@@KaneBsome kind of BIV does exist in medieval philosophy as the non Catholic concept of certain types of invisible angels. And angels are extensions of the concept of God (or the reverse). BIV is a disguised concept of a small GOD before the modern discussions about self contradictions in the traditional theological argument (based on the 3 basic properties of God. Omniscience x omnipotence, omnipresence). BIV is a "restricted God" so to speak.
My undergrad philosophy seminar required of all new majors studied Putnam's work on the subject, his argument against skepticism and the causal theory of reference, and the class (~14 people) was weirdly unified in saying that the argument seemed pretty... Off. A couple different rebuttals came from the class but everybody thought Putnam didn't have a good rebuttal to skepticism from what we read. Great video per usual
To me, this argument has always seemed like "philosophical sleight of hand"... each step seems straightforward, but by the end, I'm left with the strong feeling that somebody has pulled a trick on me. Haha.
@@KaneB every person i've ever presented with his argument has expressed the same sentiment and every time i wonder why. to me the argument sets out to do one thing and one thing only, but for some reason people always expect it to do more. it's not an argument against us being brain in vats, nor is it an argument against skepticism. it's an argument about the meaning of the language we use or more specifically about our reference capability when we use language. the reason why becoming a brain in a vat later works while being born as a brain in a vat doesn't makes sense for the same reason that it makes sense to realize one is dreaming in a lucid dream, but why it doesn't make sense to "realize" one's reality is a dream. there needs to be an experience of reality in order to make claims about illusions/dreams/being taken out of reality meaningful. if my reality is the dream, it's by definition of the term not a dream but my reality and my language will have no way to reference anything beyond it (because i lack the requisite experience of said other reality to make this reference). if i say i'm dreaming based on having experienced reality in contrast, then my claim about dreaming has meaning (since it references the contrast between one state and the other). in the same way, if i say i am now a brain in a vet but wasn't before, there is the contrast between the reality i experienced before and the not-that-same-reality state that i'm in now, hence making it meaningful. the vagueness counterargument can be levelled at every single argument to do with the meaning of concepts in language. at what point does a cloud count as a cloud, or a bunch of sand corns as a heap of sand? sure the boundaries of the terms are fuzzy, as is the emergence of language (at what point can a child be said to have acquired a language and thus be able to make meaningful statements?) or the relation of experience to development (at what point do humans count as having an experience of reality such that they can differentiate between dream-states and reality-states?). but none of this is specific to Putnam's argument, even if that means it's unclear whether a hypothetical baby vs a small child being put in a vat counts as having had enough reference to a reality outside the vat to count as being able to assent to the statement that "I have experienced a reality outside the vat and my language can therefore reference it". of course, given the actual situation we're in, we can't determine the truth value of a statement such as "there's a reality outside of the one i'm in" because we have no way to check whether such a reality actually exists. from our vantage point it's a claim with an indeterminate truth value and expressing it means we are saying the equivalent of "reality is not reality" (which intends to say "my reality is not the same as another, external reality" but which in regards to its actual reference capability amounts to "my reality isn't my reality"). that's all Putnam points out.
@@oOneszaOo Right, it's an argument against a specific form of the BIV hypothesis. But that makes Putnam's conclusion more baffling to me, not less. The fact that per Putnam's own argument, I can conceive that I was envatted yesterday, or that I can conceive that I will be removed from the vat in the future, is precisely part of the reason why his conclusion feels like "sleight of hand". That is, to say that these propositions are totally coherent and conceivable: (B1) I always have been a brain in a vat, and will be removed from the vat in the future. (B2) I was envatted in the past, and will remain in the vat for the rest of my life. But that this proposition is not: (B3) I always have been a brain in a vat, and will remain in the vat for the rest of my life. That is baffling. (My judgment doesn't change if we replace "I" with "we" and "my" with "our" in the above propositions.) I mean, Putnam himself says that it took years to convince himself that this conclusion is right, so it seems he found it a little baffling too. >> but why it doesn't make sense to "realize" one's reality is a dream That doesn't strike me as analogous to the BIV scenario. In that scenario, my experience is a dream-world, and the dream-world is generated by a real world consisting of brains in vats being controlled by supercomputers. That is reality, and that is not a dream. A person might "reality is a dream" to indicate that they believe that our experiences are profoundly misleading, and that there is a real world unlike the world as it appears in experience. They're not really saying that reality is a dream, of course. It's rather that they're using "reality" to mean "what we normally take to be reality" or something along those lines. I do take your point about vagueness, though.
@@KaneB I think you missed the very point Putnam was making, then. you explained the thought experiment with the aliens and the trees yourself: in this example the aliens cannot have the same concept of trees as us, in fact even if they were to use the word, in their minds it could only ever refer to e.g. the picture that they have in their world. they have no experience with organic trees so how could they mean something they have no experience with in any form (again: they have experience with the picture of the tree, which is a !different! experience)? now imagine you deposit an alien like this onto earth and show them our trees. they will then be able, from one day to the next, to have a concept of what we refer to when we say tree. they might also call this a tree or they might call our trees XYZ, but this alien would then be able to reference our trees. just like that. even if the alien stays on earth, it will forever be able to reference the picture it saw on its own planet before it discovered what we call trees and know that the two concepts are different so long as it remembers the experience of the picture. just as it can travel back to alien-world and be forever capable of referencing our trees so long as it doesn't forget the experience. and that's why it's not at all baffling that becoming a brain in a vat from one day to the next means we have an ability to reference reality-before-the-vat in contrast to reality-in-the-vat. the same is true if we reverse the process and get "freed" from the vat. now there's a new experience that can not only be compared to the old but be referenced, if only because the reference context changed (i.e. my experience of trees might otherwise be the same except that now that i'm out of the vat i know that there's a difference between the object i was referencing in-the-vat and the object which i'm referencing outside-the-vat). this is exactly analogous to what happens when we distinguish between dream and reality or reality and illusions. my experience in the dream can only be distinguished from my experience in reality by virtue of contrast, i.e. by my being able to wake up and experience reality in contrast to my dream experience. if i never woke up, i.e. if i didn't have a concept of a reality outside the dream, the dream would be my reality and i would no longer call it a dream (on what grounds, after all?). just as the alien cannot ever form a concept of earth-trees unless it learns somehow that they exist and what they are like (how they are different from whatever aliens imagine when they hear the word tree), i cannot form a concept of what a reality outside of my current would look like (or if it even exists). i can imagine brains in vats because i have experience with them in my reality (from movies or maybe from science), but what i imagine when i talk about brains in vats is just as what aliens imagine when they say "tree" with reference to the picture. i have never experienced being a brain in a vat, i.e. being in a "simulated" reality like that. if i either get freed from the vat-simulation or become a brain in a vat, just as the alien having been to two planets, i can compare the two realities and differentiate them by saying e.g. i'm dreaming when i'm in in-vat reality and i'm awake when i'm in out-vat reality. i can successfully reference both and contrast them to my heart's content. but without such an experience (either because i've never been in or never been out of the vat), when i imagine being a brain in vat i necessarily imagine something i have experience with (my imagination, the matrix movie, philosophy, science, etc), this will not be the same as me waking up one day and finding out that i've been in a vat all my life. because my imagination is a child of this reality (the in-vat reality) and what i would find by awaking would be another reality i had zero access to or concept of before experiencing it (the out-vat reality).
@@oOneszaOo I feel like you're simply outlining Putnam's argument rather than either (a) explaining how I missed the point or (b) giving me reason to feel that it is not baffling to conclude that (B1) and (B2) are conceivable while (B3) is not. (I don't think I'm misunderstanding Putnam's argument. I think I do understand it, and I can see exactly how it leads to the conclusion, but that even so the conclusion is baffling. That is why I say it's like philosophical sleight of hand.) I mean, it's a good outline of Putnam's argument. Just not sure how it connects to your opening sentence there.
So, forgive me if I'm wrong here, but this argument can be summed up with: "If you were a brain in a vat you'd be semantically wrong if you said you were a brain in a vat". But this argument doesn't actually dispute the possibility that you are a brain in a vat. It's just pure semantics.
Following the same logic, you actually can't argue that you are a brain in the vat even if that's the case. What about just necessary neuron network which makes up your consciousness? Why and how you can tell that you are a brain in a vat？
@@raythink Kind of, and not. The argument remember is _against _*_skepticism_* it is not an argument against the possibility you're a brain in vat. A consistent sceptic does not have a valid argument.
Right?! My first inclination is to respond to this argument by saying: Well, clearly it's conceivable that I'm a brain in a vat, so this indicates that something is wrong with semantic externalism.
@@KaneB agreed. If externalism about the meaning and content of thoughts is true and I therefore can't be sure of what I'm thinking about, then I don't care about the meaning and content of my thoughts. I care about the shmeaning and shm-content of my thoughts. The externalist concept of meaning and content simply sounds useless when applied to thoughts.
This just seems silly. It is just saying a brain in a vat can not conceptualize a real-world brain or real-world vat. Of course it could. And if the brain in a vat postlated that they were, in fact a real-world brain in a real-world vat it would be true.
I tend to agree with Nagel. The "I am a brain in a vat" statement may be false from the perspective of the brain in the vat, but if I'm the vat-keeper when I detect that the brain in the vat is thinking "I am a brain in a vat" that statement is true. That is to say, all Putnam has done is shown that if one was actually a brain in a vat, one can only come to the incorrect conclusion about being a brain in a vat.
@@thelordz33 Not really relevant to either side of the argument. If I've already established a basis of skepticism, I don't need to bother establishing any sort of infinite brain-in-a vat regress. The whole point of the thought experiment is to establish that there is no way to know if the reality you're experiencing is actually the "ultimate" reality. But suggesting the reality that I assumed to be ultimate in my thought experiment isn't ultimate reality just ignores the purpose of the experiment.
BIV is one of those few things in the world where the correct understanding is also the completely intuitive one. Putnam's argument is actually baffling I am very surprised that it was that bad
I don't see how from selfrefutation follows that I am not a brain in a vat as what the sentence attempts to reference. It seems that we just cannot consistently formulate a theory that can capture such a reference. Then saying we are obviously not brains in a vat although we cannot know what that means is equally problematic. It seems to me therefore it says: if we are brains in a vat we simply could not know it but we could be brains in a vat although we are not capable to express it consistently
Channelling Descartes, why should I consider there are more brains in vats than my own - rather solipsistic? Then all objects and language are figments.
A theory of reference should not just totally ignore the intentions of the person speaking. Even if we want to include a causal requirement, it would be foolish to disregard what the speaker is trying to express with her words. When someone says, "I might be a brain in a vat," she is clearly not trying to refer to a fake brain in a fake vat in her fake experience. If she were actually a brain in a vat, then that electrical impulse vat is deliberately *not* what she is referring to because she is obviously aware of the possibility that those vats might not be real and she is *trying* to refer to the real vats in the real world that she does not experience but which she can imagine.
this argument is similar to when a small child shoots an imaginary laser at their friend and the friend argues "i activated my anti-laser armour before you did that". which is ignoring the fact that the proposition that one *might* be a brain in a vat is not adequately debunked. to make this argument, you have to envision the brain in a vat scenario and then the most you can conclude if the premises are accepted is that if this scenario were true, you wouldn't be able to truthfully acknowledge reality, and my understanding expands this to mean that you can't know if you're a BIV (based on how referential terms were defined). that doesn't in any way challenge skepticism, besides pushing the problem back one level. this argument was maybe somewhat useful for me as I considered another perspective of accepting unfalsifiable possibilities. I may be a BIV, or a pickle in a jar in a universe where the laws of physics cause pickles in jars to experience consciousness within a purely internalised world, and that's fine since I can't know that yet, but I don't need to give worry or pass to this scenario; the pickle still learns and constructs its own language to its benefit to navigate the world it experiences. I'M A PICKLE HENRYYYYY thank you for your quality explanations as always.
8:40 That only makes sense if the aliens read ALL the random monkey bashes or happen to read the supposedly meaningful piece of output at random. If, on the other hand, someone selects the needle in the proverbial haystack that makes accidental reference to trees, then those aliens are indeed reading about trees in the way that you are describing.
I think the second (Chalmers) anti-skeptic argument is much, much better. It's pretty much the basis of my particular flavour of like, epistemology-in-practice. The problem with Putnam's argument is that when the BIV thinks about being a BIV, it is [1] imagining a universe *external to everything it is experiencing as simulated by the vat-computer*, i.e., a universe outside the image. So when it thinks "I am a brain in a vat" the referent "brain" refers to a brain-out-of-the-image, and the word "vat" is (probably standing in for a heap of unknowns but) refering to a physical vat-out-of-the-image. (P1) IF {I do not know whether or not I am a BIV.} THEN {Skepticism=TRUE} (P2) "I am a BIV" is an abbreviation of a longer statement, S. (S.p1): I am not really here. (S.p2) I am experiencing a simulation. (S.p3) There is a "real world out there", which has enough in common with the simulation (like being subject to cause and effect) that it is at least a good analogy for epistemological purposes that what's happening is that I am a brain hooked up to a computer with electrodes and experiencing a simulation of a world not unlike the world in which the real brain, computer, electrodes, and indeed, a vat to hold me in, exist. (P3) In Vatlish, "Brain" and "Vat" refer to electrical patterns, but in the sentence "I am a BIV, a brain in a vat", the idomatic reference to (S) gives context and we effectively have homophones - "brain" now refers to "physical substrate of conscious experience" and "vat" now refers to "system that is somehow causing a simulated or illusiory reality" (C) "I am a BIV" is always true in Vatlish. My objection to Putnam's response to the more elegant version of this argument (that you did after I'd written a comment because I'm just feeling chatty (lol sorry?) that I'm now editing with addenda galore) is that he's requiring it to be knowledge, rather than merely true, by requiring it be "justified, true, belief" rather than merely a statement capable of returning True. If any of the people having this conversation are in fact brains in vats, this one right now, then when they're saying the words "I am a BIV" they're saying something true, same as if you tease someone (ableistly) by saying "It's time for your medication" meaning psychiatric medication as a (not funny) joke about people you consider 'crazy', not meaning it literally, but actually that someone needs to take a medication and it is indeed time for it - then that statement was true! Not knowledge, but true. ___ I think I can "save" the Causal Constraint, though. The causal connection between them is that when a set of objects in the real world has the property of having seven members, that property is represented mentally as that shape. That's the reason we have to learn it, same as language. "This basket has *three* candles", "We call those animals goats, and those ones are called horses". Maths is an extension of language. Morality would be harder.
Compare two cases: (1) Every "tree" I have ever seen corresponds to stimulation of neurons in a vat, with no further object that could bear the label "tree". (2) Every "tree" I have ever seen corresponds to excitations of quantum fields, with no further object that could bear the label "tree". But given current physical science, (2) seems at least plausible. That doesn't incline me to think trees are illusions. So why should I regard (1) as a case of being under an illusion? The intuition I have about this is that (1) isn't a case of illusion. When I talk about a tree, I'm postulating some kind of object that underlies the appearance of the tree, and by labeling it a "tree" I'm further postulating that this object will be similar (in some way) to other objects that underlie other tree-appearances. But the rub is that I never thereby commit myself to some particular account of *what* those objects are like above and beyond their disposition to cause tree-appearances. "Tree" literally means "that which under normal circumstances causes tree-appearances".
To the restless youngs @Kane B some kind of BIV does exist in medieval philosophy as the non Catholic concept of certain types of invisible angels. And angels are extensions of the concept of God (or the reverse). BIV is a disguised concept of a small GOD before the modern discussions about self contradictions in the traditional theological argument (based on the 3 basic properties of God. Omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence). BIV is a "restricted God" so to speak.
great video! Especially 37:54 Previous post; Isn't the opposite the case too? Isn't there something wierd going on when we use elements from one worldview such as "brains" "wats" and being "in" something, inorder to support a worldview which has no equivalent concepts, but mere "seemings" of such things. So you can't really be a brain in a vat, anyways, because those concepts are taken from the illusery world within the brain in a vat. Your either using the metaphor of "BIV" as the equivlent of the "electromagnetic impulses" but these too (Electromagnetic impulses) are metaphors taken from the world within a BIV. You could just be a disembodied "mind" where mind is equal to the qualia of experience itself. Because that would (one would assume) be the case within the sceptical scenario aswell. Hope this makes sense. 29:09 Its close to this objection, but its not that i just disagree with the statement that brains in vats can know they are brains in vat (i don't know how they could? By what sensory input does a brain know itsa brain- in the past people had diffrent views on locations of mental propperties, the existance of brains ect., by analogy, how does the brain know its a brain in vat world?) Making up theories about brains in vats (rather then it all being a quasi-dream) Seems unecessary. And one needs to entangle the whole purpose of inventing ideas about metaphysical worlds, by takeing ideas from this world, and applying them to a metaphysical one, only to dismiss this world. Akin to all metaphysics and religions, where the use of the 'illusery' world is used to justify a hinterwelt (beyondworld) and dismiss this one as nietzsche would say.
No. I don't share the intuition that when Earthlings say "water", this refers to H2O, while when Twin-Earthlings say "water", this refers to XYZ. I'm instead inclined to think that: (a) Prior to the discovery of H2O, "water" usually referred to a particular cluster of manifest properties (the clear liquid that fills lakes and rivers, quenches thirst, falls from the sky, etc.). From this point of view, XYZ just is water. Nothing stops a person using the term "water" to refer to whatever the underlying properties are, of course, and perhaps people did use the term that way. But prior to the discovery of H2O, this simply amounted to a commitment to apply the term "water" only to those properties, once they are discovered. Twin-Earthlings could have made the same commitment. (b) After the discovery of H2O, "water" is sometimes used to refer to H2O, though this is mostly in more technical contexts. Similarly, after Twin-Earthlings discover XYZ, their word "water" will sometimes refer to XYZ. But in these cases, there are significances differences in explicit theoretical commitments of Earthlings and Twin-Earthlings: we think about H2O, they think about XYZ. So this does nothing to support externalism. I'm just reporting my intuitions here, not a theory of meaning. But I do have pretty strong internalist intuitions, and the Twin Earth argument doesn't do anything to dislodge them.
@@KaneB Thank you! My knowledge of epistemology is severely lacking and twin earth was an argument I didn't know how to make sense of an objection to. Very helpful!!!! :D
Interestingly, there have been real cases that are somewhat similar to the Twin Earth case. For example, it was discovered in the 1800s that what was called "jade" could actually be one of two different minerals: jadeite or nephrite. What happened in this case is that we decided that we "discovered" two types of jade. (Perhaps when Earthlings visit Twin Earth, they will be similarly liberal, and decide that H2O and XYZ are just two types of water.) But we didn't have to make that decision. We could have decided that only jadeite was really jade, or that only nephrite was really jade. I don't think there's any fact of the matter here. If scientists in the 1800s, who were working with jadeite, had stipulated that "jade" refers to the underlying structure of the mineral they were working with, then I suppose we would say today that they "discovered" that jade is jadeite, and that lots of things we thought were jade turned out to be something else. Suppose that this happened. Prior to that discovery, did "jade" refer to jadeite? Not in my view. "Jade" referred to a collection of manifest properties, and the rules for its use also included a commitment to use the term in a particular way after investigating its underlying structure. There's nothing here to threaten an internalist about meaning.
I have up on TwinEarth art when I could never get a good distinction between water and 'water'. But I think mathematics will completely translate ( rather than transliterate) between Twin Earths regardless of symbol of term
14:25 "There is no connection between 'tree', as said by a BIV, and trees." This doesn't seem true. If I were to design a simulation and plug a brain into it for its whole life, presumably it won't be a coincidence that leads to a resemblance between their experience of trees and my own. Real trees cause my experience of trees which causes my design of the simulation which causes the tree-like appearances for brains-in-the-vat. If we imagine a world where a brain in a vat randomly coalesces, then I'd agree that their Vatlish word for "brain" or "tree" isn't causally produced by it's reference, but that's not what people usually assume about brains-in-vats. This seems more like an argument that we can't be skeptical about whether I am a randomly occurring brain-in-a-vat. This is like if I drew a picture of a tree and dropped it on the alien planet (Or when we show a child a picture of a tree for the first time when they haven't seen the actual thing). It's different from the instance where a picture resembling a tree is formed by coincidence.
Here's a continuation of your thought experiment: Imagine an alien species living somewhere outside of our Hubble volume, such that our star systems never ever interacted with each other (we came from the same Big Bang, but got separated long before there even _was such a thing as_ star systems). They presumably have a word for "planet", but it's causally connected to _not the same things_ as our word "planet". They have never causally interacted with the same planets as those that we see in the sky. Even so, if I'm somehow magically teleported to them, and have some time to learn their language, then we would be able to intelligibly talk about planets, we would have a common concept of them. This on its face seems to break the causal theory of meaning. The reason me and that alien have a common concept of a planet is that _their_ planets are sort of similar to _our_ planets. By analogy, I think the "brains-in-the-simulation" are similar, or isomorphic, to "brains-in-reality". Hence, the Vatlish word and the English word "brain" actually _do_ refer to the same concept. Perhaps, the root of that isomorphism between their "brains" and our "brains" is the fact that they have a concepts of a "lawful universe", and so do we, because both our world and their simulation are lawful. Therefore, they can intelligibly think that if a brain is possible in _their_ lawful universe, it might be possible in others.
In the putnam argument about BIV as you presented it, you are using the principle of excluded middle to say that I'm not a BIV. But that's not a principle that all agree with(some mathematicians don't admit it). So the real conclusion is that a consitant skeptic should also be skeptic about this principle that seem so 'obvious' and natural to many and that if you are a BIV you could never prove it.
I might no be able to state my point very clear with English, but I'm thinking if BIV rephase its statement of "BIV" into "the mechanism/carrier of thinking in a space separated from the 'actual world'", would it then be possible?
Really good video! I don't know if the second half encompassed the following criticism of the reasoning at 20:54 Here you read the argument stating: "It does not appear as though I am a brain in a vat" but that need not be the case. If a BIV was actually simulated in the supercomputer program to be in an additional BIV experiencing trees and brains and vats (in the image), then it's referring to the same things. When a level 1 BIV says "there is a tree in front of me", we can agree that it's referring to a tree (in the image). But if it's a level 2 BIV and made the same statement, is it not again referring to the same objects (in their image)? To elaborate: if we are all BIVs, then when we use words like "trees" or "vats", then we are referring (perhaps) to specific electrical configurations of the supercomputer our experiences are being simulated in. Now let's make the claim "I am a BIV", then we could be meaning that we are a simulated brain in a simulated vat which is simulating the trees, for example. There's no reason why the level 2 simulated trees our level 2 simulated brains experience aren't equivalent to a level 1 simulated tree. I don't know if I'm making my argument clear. Tl;dr: BIVs could be level 2 BIVs in a level 1 simulation, in which case, the claim: "I am a BIV" isn't necessarily false.
@Kane B some kind of BIV does exist in medieval philosophy as the non Catholic concept of certain types of invisible angels. And angels are extensions of the concept of God (or the reverse). BIV is a disguised concept of a small GOD before the modern discussions about self contradictions in the traditional theological argument (based on the 3 basic properties of God. Omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence). BIV is a "restricted God" so to speak.
On the arguments against externalism, could one just do the following two things? 1. Make a weaker externalism wherein words have causal connection to either syntactic combinations of other words or to phenomenon such that words always ended up well founded in phenomena. For example, though "unicorn" is non-referring, "horse," "horn," and "head" all refer to stuff and one could have "unicorn" mean "horse with a horn on its head," and indeed one could then have words which use "unicorn" as its grounding and so on, as long as this chain of references comes back to phenomena eventually. 2. Bite the bullet and ask why numbers and morals need to be acausal?
I say this because it seems that given the first, with its requirement of well-founded relations, the logic still holds about a brain in a vat speaking vatlish in that all the foundations are different and the argument still holds.
Like look… like if you were like the only real person, like how would you like explain like how it is that I’m actually the only person, cause like clearly you are like the fake one and I’m like… well.. like… real.. like I’m real see… and you are like totally fake, now like, mmmm yep like Michele has the best hair style and that’s like real, she uses like the best conditioners and products and she like tames that hair girl, really like, I’ve touched her hair and like… real… super real, you on the other hand are like… fake.. so like, chill out
Man you have it good, I am just the hallucination of a random pigeon. Man it really sucks to life in a universe in which pigeons are the most fundamental layer of existence.
@@unknownknownsphilosophy7888 Nuh huh seems like im super real and you're not buddy ! im like I’m actually the only person, cause like clearly you are like the fake one and I’m like… well.. like… real.. like I’m real see… and you are like totally fake ^^
Hi Kane B. What are your thoughts on Humean supervenience (neo-Humean mosaic) and metaphysical atomism? Do you think it’s an accurate model in contrast to metaphysical holism?
The argument being a refuting is inescapable . What does a brain in a vat means, does it mean a Brain in a vat, like same physiology as our brain or does it mean something that work like a brain. Think of when you say that the human body is a machine, what is the reference for the machine, like it works like a machine, meaning it has the characteristics of a machine. You define a machine as the physical thing or the concept. either way, the concept of the machine is based on the physical properties of the machine.
A "head" is a "vat". Question: What is a "vat"? Answer: Some kind of container filled with fluid Question: What kind of fluid must a vat contain such that it supports a living brain? Answer: Blood Question: What is a "head"? Answer: A kind of container filled with fluid, specifically blood, such that it supports a living brain. Conclusion: A head is a vat. And I am a brain in a vat.
@@KaneB I suppose. But the thesis "a head is a vat" gets around Putnam's language problem because the statement is true in both worlds using the same criteria. No? I am genuinely asking because I have always had trouble understanding the force of Putnam's argument. Even after your well laid out video.
@@JamesAndrewMacGlashanTaylor Well, when we say "vat", in the context of the brain-in-a-vat hypothesis, what we mean is an object made of metal and glass etc. When the BIVs say "vat", what they mean is a pattern of impulses that create metal-like and glass-like appearances. In this sense of the term, our heads are not vats, so "I am a brain in a vat" is false.
@@KaneB I see. So, it seems to come down to whether one prioritizes the specificity (the vanity of small differences?) of one definition of "brain in a vat" or whether one prioritizes the generality expressed in the other definition. Is there a non-arbitrary way to decide the matter? The one definition is true in only one special case. The other definition is true in every case.
Imagine if you were born blind! Trees, vats, images? Colors? Imagine if you were the only person who could "see"! How would a person who was born deaf and blind. How would the " know" that they are not a brain in vat? 😇🤔😎😉
Seeing this channel evolve even after 10 years is amazing and well done dude
Thanks dawg! Glad you still enjoy the videos
@@KaneBSame here I listen to your videos on long walks home
It is the best channel on TH-cam and it is not even close, more people should donate to the goat
In Turkey, 10s of thousands of people are under the rubble because of the earthquake, thousands of people have died. Help, please share.
@@KaneBsome kind of BIV does exist in medieval philosophy as the non Catholic concept of certain types of invisible angels. And angels are extensions of the concept of God (or the reverse). BIV is a disguised concept of a small GOD before the modern discussions about self contradictions in the traditional theological argument (based on the 3 basic properties of God. Omniscience x omnipotence, omnipresence). BIV is a "restricted God" so to speak.
My undergrad philosophy seminar required of all new majors studied Putnam's work on the subject, his argument against skepticism and the causal theory of reference, and the class (~14 people) was weirdly unified in saying that the argument seemed pretty... Off. A couple different rebuttals came from the class but everybody thought Putnam didn't have a good rebuttal to skepticism from what we read. Great video per usual
To me, this argument has always seemed like "philosophical sleight of hand"... each step seems straightforward, but by the end, I'm left with the strong feeling that somebody has pulled a trick on me. Haha.
@@KaneB every person i've ever presented with his argument has expressed the same sentiment and every time i wonder why. to me the argument sets out to do one thing and one thing only, but for some reason people always expect it to do more. it's not an argument against us being brain in vats, nor is it an argument against skepticism. it's an argument about the meaning of the language we use or more specifically about our reference capability when we use language.
the reason why becoming a brain in a vat later works while being born as a brain in a vat doesn't makes sense for the same reason that it makes sense to realize one is dreaming in a lucid dream, but why it doesn't make sense to "realize" one's reality is a dream. there needs to be an experience of reality in order to make claims about illusions/dreams/being taken out of reality meaningful. if my reality is the dream, it's by definition of the term not a dream but my reality and my language will have no way to reference anything beyond it (because i lack the requisite experience of said other reality to make this reference). if i say i'm dreaming based on having experienced reality in contrast, then my claim about dreaming has meaning (since it references the contrast between one state and the other). in the same way, if i say i am now a brain in a vet but wasn't before, there is the contrast between the reality i experienced before and the not-that-same-reality state that i'm in now, hence making it meaningful. the vagueness counterargument can be levelled at every single argument to do with the meaning of concepts in language. at what point does a cloud count as a cloud, or a bunch of sand corns as a heap of sand? sure the boundaries of the terms are fuzzy, as is the emergence of language (at what point can a child be said to have acquired a language and thus be able to make meaningful statements?) or the relation of experience to development (at what point do humans count as having an experience of reality such that they can differentiate between dream-states and reality-states?). but none of this is specific to Putnam's argument, even if that means it's unclear whether a hypothetical baby vs a small child being put in a vat counts as having had enough reference to a reality outside the vat to count as being able to assent to the statement that "I have experienced a reality outside the vat and my language can therefore reference it". of course, given the actual situation we're in, we can't determine the truth value of a statement such as "there's a reality outside of the one i'm in" because we have no way to check whether such a reality actually exists. from our vantage point it's a claim with an indeterminate truth value and expressing it means we are saying the equivalent of "reality is not reality" (which intends to say "my reality is not the same as another, external reality" but which in regards to its actual reference capability amounts to "my reality isn't my reality"). that's all Putnam points out.
@@oOneszaOo Right, it's an argument against a specific form of the BIV hypothesis. But that makes Putnam's conclusion more baffling to me, not less. The fact that per Putnam's own argument, I can conceive that I was envatted yesterday, or that I can conceive that I will be removed from the vat in the future, is precisely part of the reason why his conclusion feels like "sleight of hand". That is, to say that these propositions are totally coherent and conceivable:
(B1) I always have been a brain in a vat, and will be removed from the vat in the future.
(B2) I was envatted in the past, and will remain in the vat for the rest of my life.
But that this proposition is not:
(B3) I always have been a brain in a vat, and will remain in the vat for the rest of my life.
That is baffling. (My judgment doesn't change if we replace "I" with "we" and "my" with "our" in the above propositions.) I mean, Putnam himself says that it took years to convince himself that this conclusion is right, so it seems he found it a little baffling too.
>> but why it doesn't make sense to "realize" one's reality is a dream
That doesn't strike me as analogous to the BIV scenario. In that scenario, my experience is a dream-world, and the dream-world is generated by a real world consisting of brains in vats being controlled by supercomputers. That is reality, and that is not a dream. A person might "reality is a dream" to indicate that they believe that our experiences are profoundly misleading, and that there is a real world unlike the world as it appears in experience. They're not really saying that reality is a dream, of course. It's rather that they're using "reality" to mean "what we normally take to be reality" or something along those lines.
I do take your point about vagueness, though.
@@KaneB I think you missed the very point Putnam was making, then. you explained the thought experiment with the aliens and the trees yourself: in this example the aliens cannot have the same concept of trees as us, in fact even if they were to use the word, in their minds it could only ever refer to e.g. the picture that they have in their world. they have no experience with organic trees so how could they mean something they have no experience with in any form (again: they have experience with the picture of the tree, which is a !different! experience)? now imagine you deposit an alien like this onto earth and show them our trees. they will then be able, from one day to the next, to have a concept of what we refer to when we say tree. they might also call this a tree or they might call our trees XYZ, but this alien would then be able to reference our trees. just like that. even if the alien stays on earth, it will forever be able to reference the picture it saw on its own planet before it discovered what we call trees and know that the two concepts are different so long as it remembers the experience of the picture. just as it can travel back to alien-world and be forever capable of referencing our trees so long as it doesn't forget the experience. and that's why it's not at all baffling that becoming a brain in a vat from one day to the next means we have an ability to reference reality-before-the-vat in contrast to reality-in-the-vat. the same is true if we reverse the process and get "freed" from the vat. now there's a new experience that can not only be compared to the old but be referenced, if only because the reference context changed (i.e. my experience of trees might otherwise be the same except that now that i'm out of the vat i know that there's a difference between the object i was referencing in-the-vat and the object which i'm referencing outside-the-vat). this is exactly analogous to what happens when we distinguish between dream and reality or reality and illusions. my experience in the dream can only be distinguished from my experience in reality by virtue of contrast, i.e. by my being able to wake up and experience reality in contrast to my dream experience. if i never woke up, i.e. if i didn't have a concept of a reality outside the dream, the dream would be my reality and i would no longer call it a dream (on what grounds, after all?). just as the alien cannot ever form a concept of earth-trees unless it learns somehow that they exist and what they are like (how they are different from whatever aliens imagine when they hear the word tree), i cannot form a concept of what a reality outside of my current would look like (or if it even exists). i can imagine brains in vats because i have experience with them in my reality (from movies or maybe from science), but what i imagine when i talk about brains in vats is just as what aliens imagine when they say "tree" with reference to the picture. i have never experienced being a brain in a vat, i.e. being in a "simulated" reality like that. if i either get freed from the vat-simulation or become a brain in a vat, just as the alien having been to two planets, i can compare the two realities and differentiate them by saying e.g. i'm dreaming when i'm in in-vat reality and i'm awake when i'm in out-vat reality. i can successfully reference both and contrast them to my heart's content. but without such an experience (either because i've never been in or never been out of the vat), when i imagine being a brain in vat i necessarily imagine something i have experience with (my imagination, the matrix movie, philosophy, science, etc), this will not be the same as me waking up one day and finding out that i've been in a vat all my life. because my imagination is a child of this reality (the in-vat reality) and what i would find by awaking would be another reality i had zero access to or concept of before experiencing it (the out-vat reality).
@@oOneszaOo I feel like you're simply outlining Putnam's argument rather than either (a) explaining how I missed the point or (b) giving me reason to feel that it is not baffling to conclude that (B1) and (B2) are conceivable while (B3) is not. (I don't think I'm misunderstanding Putnam's argument. I think I do understand it, and I can see exactly how it leads to the conclusion, but that even so the conclusion is baffling. That is why I say it's like philosophical sleight of hand.)
I mean, it's a good outline of Putnam's argument. Just not sure how it connects to your opening sentence there.
The best TH-cam channel about philosophy, hands down. Makes me think a lot.
Love u Kane ❤️
Thanks dawg!
So, forgive me if I'm wrong here, but this argument can be summed up with: "If you were a brain in a vat you'd be semantically wrong if you said you were a brain in a vat".
But this argument doesn't actually dispute the possibility that you are a brain in a vat. It's just pure semantics.
Following the same logic, you actually can't argue that you are a brain in the vat even if that's the case. What about just necessary neuron network which makes up your consciousness? Why and how you can tell that you are a brain in a vat？
@@raythink Kind of, and not. The argument remember is _against _*_skepticism_* it is not an argument against the possibility you're a brain in vat. A consistent sceptic does not have a valid argument.
what a coincedence! i just started reading his book yesterday and i was bit lost. thank you for the lucid explanation
Glad to hear it was helpful!
Putnam is probably the only philosopher who's every single statement is profoundly stupid.
Great video. The fact that externalism about content and meaning entails this sounds like a reductio of the view for me.
Right?! My first inclination is to respond to this argument by saying: Well, clearly it's conceivable that I'm a brain in a vat, so this indicates that something is wrong with semantic externalism.
@@KaneB agreed. If externalism about the meaning and content of thoughts is true and I therefore can't be sure of what I'm thinking about, then I don't care about the meaning and content of my thoughts. I care about the shmeaning and shm-content of my thoughts. The externalist concept of meaning and content simply sounds useless when applied to thoughts.
This just seems silly. It is just saying a brain in a vat can not conceptualize a real-world brain or real-world vat. Of course it could. And if the brain in a vat postlated that they were, in fact a real-world brain in a real-world vat it would be true.
I tend to agree with Nagel. The "I am a brain in a vat" statement may be false from the perspective of the brain in the vat, but if I'm the vat-keeper when I detect that the brain in the vat is thinking "I am a brain in a vat" that statement is true. That is to say, all Putnam has done is shown that if one was actually a brain in a vat, one can only come to the incorrect conclusion about being a brain in a vat.
Except how could you know that you yourself aren't a brain in a vat that has been programmed to think that you're keeping an eye on brains in vats?
@@thelordz33 Not really relevant to either side of the argument. If I've already established a basis of skepticism, I don't need to bother establishing any sort of infinite brain-in-a vat regress.
The whole point of the thought experiment is to establish that there is no way to know if the reality you're experiencing is actually the "ultimate" reality. But suggesting the reality that I assumed to be ultimate in my thought experiment isn't ultimate reality just ignores the purpose of the experiment.
Your latest videos are the best
BIV is one of those few things in the world where the correct understanding is also the completely intuitive one. Putnam's argument is actually baffling I am very surprised that it was that bad
I don't see how from selfrefutation follows that I am not a brain in a vat as what the sentence attempts to reference. It seems that we just cannot consistently formulate a theory that can capture such a reference. Then saying we are obviously not brains in a vat although we cannot know what that means is equally problematic. It seems to me therefore it says: if we are brains in a vat we simply could not know it but we could be brains in a vat although we are not capable to express it consistently
I love your channel. Period!
Channelling Descartes, why should I consider there are more brains in vats than my own - rather solipsistic? Then all objects and language are figments.
This channel is amazing, most of the channels like this never ever covered Hindu philosophy of upanishads , can you do that
A theory of reference should not just totally ignore the intentions of the person speaking. Even if we want to include a causal requirement, it would be foolish to disregard what the speaker is trying to express with her words. When someone says, "I might be a brain in a vat," she is clearly not trying to refer to a fake brain in a fake vat in her fake experience. If she were actually a brain in a vat, then that electrical impulse vat is deliberately *not* what she is referring to because she is obviously aware of the possibility that those vats might not be real and she is *trying* to refer to the real vats in the real world that she does not experience but which she can imagine.
Came here to comment this. A semantic rebuttal to a conceptual argument seems weak at best
this argument is similar to when a small child shoots an imaginary laser at their friend and the friend argues "i activated my anti-laser armour before you did that". which is ignoring the fact that the proposition that one *might* be a brain in a vat is not adequately debunked. to make this argument, you have to envision the brain in a vat scenario and then the most you can conclude if the premises are accepted is that if this scenario were true, you wouldn't be able to truthfully acknowledge reality, and my understanding expands this to mean that you can't know if you're a BIV (based on how referential terms were defined). that doesn't in any way challenge skepticism, besides pushing the problem back one level.
this argument was maybe somewhat useful for me as I considered another perspective of accepting unfalsifiable possibilities. I may be a BIV, or a pickle in a jar in a universe where the laws of physics cause pickles in jars to experience consciousness within a purely internalised world, and that's fine since I can't know that yet, but I don't need to give worry or pass to this scenario; the pickle still learns and constructs its own language to its benefit to navigate the world it experiences. I'M A PICKLE HENRYYYYY
thank you for your quality explanations as always.
ah the philosophers name is hilary, not henry but I cannot edit on mobile. hopefully this clunky reply will givr you some more exposure at least
8:40 That only makes sense if the aliens read ALL the random monkey bashes or happen to read the supposedly meaningful piece of output at random. If, on the other hand, someone selects the needle in the proverbial haystack that makes accidental reference to trees, then those aliens are indeed reading about trees in the way that you are describing.
I think the second (Chalmers) anti-skeptic argument is much, much better. It's pretty much the basis of my particular flavour of like, epistemology-in-practice.
The problem with Putnam's argument is that when the BIV thinks about being a BIV, it is [1] imagining a universe *external to everything it is experiencing as simulated by the vat-computer*, i.e., a universe outside the image. So when it thinks "I am a brain in a vat" the referent "brain" refers to a brain-out-of-the-image, and the word "vat" is (probably standing in for a heap of unknowns but) refering to a physical vat-out-of-the-image.
(P1) IF {I do not know whether or not I am a BIV.} THEN {Skepticism=TRUE}
(P2) "I am a BIV" is an abbreviation of a longer statement, S.
(S.p1): I am not really here. (S.p2) I am experiencing a simulation. (S.p3) There is a "real world out there", which has enough in common with the simulation (like being subject to cause and effect) that it is at least a good analogy for epistemological purposes that what's happening is that I am a brain hooked up to a computer with electrodes and experiencing a simulation of a world not unlike the world in which the real brain, computer, electrodes, and indeed, a vat to hold me in, exist.
(P3) In Vatlish, "Brain" and "Vat" refer to electrical patterns, but in the sentence "I am a BIV, a brain in a vat", the idomatic reference to (S) gives context and we effectively have homophones - "brain" now refers to "physical substrate of conscious experience" and "vat" now refers to "system that is somehow causing a simulated or illusiory reality"
(C) "I am a BIV" is always true in Vatlish.
My objection to Putnam's response to the more elegant version of this argument (that you did after I'd written a comment because I'm just feeling chatty (lol sorry?) that I'm now editing with addenda galore) is that he's requiring it to be knowledge, rather than merely true, by requiring it be "justified, true, belief" rather than merely a statement capable of returning True. If any of the people having this conversation are in fact brains in vats, this one right now, then when they're saying the words "I am a BIV" they're saying something true, same as if you tease someone (ableistly) by saying "It's time for your medication" meaning psychiatric medication as a (not funny) joke about people you consider 'crazy', not meaning it literally, but actually that someone needs to take a medication and it is indeed time for it - then that statement was true! Not knowledge, but true.
___
I think I can "save" the Causal Constraint, though. The causal connection between them is that when a set of objects in the real world has the property of having seven members, that property is represented mentally as that shape. That's the reason we have to learn it, same as language. "This basket has *three* candles", "We call those animals goats, and those ones are called horses". Maths is an extension of language. Morality would be harder.
Compare two cases:
(1) Every "tree" I have ever seen corresponds to stimulation of neurons in a vat, with no further object that could bear the label "tree".
(2) Every "tree" I have ever seen corresponds to excitations of quantum fields, with no further object that could bear the label "tree".
But given current physical science, (2) seems at least plausible. That doesn't incline me to think trees are illusions. So why should I regard (1) as a case of being under an illusion? The intuition I have about this is that (1) isn't a case of illusion. When I talk about a tree, I'm postulating some kind of object that underlies the appearance of the tree, and by labeling it a "tree" I'm further postulating that this object will be similar (in some way) to other objects that underlie other tree-appearances. But the rub is that I never thereby commit myself to some particular account of *what* those objects are like above and beyond their disposition to cause tree-appearances. "Tree" literally means "that which under normal circumstances causes tree-appearances".
To the restless youngs
@Kane B some kind of BIV does exist in medieval philosophy as the non Catholic concept of certain types of invisible angels. And angels are extensions of the concept of God (or the reverse). BIV is a disguised concept of a small GOD before the modern discussions about self contradictions in the traditional theological argument (based on the 3 basic properties of God. Omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence). BIV is a "restricted God" so to speak.
great video!
Especially 37:54
Previous post;
Isn't the opposite the case too? Isn't there something wierd going on when we use elements from one worldview such as "brains" "wats" and being "in" something, inorder to support a worldview which has no equivalent concepts, but mere "seemings" of such things.
So you can't really be a brain in a vat, anyways, because those concepts are taken from the illusery world within the brain in a vat. Your either using the metaphor of "BIV" as the equivlent of the "electromagnetic impulses" but these too (Electromagnetic impulses) are metaphors taken from the world within a BIV. You could just be a disembodied "mind" where mind is equal to the qualia of experience itself. Because that would (one would assume) be the case within the sceptical scenario aswell.
Hope this makes sense.
29:09 Its close to this objection, but its not that i just disagree with the statement that brains in vats can know they are brains in vat (i don't know how they could? By what sensory input does a brain know itsa brain- in the past people had diffrent views on locations of mental propperties, the existance of brains ect., by analogy, how does the brain know its a brain in vat world?) Making up theories about brains in vats (rather then it all being a quasi-dream) Seems unecessary. And one needs to entangle the whole purpose of inventing ideas about metaphysical worlds, by takeing ideas from this world, and applying them to a metaphysical one, only to dismiss this world.
Akin to all metaphysics and religions, where the use of the 'illusery' world is used to justify a hinterwelt (beyondworld) and dismiss this one as nietzsche would say.
Did you delete your video on radical skepticism?
It was a great introduction
Nice work!
I am a brain in a vat. The vat is my skull. The electrodes feeding me experiences are my sensory neurons. I know I have hands.
Excellent thanks!
Hoy Kane, do u think externalist twin earth arg is convincing?
No. I don't share the intuition that when Earthlings say "water", this refers to H2O, while when Twin-Earthlings say "water", this refers to XYZ. I'm instead inclined to think that:
(a) Prior to the discovery of H2O, "water" usually referred to a particular cluster of manifest properties (the clear liquid that fills lakes and rivers, quenches thirst, falls from the sky, etc.). From this point of view, XYZ just is water. Nothing stops a person using the term "water" to refer to whatever the underlying properties are, of course, and perhaps people did use the term that way. But prior to the discovery of H2O, this simply amounted to a commitment to apply the term "water" only to those properties, once they are discovered. Twin-Earthlings could have made the same commitment.
(b) After the discovery of H2O, "water" is sometimes used to refer to H2O, though this is mostly in more technical contexts. Similarly, after Twin-Earthlings discover XYZ, their word "water" will sometimes refer to XYZ. But in these cases, there are significances differences in explicit theoretical commitments of Earthlings and Twin-Earthlings: we think about H2O, they think about XYZ. So this does nothing to support externalism.
I'm just reporting my intuitions here, not a theory of meaning. But I do have pretty strong internalist intuitions, and the Twin Earth argument doesn't do anything to dislodge them.
@@KaneB Thank you! My knowledge of epistemology is severely lacking and twin earth was an argument I didn't know how to make sense of an objection to. Very helpful!!!! :D
Interestingly, there have been real cases that are somewhat similar to the Twin Earth case. For example, it was discovered in the 1800s that what was called "jade" could actually be one of two different minerals: jadeite or nephrite. What happened in this case is that we decided that we "discovered" two types of jade. (Perhaps when Earthlings visit Twin Earth, they will be similarly liberal, and decide that H2O and XYZ are just two types of water.) But we didn't have to make that decision. We could have decided that only jadeite was really jade, or that only nephrite was really jade. I don't think there's any fact of the matter here. If scientists in the 1800s, who were working with jadeite, had stipulated that "jade" refers to the underlying structure of the mineral they were working with, then I suppose we would say today that they "discovered" that jade is jadeite, and that lots of things we thought were jade turned out to be something else. Suppose that this happened. Prior to that discovery, did "jade" refer to jadeite? Not in my view. "Jade" referred to a collection of manifest properties, and the rules for its use also included a commitment to use the term in a particular way after investigating its underlying structure. There's nothing here to threaten an internalist about meaning.
I have up on TwinEarth art when I could never get a good distinction between water and 'water'. But I think mathematics will completely translate ( rather than transliterate) between Twin Earths regardless of symbol of term
14:25 "There is no connection between 'tree', as said by a BIV, and trees."
This doesn't seem true. If I were to design a simulation and plug a brain into it for its whole life, presumably it won't be a coincidence that leads to a resemblance between their experience of trees and my own. Real trees cause my experience of trees which causes my design of the simulation which causes the tree-like appearances for brains-in-the-vat. If we imagine a world where a brain in a vat randomly coalesces, then I'd agree that their Vatlish word for "brain" or "tree" isn't causally produced by it's reference, but that's not what people usually assume about brains-in-vats. This seems more like an argument that we can't be skeptical about whether I am a randomly occurring brain-in-a-vat.
This is like if I drew a picture of a tree and dropped it on the alien planet (Or when we show a child a picture of a tree for the first time when they haven't seen the actual thing). It's different from the instance where a picture resembling a tree is formed by coincidence.
Here's a continuation of your thought experiment:
Imagine an alien species living somewhere outside of our Hubble volume, such that our star systems never ever interacted with each other (we came from the same Big Bang, but got separated long before there even _was such a thing as_ star systems). They presumably have a word for "planet", but it's causally connected to _not the same things_ as our word "planet". They have never causally interacted with the same planets as those that we see in the sky. Even so, if I'm somehow magically teleported to them, and have some time to learn their language, then we would be able to intelligibly talk about planets, we would have a common concept of them. This on its face seems to break the causal theory of meaning.
The reason me and that alien have a common concept of a planet is that _their_ planets are sort of similar to _our_ planets. By analogy, I think the "brains-in-the-simulation" are similar, or isomorphic, to "brains-in-reality". Hence, the Vatlish word and the English word "brain" actually _do_ refer to the same concept.
Perhaps, the root of that isomorphism between their "brains" and our "brains" is the fact that they have a concepts of a "lawful universe", and so do we, because both our world and their simulation are lawful. Therefore, they can intelligibly think that if a brain is possible in _their_ lawful universe, it might be possible in others.
In the putnam argument about BIV as you presented it, you are using the principle of excluded middle to say that I'm not a BIV. But that's not a principle that all agree with(some mathematicians don't admit it). So the real conclusion is that a consitant skeptic should also be skeptic about this principle that seem so 'obvious' and natural to many and that if you are a BIV you could never prove it.
The Winston Churchill line is called... Paragolia or something, right?
This argument seems to break if we introduce the notion of perception.
I might no be able to state my point very clear with English, but I'm thinking if BIV rephase its statement of "BIV" into "the mechanism/carrier of thinking in a space separated from the 'actual world'", would it then be possible?
Really good video! I don't know if the second half encompassed the following criticism of the reasoning at 20:54
Here you read the argument stating: "It does not appear as though I am a brain in a vat" but that need not be the case.
If a BIV was actually simulated in the supercomputer program to be in an additional BIV experiencing trees and brains and vats (in the image), then it's referring to the same things. When a level 1 BIV says "there is a tree in front of me", we can agree that it's referring to a tree (in the image). But if it's a level 2 BIV and made the same statement, is it not again referring to the same objects (in their image)?
To elaborate: if we are all BIVs, then when we use words like "trees" or "vats", then we are referring (perhaps) to specific electrical configurations of the supercomputer our experiences are being simulated in.
Now let's make the claim "I am a BIV", then we could be meaning that we are a simulated brain in a simulated vat which is simulating the trees, for example. There's no reason why the level 2 simulated trees our level 2 simulated brains experience aren't equivalent to a level 1 simulated tree.
I don't know if I'm making my argument clear.
Tl;dr: BIVs could be level 2 BIVs in a level 1 simulation, in which case, the claim: "I am a BIV" isn't necessarily false.
Yes, this is an interesting point. I think Chalmers makes a similar argument in his recent book Reality+.
@Kane B some kind of BIV does exist in medieval philosophy as the non Catholic concept of certain types of invisible angels. And angels are extensions of the concept of God (or the reverse). BIV is a disguised concept of a small GOD before the modern discussions about self contradictions in the traditional theological argument (based on the 3 basic properties of God. Omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence). BIV is a "restricted God" so to speak.
On the arguments against externalism, could one just do the following two things?
1. Make a weaker externalism wherein words have causal connection to either syntactic combinations of other words or to phenomenon such that words always ended up well founded in phenomena. For example, though "unicorn" is non-referring, "horse," "horn," and "head" all refer to stuff and one could have "unicorn" mean "horse with a horn on its head," and indeed one could then have words which use "unicorn" as its grounding and so on, as long as this chain of references comes back to phenomena eventually.
2. Bite the bullet and ask why numbers and morals need to be acausal?
I say this because it seems that given the first, with its requirement of well-founded relations, the logic still holds about a brain in a vat speaking vatlish in that all the foundations are different and the argument still holds.
awsome video ! I have a solipsist point of view of the world, and i have to say, this is proving a lot of my ideas hehe
Like look… like if you were like the only real person, like how would you like explain like how it is that I’m actually the only person, cause like clearly you are like the fake one and I’m like… well.. like… real.. like I’m real see… and you are like totally fake, now like, mmmm yep like Michele has the best hair style and that’s like real, she uses like the best conditioners and products and she like tames that hair girl, really like, I’ve touched her hair and like… real… super real, you on the other hand are like… fake.. so like, chill out
Man you have it good, I am just the hallucination of a random pigeon.
Man it really sucks to life in a universe in which pigeons are the most fundamental layer of existence.
@@unknownknownsphilosophy7888 Nuh huh seems like im super real and you're not buddy ! im like I’m actually the only person, cause like clearly you are like the fake one and I’m like… well.. like… real.. like I’m real see… and you are like totally fake ^^
Hi Kane B. What are your thoughts on Humean supervenience (neo-Humean mosaic) and metaphysical atomism? Do you think it’s an accurate model in contrast to metaphysical holism?
I share its suspicion of natural necessities... and that's about all. I don't buy metaphysical reductionism.
@@KaneB Oh, okay. Thanks for the response. Do you think you’ll ever do a video lecture/lectures where you discuss this type of metaphysics in-depth?
0:56
Moore
The argument being a refuting is inescapable . What does a brain in a vat means, does it mean a Brain in a vat, like same physiology as our brain or does it mean something that work like a brain. Think of when you say that the human body is a machine, what is the reference for the machine, like it works like a machine, meaning it has the characteristics of a machine. You define a machine as the physical thing or the concept. either way, the concept of the machine is based on the physical properties of the machine.
But when one defines an object with those set of properties only, then there is clarity as to what one refers to
Finally
What are you views on philosophy tube?
I don't think I've seen any of his videos so I can't comment. (I don't really watch much philosophy on TH-cam, despite doing it myself!)
Philosophy tube has heavy political agendas.
I see my brain livin' in a vat lol
A "head" is a "vat".
Question: What is a "vat"?
Answer: Some kind of container filled with fluid
Question: What kind of fluid must a vat contain such that it supports a living brain?
Answer: Blood
Question: What is a "head"?
Answer: A kind of container filled with fluid, specifically blood, such that it supports a living brain.
Conclusion: A head is a vat. And I am a brain in a vat.
I guess you could state the skeptical hypothesis as, "I am a brain in a vat that's completely unlike the vat I believe myself to be contained in."
@@KaneB I suppose. But the thesis "a head is a vat" gets around Putnam's language problem because the statement is true in both worlds using the same criteria. No? I am genuinely asking because I have always had trouble understanding the force of Putnam's argument. Even after your well laid out video.
Lets us never discount the FACT that I am a moron...in a vat.
@@JamesAndrewMacGlashanTaylor Well, when we say "vat", in the context of the brain-in-a-vat hypothesis, what we mean is an object made of metal and glass etc. When the BIVs say "vat", what they mean is a pattern of impulses that create metal-like and glass-like appearances. In this sense of the term, our heads are not vats, so "I am a brain in a vat" is false.
@@KaneB I see. So, it seems to come down to whether one prioritizes the specificity (the vanity of small differences?) of one definition of "brain in a vat" or whether one prioritizes the generality expressed in the other definition. Is there a non-arbitrary way to decide the matter?
The one definition is true in only one special case. The other definition is true in every case.
Imagine if you were born blind! Trees, vats, images? Colors? Imagine if you were the only person who could "see"! How would a person who was born deaf and blind. How would the " know" that they are not a brain in vat? 😇🤔😎😉
churchill
cheucheu
Guess I’m a vat-tard in that case
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You just know this guy works at a university 😂
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If it's more complex than Skepticism is gay, I won't like it. It'd be a bad shitpost.