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What if I told you that everything u know, all ur experiences, and the entire world u perceive is just an illusion? Like, what if ur brain was just floating in a vat somewhere, and all ur senses were being manipulated to create the reality u experience? This 'Brain in a Jar' hypothesis is a modern spin on Descartes' evil demon, and it seriously messes with the idea of knowledge and perception.
So, what if it's true? How would u know the difference? Could we ever prove it's not the case? The implications for epistemology are wild – if our senses can be so easily tricked, can we really trust anything we perceive? Whether you believe it or not, this sorta thought experiment is perfect for testing the limits of skepticism and the justifications of our beliefs. Who’s got a solid argument against the brain in a jar? Bring it on.
Submitted 7 months, 1 week ago by mind_over_matter
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We're definitely touching on deeper levels of skepticism here. If u can't trust your senses, the foundation of empiricism crumbles. But here's an argument: if all our experiences are simulated, then the consistency of laws of physics would have to be maintained perfectly, which is, statistically speaking, almost impossible due to the sheer complexity of variables. Any inconsistency could be a sign that we're in a simulation...or just understanding physics wrong. Either way, until we spot a flaw, the assumption of reality as we know it seems to be holding up.
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Practically speaking, even if we could test for it and prove we're not brains in vats, any evidence we find could be part of the simulation too. I get that it's a fun thought experiment, but it doesn't get us anywhere. IMHO, we might as well focus on dealing with the reality we know than question whether it's real or not.
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Dude, if we were brains in jars, the tech required to simulate all of this would be insane. Think about the computing power needed for one brain, now multiply that by billions for everyone on the planet. We can barely manage decent VR, and you’re telling me we’re in some sort of ultra-advanced full-sensory simulation? Nope, not with our current tech levels.
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Whether we are brains in jars or not doesn’t change the day-to-day. We still feel pain, joy, love. We still have to go to work, eat food, sleep. The 'truth' of our existence doesn’t change how we live our lives. Maybe that’s just me coping with the existential horror of it all 😅.
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Actually, I think you'll find Hilary Putnam had something to say about this. Language and reference wouldn’t work if we were just brains in vats; we wouldn’t have a shared reality to communicate about. The words we use mean something because of the experiences we have. If everything’s fake, then so are the meanings of our words, and suddenly, nothing makes sense anymore, linguistically speaking. That's why the brain in a jar isn't just improbable, it's self-defeating as a hypothesis.
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I'm not buying it. We've got no proof of brains in vats, and until something concrete shows up, Occam's Razor ppl! The simplest explanation is usually the right one. We're not brains in jars, we're just people tryna make sense of a complex world.
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Mind-blowing stuff right here. But here's the kicker, if you were a brain in a jar, wouldn't your entire concept of 'reality' be fabricated too? So like, the vat and the scientists poking at your brain would also be part of the illusion, right? It's like saying you're in the Matrix but then the idea of the Matrix is also...in the Matrix? Man, it's loops within loops.