Imagine that you are offered an opportunity to live a life of great happiness as a brain in a vat. You will receive stimulus that makes it appear to you that there is an external world consisting of real things and real people, with which you interact. Not only will your external life (that is, the things you do and the people you have relationships with) be highly desirable, but your internal psychology will also be conditioned for maximum enjoyment of life. Once your brain enters the vat, you will forget about the offer that is now being made to you, and the time in your perspective will be the moment before this offer. You will never have any idea that you merely exist as a brain in a vat. It’s also guaranteed that nothing could go wrong with this deal.
Suppose you somehow know that nothing can go wrong with this deal, or at least that you believe you know this (which is what really matters here). Would you take the offer? If not, can you give a good reason for not taking it?
While it intuitively seems to me that there is something deeply wrong about living happily as a brain in a vat, I must reject this as an irrational emotional response. Only the subjective experience of happiness can ultimately be of value; to posit anything else as having higher value than that is downright mysterious. I would no doubt cringe in accepting this offer, but this can only due to a bias about how my life is supposed to be, namely, that it ought to consist of dealings with real people and things rather than just figments of my imagination. The fact that others will miss me also cannot be a good reason to decline the offer (although it does really make me cringe), because only my individual happiness can be what ultimately matters to me. If a state of affairs would make me happier, and I’m capable of bringing about that state of affairs, then rationally, there is no question that I ought to bring it about. If I don’t, then I must have some emotional bias that makes me erroneously posit something as having higher value than my own subjective experience of happiness.
In reality, no one lives as a happy brain in a vat, or anything similar. It also does not seem to be a realistic ideal to try to realize. In reality, I think it’s constitutive of anyone’s happiness that one care about doing positive things for others. But, I think this thought experiment does a good job at making evident how human beings can be inclined to posit value erroneously, due to some emotional bias about what’s valuable. What we intuitively believe is valuable for ourselves might in fact not be. Hence, I think it’s important that any theory of “how one should live†show that what is purported to be good for us does in fact tend to be conducive to our subjective experiences of happiness, rather than allowing itself to just be grounded in an intuition about what’s valuable.
Imp, since theres no evidence to suggest either theory, objective reality or imagined reality, these theories become inconsequential. Even if we are brains in a vat, youle never know it, so youle never be able to change it. And vice versa. Thus, ultra skeptical statements such as yours realy aren’t usefull, because no usefull conclusions can be drawn from thinking about the subject. And any conclusions you may attempt to make will be laughable because of the absence of evidence. Its the same with the idea of a God. Theres no evidence for or against, so its a meaningless concept. People try to make conclusions based on it (religion) but these conclusions are laughable as well.
Iss, I would take the offer. For obvious reasons.
“The fact that others will miss me also cannot be a good reason to decline the offer (although it does really make me cringe), because only my individual happiness can be what ultimately matters to me.”
Better yet, once youre in the vat, you will no longer have any memory of leaving your loved ones, which is the cause of any discomfert or pain from this situation. If you dont know youre hurting them, then you wont feel bad about it.
Since for me personally, happiness is not the goal - not to say I don’t want to be happy - just it’s not my goal. Awareness is the goal. And if I could never become aware that I was a brain in a vat. Nope. Not for me.
Liquidangel, but the alternate reality being sent to your brain would facilitate your goal. You would believe that you are absolutely aware of everything, or that your awareness is constantly being increased. Your awareness is based on perceptions, you will never have full awareness because your perceptions automaticly abstract reality. So you can only have awareness of your experiences, so theres no diffirence between percieving the world and percieving a fabricated world, because your perceptions are already fabrications and do not wholly reflect reality if at all. Your goal to be aware is a desire. You wish to be aware. This literally means that you obtain pleasure from being aware. So it all does stem back to happiness. So you can be a brain in a vat and have your desire satisfied, your goal achieved, and you can be happy.
Since this is only a thought experiment, I think details about how this brain in a vat mechanism actually works don’t matter here. My answer is simply that your support medium gets changed often enough to satisfy the guarantee that the life as a happy brain in a vat deal will work.
Whether this situation is naturally possible does not matter here. Do you think that it’s metaphysically impossible (that is, inconceivable)?
I believe you when you say that you make awareness, not happiness, your ultimate goal. But, imagine that awareness did not bring you any sense of enjoyment, that while aware you feel nothing at all. Would you still make awareness your ultimate goal, or would you instead turn your efforts towards realizing other goals that do give you a sense of enjoyment, and strive for awareness only for its instrumental value?
I think awareness (and anything else) can only be valuable in so far as it is actually conducive to a subjective experience of happiness.
Or, perhaps you think that happiness just is awareness. In that case, maybe you think that my “happy brain in a vat†situation is metaphysically impossible, because you could not be aware as a brain in a vat, and hence you could not be happy. But, unless you think that happiness is actual awareness, rather than the experience of being aware, then I think you must admit that you could be a happy brain in a vat.
Well, part of the reason, I think people tend to have irrational biases about what’s valuable, and hence often act in ways not conducive to their happiness. For example, a person might over-value his work, and become a “workaholic” even though it makes him rather miserable.
The question was would you given the choice choose to be a brain in a vat or not. I answered no, because a simulated experience is not the actual experience.
You have asked the same question again and the answer is still no. Feeling nothing at all would in fact assist me in my efforts – it is because I feel that I fail to awaken. Attachment. (Please don’t misunderstand, I don’t wish to negate feelings) Being a brain in a vat is still, regardless of the desire for pleasure, being inside the matrix.
I think that happiness can not be awareness. Awareness is in fact an inadequate word but it will suffice for this argument. Awareness is absolute, whereas happiness is dualistic. And if there is happiness then there must be unhappiness, they are really one and the same thing or two sides to a coin, so to hanker after one is futile and while no-one is going to hanker after unhappiness, it is the natural order after achieving happiness.
Possibly because his goal exists somewhere in the future and the future does not yet exist. His goal is happiness in the future in the form of wealth or something like that. He is unaware of the present moment where true happiness can only exist. It cannot exist in the future it can only exist as a momentary experience. Even your happiest memories are just memories, nothing more, you are not actually experiencing them, you are only remembering them. NOT happiness. Same with future. Even though they are expected happinesses, they are not here and therefore you are not experiencing them. Awareness is, I want to say better, but I’ll say, useful.
And I say you are irrational for doing so You are offered a chance to apease all desires and you turn it down because you try to hold on to something exactly the same as what you will be getting. You just dont realise that they are the same in every way except a superficial diffirence in your mind.
“Feeling nothing at all would in fact assist me in my efforts – it is because I feel that I fail to awaken”
I very much doubt that. If you feel nothing about awareness I can prety much guarentee you that you wont give a rats ass about it. The only reason you persue awareness right now is because you have ascociated this persuit with pleasure and thus obtain a subtle intellectual pleasure from persuing your goal. If that incentive all of a sudden disapeared, if you failed to obtain pleasure from searching for awareness, you would stop doing it.
"And if there is happiness then there must be unhappiness, they are really one and the same thing or two sides to a coin, so to hanker after one is futile and while no-one is going to hanker after unhappiness, it is the natural order after achieving happiness. "
A very pecimistic view on things, I happen to disagree. The intellectual pleasure you obtain from acomplishing goals, how much you obtain and for what goals, is very much open to change. I think if you can convince yourself that pleasure is the only or most important goal in life, that your brain may very well begin to facilitate that goal by creating pleasure. If your goal IS pleasure, and since the brain creates pleasure in reaction to a positive ascociation, than if you ascociate persuing pleasure with feeling pleasure (a very logical and rational ascociation) you may very well begin to find only pleasure in things, and pain, the other side of the coin, may very well almost disapear. If you always persue pleasure, and you ascociate persuing pleasure with pleasure, than you will always be obtaining intellectual pleasure from the ascociation. And thus your goal will always be satisfied, you will never fail at acomplishing your goal, and thus you will never feel pain. Its like a perpetual motion machine, fueling itself by operating and requiring no outside sources such as other goals to function. But with your #1 goal of awareness, have there never been times when you have felt unacomplished in the goal? Have there not been times when you were disapointed with the results? When you failed to become aware on a difficult topic, have you never felt bad about not acomplishing your goal? Or has this never happend to you? If it has, than it just goas to show the involvement of pain and pleasure in every goal, because in fact, pain and pleasure are involved in all human action, they are the cause of all human action.
Feel free at any point to disagree with me, but please don’t pretend to know anything about me or my reasons for why I pursue what I do. You’ve some pretty wild assumptions there which I don’t care to unravel - I didn’t enter into this discussion to defend myself.
I dont pretend to know anything about you, I pretend to know the science involved in human behavior and thought. I take it you are a human that thinks and acts, so if my science is correct, than it would apply to you. And me, and every human being, and I think all conscious animals. If you deny my science, than I simply ask you why you persue awareness. Why is awareness important to you?
I’m afraid that your ‘scientific’ theory operates out of a certain paradigm which is not wide enough for my reasoning. I could explain it to you but you will filter what I say through your own perceptions, disregarding the essence of my understanding and ‘hearing’ only the words.
Sorry for pulling your virtual leg there… Okay - my serious answer:
I believe, much as impenitent wrote - there is no intrinsic difference, we already are brains existing because of the support mechanisms of the body - a vat would be just changing vessels. (Though the vat/body comparison falls down when you realize that the body and mind are not two but one, in that the link between them is two-way, and both effect eachother to a greater or lesser extent. I presume the vat would not influence the brain’s actual response to supplied synthetic stimuli).
I wouldn’t take the offer - mainly because of the quote above - a change of internal psychology means basically an extiguishment of your selfhood ie: death.
Plus - I don’t dislike Real life enough (yet) to risk such an operation. Perhaps if my real-life stunk (such a philosopher’s word ) then maybe a fake-life would be more attractive, simularly if I was old, ill or in jail for life…
Why…? Surely if we could disembody a brain, and feed in a perfect simulation of reality, then arranging a meeting between the disembodied and the bodied should be child’s play. Though you’d have to keep your mouth shut about the whole - "Hi Pete, how’s life as a brain in a vat treating you then mate…?
That’s a very nice opinion of humanity you have there. I think if such a option was commercially available to society… We’d be apalled at the number of people who said “Screw it - I’m gonna be a happy brain” Think - I’ve been down, you’ve been down, we’ve all been down perhaps not to the point of suicide but certainly to the point of musing about it. Imagine a third option… The Happy Brain:
[size=134]Feeling Blue…? Nihilistic…?
No [/size][size=150]point [/size] [size=134]to your life anymore…?
Same old job, uglywife, snotty kids…? [/size]
[size=167]Come to Happy-Brainers
and experience heaven… Right NOW !!![/size]
There is a difference, just not an experiential difference. Most importantly, the people in your world won’t have any subjective existence.
Are you saying that you would become unconscious if your internal psychology changed, because your identity as a conscious being is determined by the state of your brain? I find this doubtful. Or, if you are positing a higher value into maintaining your self (in the sense of your personality) than to being happy, then I say that is just due to an irrational bias. Once you’ve changed personalities, the fact that you have lost your “self†won’t matter at all to you (nor would you know about it); you will have a new “self†instead.
I actually didn’t mean, though, that a re-conditioning of your internal psychology would make a radical change in your personality. You would maintain the same basic personality, but just given a happier disposition.
I did say that you somehow know, or at least believe you know, that the operation is sure to work as promised. If you will be happier as a brain in a vat than you are now (you might even be very happy now, but you could probably be happier yet), then I think there is no good reason you can give for not taking the offer.
Perhaps I should have made it explicit that the other people you meet are only in your imagination. So, add that the only world you know of is what’s fed to you through a machine, which people don’t interact with (except to maintain, perhaps; they don’t appear to you as people).
It is a different question. I’m asking you to introspect your experiences of awareness, find the sense of enjoyment that you get from being aware, and then subtract that. If being aware did not either itself bring you a sense of joy, or was not instrumental to anything else that brings you a sense of joy, then why would you care about awareness? You are probably inclined to just say that awareness is intrinsically valuable, but I ask that you seriously consider if this is not because awareness is what in fact makes you happy.
The brain-in-a-vat situation is similar to being inside the matrix. I chose brain-in-a-vat because in the matrix, there are actually real people that you deal with.
Right, if one cares about happiness, then unhappiness is also a possibility for one (but there is nothing necessary about one becoming unhappy just because one has been happy). To expel happiness/unhappiness from one’s world, though, in terms of value is the same as being dead.
You are offered a chance to apease all desires and you turn it down because you try to hold on to something exactly the same as what you will be getting. You just dont realise that they are the same in every way except a superficial diffirence in your mind.
Okay - my serious answer:
) then maybe a fake-life would be more attractive, simularly if I was old, ill or in jail for life…