The 'brain in a vat argument.'

[shunyadragon]

I have never liked this argument for many reasons, but mainly because it does not reflect the reality of the science of the relationship between the brain, and the mind and consciousness. The following reference is a beginning and describes the problem well. I sometimes call it the Frankenstein argument.

[Starlight]

I think a more modern spin on the argument would phrase it as "is the world a computer game?" Immersive, virtual reality, computer simulations are getting better and better. It's only a matter of time before people who enter a VR game won't be able to tell the difference between it and the real world apart from their memories. Imagine we could administer them a medicine that made them temporarily forget their past memories when starting the game...
...thus bringing us back to the question of is the world a virtual reality computer game and are we players in it?

Um, I don't even get the point of questioning this premise. Of course it is true. If you are thinking, you exist... that seems blindingly obvious. There's nothing wrong with Descartes' "I think, therefore I am."

[Tassman]

I think a more modern spin on the argument would phrase it as "is the world a computer game?" Immersive, virtual reality, computer simulations are getting better and better. It's only a matter of time before people who enter a VR game won't be able to tell the difference between it and the real world apart from their memories. Imagine we could administer them a medicine that made them temporarily forget their past memories when starting the game...
...thus bringing us back to the question of is the world a virtual reality computer game and are we players in it?

Um, I don't even get the point of questioning this premise. Of course it is true. If you are thinking, you exist... that seems blindingly obvious. There's nothing wrong with Descartes' "I think, therefore I am."

https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...usk-the-matrix

[Starlight]

Well in Star Trek the characters enjoy using the holodeck to experience the 1920s etc. It's quite normal for people to enjoy historical fiction or non-fiction.

[shunyadragon]

I liked this reference as a beginning, because it asks questions that are relevant to the discussion. It is a thought experiment that is hypothetical, and not very 'real' as to the question as to what is the reality of the relationship between the brain and the mind and consciousness.

The problem arises when many theist apologists extrapolate this thought experiment as if it is 'real' to negate the possibility that the mind and consciousness is a natural product of the brain. It is often paired up with the argument that science cannot explain or even ever explain this relationship as a natural physical one. The common objection to 'natural determinism' is also paired with the 'Frankenstein argument to conclude if so we would be robotic animations with no free will.

The Descartes 'I think therefore I am' is also a 'thought experiment' without a necessary conclusion. I 'believe' it is true, but it is not necessarily true, and it is weak argument if one wants to extrapolate it to logically resolve the 'mind body' question. The identity 'I think therefore I am' could very will be simply physical natural reality of what we are as humans.

[Sparko]

Another thing to think about. Are you "you" only because of your memories? If say you woke up one day and could not remember your past life at all, would you still be the same person? We forget things all the time. And our past experiences influence who we are today, but once we ARE that person, can we lose those memories and essentially be the same person? Not talking about Alzheimer's which of course has a lot of other problems than merely memory loss. I am talking about if you were perfectly healthy, and just could not remember any events in your past, but could remember things like language, driving a car, eating, etc. and would be normal going forward. Basically the classic TV idea of "amnesia"

I think you would still the the same YOU that you are today, but just not remember anything. You would not turn into a crazed serial killer, or some other person completely different from yourself. I think basically, you would be the same person, with the same personality.

[shunyadragon]

Another thing to think about. Are you "you" only because of your memories?

Maybe, maybe not, but I have no objective evidence to think this is so.

If say you woke up one day and could not remember your past life at all, would you still be the same person?

Most likely, but with amnesia.

We forget things all the time. And our past experiences influence who we are today, but once we ARE that person, can we lose those memories and essentially be the same person? Not talking about Alzheimer's which of course has a lot of other problems than merely memory loss. I am talking about if you were perfectly healthy, and just could not remember any events in your past, but could remember things like language, driving a car, eating, etc. and would be normal going forward. Basically the classic TV idea of "amnesia"

This is all possible and would not necessarily reflect who we are.

I think you would still [be] the same YOU that you are today, but just not remember anything. You would not turn into a crazed serial killer, or some other person completely different from yourself. I think basically, you would be the same person, with the same personality.

True most of the time, but it has been demonstrated that head injuries and disease has altered personalities.

Source: http://www.brainline.org/landing_pages/categories/behavioralsymptoms.html

Brain Injury Symptoms Behavioral & Emotional Symptoms

© Copyright Original Source

[Sparko]

Maybe, maybe not, but I have no objective evidence to think this is so.



Most likely, but with amnesia.

that is what I think. After all, I don't go around remembering everything in my past at any given moment. It is there if I need it, but most days I don't really think about what I did a year ago or what happened to me as a child, or teenager, etc.






True

most of the time, but it has been demonstrated that head injuries and disease has altered personalities.

Oh definitely. That is why I specifically said completely healthy in every way, just without memory of the past. Classic TV Amnesia or "brain wipe"

I think there is a core "us" that is not just our memories. It stands alone. You can call it your base personality, your soul, whatever, but I think we all have it. It is what makes us "ME" - I think if you could take two very different people and implant identical memories in them, you would still end up with two very different people. They might have the same memories, but they would not act the same way. Their core personality would still show through.

[shunyadragon]

that is what I think. After all, I don't go around remembering everything in my past at any given moment. It is there if I need it, but most days I don't really think about what I did a year ago or what happened to me as a child, or teenager, etc.

OK

True Oh definitely. That is why I specifically said completely healthy in every way, just without memory of the past. Classic TV Amnesia or "brain wipe."

I think there is a core "us" that is not just our memories. It stands alone. You can call it your base personality, your soul, whatever, but I think we all have it. It is what makes us "ME" - I think if you could take two very different people and implant identical memories in them, you would still end up with two very different people. They might have the same memories, but they would not act the same way. Their core personality would still show through.

First, I believe in the soul, but independent of the brain, mind or our consciousness, and yes it is what is ultimately "ME". Our mind and consciousness reflect aspects of the soul, but the soul is not dependent on our brain mind or consciousness for its nature, identity nor character. If my brain, mind and consciousness were altered by physical injury, genetic damage or abnormalities, or disease it would not necessarily show through.

If you were able to implant two identical memories in two different people the brains are not the same, and the individuality of the two different people would remain naturally two different people. I believe the identity of the soul remain the original identity regardless of the implanted memory.

[Tassman]

Well in Star Trek the characters enjoy using the holodeck to experience the 1920s etc. It's quite normal for people to enjoy historical fiction or non-fiction.

[Sparko]

OK



First, I believe in the soul, but independent of the brain, mind or our consciousness, and yes it is what is ultimately "ME". Our mind and consciousness reflect aspects of the soul, but the soul is not dependent on our brain mind or consciousness for its nature, identity nor character. If my brain, mind and consciousness were altered by physical injury, genetic damage or abnormalities, or disease it would not necessarily show through.

If you were able to implant two identical memories in two different people the brains are not the same, and the individuality of the two different people would remain naturally two different people. I believe the identity of the soul remain the original identity regardless of the implanted memory.

sounds like we actually have something we can agree on. Mostly. I think the physical brain does affect us. Disease can alter our personality and change "who we are" to a certain extent.

This is nothing but a wacky theory of mine, but I think that the brain functions as a soul/body interface. It lets our soul interact with the physical world. But as such it also affects things like mood, personality, memory, etc. When we die, our soul or spirit will retain our perfect selves, unaffected by the physical brain, but while we are alive, a damaged brain can hold back important memories, or make it harder for us to think or move, etc. The chemicals in the brain can affect our emotions.

[shunyadragon]

sounds like we actually have something we can agree on. Mostly. I think the physical brain does affect us. Disease can alter our personality and change "who we are" to a certain extent.

This is nothing but a wacky theory of mine, but I think that the brain functions as a soul/body interface. It lets our soul interact with the physical world. But as such it also affects things like mood, personality, memory, etc. When we die, our soul or spirit will retain our perfect selves, unaffected by the physical brain, but while we are alive, a damaged brain can hold back important memories, or make it harder for us to think or move, etc. The chemicals in the brain can affect our emotions.

We are actually very close in agreement on the nature of the soul, and the relationship between the brain, mind and consciousness paradigm.

I do not believe it is a wacky theory.

[grmorton]

We are actually very close in agreement on the nature of the soul, and the relationship between the brain, mind and consciousness paradigm.

I do not believe it is a wacky theory.

Amazingly, I find myself in agreement with both Shunya and Sparko. So now we need to talk about whether or not this is a miracle. lol

I would add something else to our argument that we KNOW reality out there. I ran into an interesting review of 4 books on physics in New Scientist. Even there we only see through a glass darkly so to speak. The sections I quote show how much we really don't know about that reality out there.

"'What fraction of what you know that is important is physics?' Richard A. Muller strikes the unexpected note with this question towards the end of his book Now!
...
But all [discoveries-grm] have served to confirm existing pictures of reality, and the standard cosmological model of a big bang universe rooted in Einstein's theory of gravity, the general theory of relativity.
"Yet the deficiencies of those two theories are obvious. Not only do they contradict each other, they contradict how we feel reality should behave. Can we do better?
"Muller's starting point is time, the most obvious place where our perception or reality and the description given by our physical theories diverge. Relativity robbed reality of a flowing time that neatly separates past from future. It denies the existence of any privileged spot from which we can measure time's passage.
"How can a physical theory predict things so at odds with our experience?
...

Christian von Baeyer bangs the drum for a new 'Quantum Bayesian' interpretation: the uncertainties that apparently haunt the quantum world before it is measured have little to do with reality being uncertain, and everything to do with us being uncertain about reality. In QBism, quantum theory becomes a theory not of the observed but of the observer."
...
"So where does all this leave us? Ultimately physics only describes the part of reality that is susceptible to mathematics-as Muller points out, not least because Kurt Godel's theorems of the 1930s made it clear that nay mathematically based theory will always be incomplete. Efforts such as the push to a quantum theory of gravity may bring us to a more complete understanding but it is likely our vista will remain blurred. No doubt physics is important, but it could be there is much that is important about reality that is not physics."

Gravity requires a smooth continuous space-time; quantum requires a digitized space, and it always feels wrong to me that the Planck mass is so much bigger than masses we can measure, so we know that mass is not quantized at this monstrously large (relatively speaking) so why should space be quantized rather than be analogous to the planck mass?

In my opinion, Quantum shows that the observer has a very special role in our universe. Every single interpretation of it runs smack into the need for an observer, yet the definition of what constitutes an observer is never really defined.

I raise these things because 1. Math is a mental thing and we apply it to the world, and where that math works, we marvel and exclaim that we have understood reality when in fact we only applied a mental model to that which we understand. When it doesn't work we do other problems and leave that area unexplained. 2. When it does work, We then turn around and posit more reality to the matter we have observed, than to the thing that actually did the observing in the first place. This seems to violate priority, at least to me.

[rogue06]

Amazingly, I find myself in agreement with both Shunya and Sparko. So now we need to talk about whether or not this is a miracle. lol

Look over toward the horizon.






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[grmorton]

Look over toward the horizon.






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Love the graphic. Merry Christmas everyone.