest that you really are a brain in a vat. Rather, it is an argument, a logical argument to explain why we cannot be certain of the reality of our perception of the physical world and, hence, of the reality of the physical world itself as we think of it.

The idea of the simulation is not an argument. It is a metaphysical claim about reality. A such, it is to be seen as connected with the idea that consciousness is a process and, therefore, to the idea that computers can become conscious. All that would be required would be that the software got to a sort of critical threshold of complexity.

The Brain-in-a-vat, on the contrary, suggests a decisive epistemological dualism between our own mind that we know and that we therefore know that it exists (Descartes' "I think, therefore I am") and the material world that we can only believe in, and that therefore we don't know that this material world really exists.

In effect, these two ideas are polar opposite. The Brain-in-a-vat says the physical world may not exist, while the simulation says that our subjective experience may be just an illusion.

To the extent that they are polar opposite, I don't see how anyone could see these two ideas as equally convincing. If you find them equally convincing, it is likely because you haven't understood at least one of them.
EB

It is a lot simpler and easier to just believe in Jesus andbible god the creator.

I think the Earth is a galactic insane asylum where we are all plugged into a machine.

 

[steve_bank]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donovan's_Brain

Donovan's Brain is a 1942 science fiction novel by American writer Curt Siodmak.[1]

The novel became an instant classic and was adapted to movie form three times. Since then the book has become something of a cult classic, with fans including Stephen King, who discussed the novel in his 1981 book Danse Macabre and mentions it in his novel/miniseries It. Siodmak later wrote a sequel in 1968 titled Hauser's Memory and wrote a final sequel in 1991 titled Gabriel's Body.

Plot
The novel is written in the form of diary entries by Dr. Patrick Cory, a middle-aged physician whose experiments at keeping a brain alive are subsidized by Cory's wealthy wife. Under investigation for tax evasion and criminal financial activities, millionaire megalomaniac W.H. Donovan crashes his private plane in the desert near the home of Dr. Cory. The physician is unable to save Donovan's life, but removes his brain on the chance that it might survive, placing the gray matter in an electrically charged, oxygenated saline solution within a glass tank. The brainwaves indicate that thought — and life — continue. Cory makes several futile attempts to communicate with it. Finally, one night Cory receives unconscious commands, jotting down a list of names in a handwriting not his own — it is Donovan's. Cory successfully attempts telepathic contact with Donovan's brain, much to the concern of Cory's occasional assistant, Dr. Schratt, an elderly alcoholic.

Gradually, the malignant intelligence takes over Cory's personality, leaving him in an amnesiac fugue state when he awakes. The brain uses Cory to do his bidding, signing checks in Donovan's name, and continuing the magnate's illicit financial schemes. Cory becomes increasingly like the paranoid Donovan, his physique and manner morphing into the limping image of the departed criminal. Donovan's bidding culminates in an attempt to have Cory kill a young girl who stands in the way of his plans. Realizing he will soon have no control over his own body and mind, His assistant, Schratt, devises a plan to destroy the brain during its quiescent period. Schratt resists the brain's hypnotic power by repeating the rhyme, "Amidst the mists and coldest frosts he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts." Schratt destroys the housing tank with an axe and leaves the brain of Donovan to die, thus ending his reign of madness. During the encounter, however, the brain, attempting to defend itself, orders Schratt's heart to stop beating. Schratt dies, but bearing a look of fulfillment.