A different kind of a 'Brain in a Vat' thought experiment.
I came across this thought experiment in a series of lectures called Questions of Value by Patrick Grim:
"If you could press a button that would turn everyone into brains in vats living the best possible lives imaginable would you do it?"
Grim presented this in the context of a consideration of different ethical models. He claimed that any utilitarian would have to say "Yes, I would press the button", or expressed the other way around, if someone says 'No' then they cannot be committed to utilitarianism.
Other angles I thought of were:
1. If someone says 'No' then they could not be committed to anti-realism, or phenomenalism.
2. if someone says 'No' then they could not be committed to truth relativism.
3. If someone says 'No' then they could not be committed to the Postmodern notion (a la Baudrillard) that reality is a simulacrum.
Thoughts?
"If you could press a button that would turn everyone into brains in vats living the best possible lives imaginable would you do it?"
Grim presented this in the context of a consideration of different ethical models. He claimed that any utilitarian would have to say "Yes, I would press the button", or expressed the other way around, if someone says 'No' then they cannot be committed to utilitarianism.
Other angles I thought of were:
1. If someone says 'No' then they could not be committed to anti-realism, or phenomenalism.
2. if someone says 'No' then they could not be committed to truth relativism.
3. If someone says 'No' then they could not be committed to the Postmodern notion (a la Baudrillard) that reality is a simulacrum.
Thoughts?
Comments (128)
Don't be put off by the brain; it just represents whatever infrastructure we might imagine to be necessary to support our being able to experiences "the best lives possible". In the lecture series Grim imagines these lives in terms of things like having the perfect love life, being a genius in some field who wins the Nobel prize, and enjoys universal acclaim, being an artistic genius in whatever art you fancy, enjoying states of continuous spiritual bliss, or really whatever you would imagine to be the best possible life for you. By pushing the button you cause everyone to live the best possible life as imagined by each one. No personal effort is required to achieve any of this, but people would be given as part of their experience a simulated memory of having made the requisite efforts to achieve it, and this is the key point. Phenomenologically, the experiences would be indistinguishable from real life experiences of the same situations and events.
You should forget about the 'external' issue of what might be imagined to be needed to support all the brains, and just focus on the 'internal' ethical issues raised by being able to enjoy the experience of achieving whatever your heart desires and to the fullest extent possible without having to make any effort to get there.
Your life would be so much more enjoyable and fulfilled, but it would be an illusion; so would you choose it for yourself? Would you choose it for everyone, if it were in your power? If so why, and if not, why not?
It reminds me of the parable of the genie and the lamp.
You have to imagine that you can press the button and everyone is able to cope with paradise (despite the fact that they haven't worked to earn the ability to cope with it, and that is really the point); if they couldn't cope then their lives could not be the best imaginable lives.
It's just a thought experiment to try to see what your ethical and ontological commitments are. Think of it another way; if you could push a button and everyone would instantly be in Nirvana; no effort needed and no questions asked; would you do it? You might say that would have to be a fake, unearned Nirvana, but could there be any difference between absolutely believing you were in Nirvana and actually being in Nirvana? If so, what could the difference be?
The first is to ask 'what is the point of the thought experiment?' It is so far removed from anything that could be possible in this world, and presumes such an extreme degree of certainty about outcomes, that it cannot give us any insight into morality, which is about how to make decisions in this world, in the presence of uncertainty.
The second is that it has quite a few similarities to Robert Nozick's experience machine.
The third is that different answers would be likely between preference utilitarians and hedonic utilitarians - the former aiming to maximise satisfaction of preferences, and the latter, to maximise net pleasure. A hedonic one may perhaps say 'push the button', but a preference one would not, because they would reason that most people, given an opportunity to abandon this life and all that they love, for a future life of unknown pleasure, would prefer not to.
OK, but it's not meant to give us insight into how to make decisions in this world, but rather into the ontological and ethical commitments that are entailed by the choices that we would make in this kind of extreme hypothetical scenario.
I can see your point about the distinction between preference utilitarians and hedonic utilitarians, but remember, the scenario is that everyone gets to live the best life they can imagine, so for those who want to stay with everything they love, they would get to do that,and to an even more perfect degree, because all of the inadequacies and dissatisfaction would be gone from that familiar life.
Of course, you might object that you don't want to make that choice for others; so, in that case what choice would you make for yourself?
And yes, it is somewhat similar to Nozick's "experience machine" thought experiment.
Well, I totally agree with you; I would not push it either, and that is consistent with the fact that I am neither a utilitarian, an anti-realist nor a truth relativist.
I am really interested in hearing how folk who identify themselves as any of those think they could reconcile such commitments with a 'no' decision.
But why not? Could the nay sayer believe in dreams within dreams?
But that is the point; if everything is thought to be nothing more than dreams within dreams then there could be no reason not to push the button since the quality of experience would be so much better for everyone.
You don't, but the point is, does it matter, and if so why?
Remember that in this hypothetical scenario you would not know you were a brain in vat. Your life would be indistinguishable from this life, other than the fact that everything is unimaginably perfect and enjoyable to the maximum; everything you could ever wished for with no downsides.
But pathological situations are dramatic. From a certain point of view life is drama.
So, you are saying life cannot even be imagined as maximally enjoyable without that it entails some effort, pain and dissatisfaction?
OK, but we are talking about what what people would choose for their own lives, not what kind of play they would watch.
I mean, people regularly watch all kinds of horrendously violent TV drama; and I'm pretty sure they don't want their lives to be like that.
You're misunderstanding the scenario; in it people get exactly what they want. They get the life wherein everything turns out exactly as they would want it to.
Would you give it to them? Would you give it to yourself? If so, why? If not, why not?
I have yet to meet anyone who wants to be a brain in vat.
If it would do everything that it is claiming to be able to do then I'm sure everyone would, and probably someday will be pushing a similar button for at least a few hours a day.
"Thoughts?"
It is a leading question: If you could make everything perfect would you? The question leaves no room for any real world ethical evaluation, and would create bias results. It does give a true reflection of an individual's position. You can't muddy the water and expect usable valid results. I am sorry but philosophy has to be practical or it becomes useless; and it should be considered in appropriate context.
My ethical views are, in part, a reaction to, and the result of the environment that I am in, and if you remove me from that environment, trying to set me in a fantasy, then you will not get an accurate view of my position. The goal of a philosopher should be to understand truth as it is; not shape the truth into the desired image.
The world is shit, I'd press it in a heartbeat.
I'd even go as far as saying you have an ethical obligation to push it. For all those people suffering and literally starving to death, for all those dying of horrible diseases, or all the tragic prolonged deaths people will go through in the future. For everyone with material want, for everyone suffering the evils of mental illness, for all those with disabilities, for all the lonely people wanting partners, for all the sterile people desparate for kids, for all the wars, natural disasters, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.
You would rid the world of suffering. Why would you not push it?
Given that you have prepped us with this question, I guess now we will know when (or if) it occurs.
Yet all of those ideas definitely evoke something in us - the possibility of life as a grand illusion, an imaginative theatre. It is that, in many ways, except for the fact of suffering, the pain of existence, which we know can't be an illusion, although we often wish it were.
So being 'transported to Nirv??a' might indeed be release from that, but there is no way that will ever be realised by the transhuman fantasy of 'transplanting one's mind'. After all the Universe has taken some billions of years to give rise to us, whatever process is unfolding here is not going to be subverted by whatever is dreamed up by the Kurzweils and Deutschs of this world, no matter how clever they appear to be.
For me this is a null question. I could never be in the position to make that choice because for the choice to be possible the world would have to be so inconceivably different from how it is that 'I' - the person with the preferences, inclinations and values that the organism writing this has - could not be in it.
That goes along with my view that thought experiments like this can tell us nothing. They portray ethics as something involving ontological commitments, whereas for me ethics is fundamentally a practical activity, founded in our experience of this world.
Peter Singer, despite being in my view a very practical ethicist, did at one stage write an essay considering Nozick's experience machine. As I recall his response was nevertheless a fairly practical one: that he would not leave to go into the machine because there was too much suffering in the world that he felt he could help ameliorate by remaining in it, and that if at some indescribably distant point in the future the world had no such suffering in it, and the Machine was offered as an option at that time, then he doesn't know what he'd do because the world would be so different from this one that he wouldn't recognise himself or his feelings.
Maybe for you. I for one cannot conceive life without suffering. The possibility of suffering is an integral part of what it means to be alive. Yes the world is full of suffering, some of it great suffering. But that does not entail the emotional judgement "the world is shit". You can look at life and perceive it to be just as full of suffering as the man who calls it shit and yet not call it shit - I cannot call it shit because I cannot imagine it without suffering. Without suffering it loses its value. Without suffering virtue is impossible. Without suffering there is no courage, no loyalty, no perseverance, no chastity, no patience, no charity, no knowledge, no nothing of value. All value - like diamonds - appears under pressure.
It seems you may just be that tyrant. You project your own fear of suffering as a driving motive in everyone. But not everyone wants to get rid of their sufferings. For example if someone told me they will fulfil all my desires - anything I want - today and get me rid of all my present sufferings, I will say no. That would be the absolute worst thing someone could do to me. The whole thing is that I want to do it myself, I want to overcome obstacles, develop my character, and learn myself. I don't want someone else to do it for me. That would be the horror of horrors.
Yes.
Quoting andrewk
What is it that you mean here? I'm trying to understand the sentence and read it a few times but I don't get it. Are you trying to say you don't think you're in the position to decide what would be good for everyone else in the world?
https://youtu.be/zE7PKRjrid4
You can't know that the red pill isn't just part of your matrix
Fully automated society = envatting everyone into their ideal world? Was that Marx's true goal???
Then you just haven't argued with any of the dream machine advocates yet. They do exist. Their position is basically to hell with truth and reality, experience is what matters, and having the best possible experience trumps everything else.
Based on what I've seen said about the Cyrenaics, my guess is they would have agreed, since pleasure is the only good for them.
And if you get to suffer and overcome in the best possible world for doing that as Agustino, instead of this life, with all it's happenstance, would you still refuse?
As for others, the truth of this life is that some people do live a horror of horrors. There have been very many horrors in human history, and a great deal of suffering.
You mean a world where my overcoming is guaranteed instead of merely possible? I would refuse, because then it wouldn't be my merit. My virtue, my character - neither would be the result of me, but rather the inevitable result of history.
Yeah, The Walking Dead is entertaining to watch, but it would be hell to live.
I don't find that entertaining, actually that's fucked up and disgusting. If I was in charge, I'd ban all horror movies for teaching and entertaining psychotic mindsets. Take Saw for example - why the hell would anyone watch that? Some folks even find it cool. Their mind is fucked.
I mean more like playing a video game, where you can accomplish goals, or fail to, but one tailored completely to your desire to suffer and overcome. The world we all live in isn't tailored for anyone. Shit just happens to all of us in meaningless proportions. Some people manage to get enough money and power to make it a little more tailored. But that's no guarantee against a thousand things that could go wrong at any moment.
No - because a world tailored to my needs takes away from the merit of my character. The world we live in isn't tailored to anyone's desires. That's great!
Quoting Marchesk
Pity on them. While the gaining of the power may be meritous, the mere use of it to make the world more tailored is lowly. It's the making of something out of nothing that is great. In fact, the greater the opposition, the greater the victory, the greater the triumph. God overcame the impossible to create the world - made the world out of nothing. What greater triumph than possibility beating impossibility?
Guess what? In your envatted world, you get to be in charge and ban all such shows. Although, it won't affect any of the other envatted minds, so you might not get the same satisfaction from doing so. That's one strike against being envatted. I suppose you could choose to delude yourself during the envatment procedure.
I'm glad you find it to be great. Very Nietzschean of you. Here's a thought, though. Do you ever wonder why we live in such a technological world? It's probably because people were never entirely happy with the way the world was, and figured out some way to tailor it. We could all just be overcoming lions and thirst on the Savanna with our two legs and opposable thumbs, but someone clever was always dissatisfied.
If only we could all endure the holocaust. What titans of virtue we would become.
Quoting Agustino
Making a better world than this. Question for you. Why is it that believers wish to enter paradise when they die? Why not more character building?
Yes, banning them only makes sense if I am opposed. Romeo's and Juliet's love only made sense because of the great opposition against it. Because they had to throw their lives to keep their love, that's what made them great, that's why they are eternal - they will be remembered. It is those who overcome the greatest obstacles based on their love for Truth and Justice that have overcome the world. It's not even about achieving - it's about fighting, it's about never giving up, it's about not yielding. That's what matters - not success. Romeo and Juliet failed in the flesh. And yet, in the spirit they have overcome - they have left this world with their heads up high - unlike other petty fools who cling to a few more days of life, these two threw it all on the line, gambled with it as if it was nothing. Their detachment from life - based on their greater attachment to Love - that was what overcame the world, that was what propelled them from mere mortals into eternity. It was their leap of faith.
Tyrants, dictators, and psychopaths - they are the world's greatest failures, because they undermine the very opposition they need in order to be great. Take a rapist. A rapist enjoys the sexual conquest of a woman, and thus does ANYTHING in order to achieve it. BUT - there always comes a point when she will stop resisting, and that moment the rapist will encounter his own pettiness and his own nothingness. There's nothing great about having sex with a stone. He has total obedience, but it's worth nothing. It's different than the obedience that comes out of the woman's own submission, out of her own free will. That latter is earned, the latter is worthy, but the former is nothing, it's petty, it's disgusting.
Quoting Marchesk
Yes and I congratulate those who were dissatisfied and did something about it. They have made something out of nothing. They are great.
Quoting Marchesk
Well the people who did endure the Holocaust did become titans of virtue. I have great admiration and respect for people like Viktor Frankl - who showed that the human spirit is greater than the world, even in the worst of circumstances.
Quoting Marchesk
Yes making it better is worthy only if there is the struggle to make it better. Believers want paradise, because after living a life in hell, one wants a quietus. But that's only AFTER the great struggle is over, not before.
There is already a lot of hours spent watching screens, and plenty of people still enjoy escaping into a book. If and when we do have a Star Trek Holodeck quality VR, it will be interesting to see what happens. It's rather hard to believe that the characters on ST spend relatively little time in the Holodeck. But then again, most of those characters have rather exciting and demanding careers, being on the frontier of exploration with alien contact and spacial anomalies, so maybe that keeps the temptation at bay.
Star Trek didn't focus on regular folk much. Picard had a brother in France who maintained a vineyard. I guess that's still rewarding work in the 24th century?
What was the plan before Adam & Eve screwed the pooch? Just give people virtue up front and a free ticket straight into paradise?
That's why they screwed the pooch, you answered it yourself. Because they only want paradise aftera life of great struggle. it's the struggle that teaches them about themselves (spirit) and about God.
As a story, anyway. How many couples in love do you suppose want to die young so that their love can be immortalized?
A saying comes to mind: "A live dog is better than a dead lion". Might have even come from Solomon. I suppose your view changes if the struggle leads to perfect envatment in the afterlife.
I don't think one life of a few short decades is enough for an eternity of no struggles. Seems to me that the Hindus have a better idea. Reincarnate over many lifetimes until you reach envatment. 70 years just isn't worthy.
That's because they're weak and petty, and worth nothing. They are like worms and vermins, they will do anything to cling to one more day of earthly life. That's their pettiness. They have surrendered the only freedom they truly had, the freedom of dignity, for what? To live like beggars and scum a few more days, hours or years. What difference does it make, 5 more years or 50 more?
Quoting Marchesk
You should read it in context:
It's talking about the afterlife, not about this life. "Whoever shall lose his life for my sake - shall gain it". That's the promise Jesus made. Whoever throws this earthly life as if it were nothing, and gambles with it for eternity - they are those truly worthy for the Kingdom and Heaven, and they shall overcome, despite the appearances. They shall be eternal, and live amongst the stars. While those who cling to life, scared, they will perish and will be forgotten - that's the GREAT irony. Those who cling to life will lose it, but those who gamble with it as if it were nothing shall take it all back, just as Jesus Himself did.
Christians are amazing at reinterpreting the Jewish scriptures to fit Christian theology. Solomon says nothing like that in the full verse you quoted.
But the idea of life being a struggle to be embraced for a better life later on is an interesting idea. If only there were evidence.
If someone, under the threat of death, tells you to have sex with them (for example), then you should do it, because it's better to live than to die? No - it's much better to die with honour, as Socrates did, as Jesus did, as Seneca did, as the world's greatest of human beings did - than to cling to life like some dirty and shameless scum, willing to do anything for a few more seconds of life. Is your spirit not greater than this earthly life itself? Would you humiliate yourself for a few more seconds of life? Is this what Solomon could possibly be saying? Tell me. Is he saying do whatever it takes to live a few more seconds? Is he saying have no shame, have no honour?
Except that I don't embrace struggle for a better life. I embrace it because the SPIRIT is greater than the FLESH - IN THIS LIFE. You can kill the flesh, but never the spirit. if I never give up, even if I end up dead, so what? My spirit was never killed. My spirit was never touched. My spirit clinged to itself, and thus saved itself. The real death is when your spirit is killed. When you bend down, for a few more seconds of life - THAT my friend, is the real death. To be attached to life is disgusting, it is shameful. It's saying that your spirit, your will, is worth less than this brutal and petty life itself. You'll take this hell itself, over your dignity. That is shameful.
Quoting Marchesk
No answer my question. Is Solomon saying that it is better to humiliate yourself in order to live longer? Is he saying that or not?
I don't know, but he seems to be saying that being alive is better than being dead, in general, because the dead aren't aware of anything.
Okay, so if he were saying that, does it follow that one should therefore cling to life at all costs?
What he is saying is with reference to the afterlife. It is better to be ALIVE (in the real sense of alive) than dead. It is better to save your soul than to lose it. Jesus was treated like a dog in this life. And yet, this dog is the one who overcame. His spirit wasn't a dog, his spirit was a roaring lion. Socrates mocked the court who sentenced him - he was making fun of them. The guy bringing the hemlock - what are you doing, why are you crying? Bring it faster, there's nothing to be worried about. That's what Socrates was doing. In the flesh, he was a dog, forced to die. But in the spirit he was free - unlike the others, he didn't cling to a few more years of life. Diogenes! He overcame the great Alexander! While others were cowering in front of Alexander because they sucked up to get a share of the pie, Diogenes openly mocked Alexander and told him to get the fuck out of his light. Alexander respected Diogenes because he gambled with his life, he wasn't a petty dog (in the spirit), clinging to life (in the flesh) for a few more seconds. But rather he was GREAT - that's why Alexander said to all those suckers who were laughing around him - truly if I wasn't Alexander, I would be Diogenes. But it's better to be a dog (in the flesh) and to live (in the spirit), than to be a lion (in the flesh) and succumb (in the spirit).
Take heart. I have overcome the world. If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can look at this mountain and say move - and it shall move. Thus spoke Jesus.
I think they're confused myself and if they want to be a brain in a vat then they can certain help each other out and don't need my help.
Not so much. Descartes first conclusion was exactly what you're getting at, which is all that he could know was that he was a thinking thing, which is accurate whether you are a brain in a vat or actually as you appear. His reliance on an all good God to get him out of his solipsism was necessary or he'd be stuck. You've just got to accept that seeing is believing and root it in something. You root it in pragmatism (i.e. what difference does it make?), Descartes in God.
And when you say it makes no difference if you're a brain in a vat, I'm not that's true from an existential analysis. If you knew that your life and your death was just a computer program beginning and ending and that you'd be rebooted upon "death" (i.e. the evil genius would just hit restart), would that not give you a sinking feeling of meaninglessness? When you play a video game, doesn't it affect how you play it if you can reset it when you die?
No, I wouldn't thereby feel meaningless. Meaning is determined by things within my world - that's what meaning is. What the demon does is meaningless to me, and must necessarily be.
Quoting Hanover
Yes it does.
Quoting Hanover
No I actually root it in the understanding that certain symbols - such as truth, or deception - lose their meanings if the frameworks that Descartes suggests are the case. But all the evidence that I see around me points to these symbols actually having meaning, and therefore I am forced to reject the evil demon hypothesis.
To wit: if the evil demon exists, in what sense is he deceiving me? Deception only makes sense if there actually is a possibility that I come to know that I am deceived. That's what I call a deception. I thought something, and then new evidence came up, and it turns out I was wrong. But if the evil demon scenario is correct, then I will never know it is the case - and hence practically there is no possibility that I will know of the deception. But if there is no possibility that I will know of the deception, then it isn't really a deception in the first place, because it's not what we understand by "deception" - a meaning we have arrived at within our world.
Unless the evil demon has something to gain beyond just keeping you deceived. The Matrix scenario had humans envatted to server as batteries for the machines. Granted, we would actually make a lousy power source and not be worth the effort, but maybe the evil demon is empowered by our being deceived?
I would agree that it is not truly possible to subvert the order of nature and the spiritual order; that is indeed also my view. But the thought experiment is addressed to those who professedly disbelieve in such orders, who believe that anything that is logically possible is actually possible. It is meant to ask them, 'what if you could deliver people instantly to their best imaginable lives'? In the absence of an overarching order, then why shouldn't you deliver them to their best imaginable lives?
I found it horrifyingly interesting or interestingly horrifying for a couple of seasons. Some of the situations depicted in it highlighted interesting moral dilemmas. But then, for me, it got old real fast.
But if you're already a brain in a vat, then you are merely being offered a better 'brain in a vat' experience. Why not take it?
People of a Humean persuasion claim that it is not rational to expect anything to be the same in the future as it has in the past. This thought experiment is addressed to them, and their ethical commitments. If you genuinely believed that anything is possible then you must believe that it is possible that you could find yourself in the situation of this thought experiment. Your ethics should be ready to cover all contingencies.
It's really a very simple question. If you don't like the 'brain in a vat' scenario then think of it like this: if you were an omnipotent God and you could change creation so that everyone would live their best imaginable fantasy lives. forever if you like, would you do it? Why, or why not?
Anti-theists often use just such an argument against the idea of an omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent God, saying that if He is all those things then he could make that change, or that He should have made it that way from the start, and they say that the fact he doesn't and hasn't proves that he is not omniscient and/ or omnibenevolent and/ or omnipotent. If you think like this, and imagine yourself in such a position as God, then you must be committed to saying that you ought to make the change, no?
Any person that could be in a position to have that choice could not be the person that is writing this post. So it does not mean anything to ask me what I would do in that situation. It is like asking 'who would I be if I were not me?" or 'who would I be if I were born into a different family?'
How does that follow? Sorry but I don't see it.
I have formed the opinion that you subscribe to the Humean idea that anything is possible. Correct me if I am wrong, but if you do subscribe to that then your ethics should be ready for any logically possible contingency; for example that you might be called upon to decide the fate of humanity.
Although I generally reject all labels and classifications of philosophies, I readily admit that I greatly admire David Hume and find myself more in agreement with what he has written than for any other philosopher that springs to mind.
I do not believe that 'anything is possible'. Like Hume I am very sceptical of ontology, so my definitions of key philosophical terms are epistemological. Further, it seems to me that those are the only meaningful definitions that one can give to such terms.
For me, to say that something is 'impossible' means that if it occurred I would not have to either discard my current tentative theories of how the world works (my science) or admit to having made a mistake of observation or calculation. If I were to find myself in the situation described, my scientific understanding of the world would be destroyed, so under my definition it is not a possible scenario.
Also, bear in mind that, for the scenario to present any sort of a dilemma the subject must be absolutely convinced that the impact of pressing the button would be for everybody to become perfectly happy. When the stakes are as high as that, the level of certainty required is astronomical. As a sceptic, I cannot imagine any experience that would give me that level of certainty about anything. Hence, to be in the position described, I would have to have undergone some unimaginably weird experiences in order to acquire that level of certainty. Those experiences would be so thoroughly powerful and engulfing as to make the subject no longer the same person as they were before.
But if you were a good Humean you would not be wedded to your scientific understanding of the world, since it could be based only on the irrational habit of expecting the world to be the same in the future as it has in the past.
So, your scientific understanding could not possibly be significant when it came to your identification of yourself. Indeed your self could only be the bundle of experiences that have already occurred to you, held together by memory. You should be ready for any kind of different experience imaginable; even the experience of absolute certainty about what would happen if you pushed the button. This would just be to admit that you might become able to feel certain of something through another means than rational argument; that it might be possible that you could feel certain, even though you had no rational warrant for feeling certain. Even in this scenario you would still be you; you would still be this bundle of memories of past events you have experienced.
I have no interest in being a good Humean. I admire the man, but it's not a religion, and I can differ from him where I like. For instance I never really got what he was talking about in relation to the 'missing shade of blue'.
But I regard your quote as a misinterpretation of Hume's view. He did not think it was irrational to expect anything. He just thought that there was no way to prove that the expectation had a solid logical foundation. At worst that would be 'a-rational', not 'ir-rational', which means something that can be proven to be false. He famously concluded his deliberations on expectations, and whether his dinner would poison him, by saying that he would eat his dinner anyway, and he did not expect it to poison him.
I have to say that I am surprised that your ethics cannot enable you to answer this fairly straightforward thought experiment. I can tell you with 100 % conviction that I would never push that button.
In Grim's lecture series; where I first heard of this, he tells us that when put to his students they are roughly divided between the deontologists who would not push the button and the consequentialists that would. So this is not some esoteric thought experiment; university undergraduates are apparently able to readily understand it and respond to it. Am I right to think that you just don't know how to respond, that you don't know what you would do?
Ok, I find it interesting in that it is like holding up a mirror to yourself, that you, or someone else, can view your ethical and ontological commitments objectively.
These are my initial thoughts;
That if I did press the button. The people, myself included, would not be themselves anymore, indeed they would be so removed from themselves, that the thought experiment becomes meaningless. This is why in mysticism (as I see it) the soul develops from , I, to , I am, to, I am that, to the point where it realises, I am that I am. In the final level of development the being would remain the same being when the button is pressed. Prior to "I am that I am", the being would loose their personal identity in the switch. in this prior state beings are formed, held up, propped up by tangible realities in this world as they are, take this away and they (their being) collapse, disappear. If they(their being) are thrust into "I am that I am", again they would be in a fractured, or collapsed state.
Secondly the idea of being in a vat and not knowing it is incoherent as we don't know if we aren't already in that state, that there is any other possibility to this state etc. I know that this is not the point of the experiment. But it does illuminate the issue which you may be enquiring into of the ontological basis of our reality. The implication being that if the button is pressed the beings will be in an exalted state, but it would be in some way false, a a lie, a fabrication. There are two problems with this, firstly as I say, we might already be in that state, life might not be possible without it being fabricated in some way. Secondly if the button were pressed the fact of there being a brain in a vat might become meaningless irrelevant, because we are phenomelogically our being and our experiences and the vat is simply an inconsequential artefact of material processes etc., or might simply disappear.
Third, the ways in which our current way of life would change. Provided there is no vital purpose being served in our living this way of life, then whilst bearing the first two thoughts in mind, I would have no problem with pressing the button. However if there is a vital purpose in us living this life, then I might in pressing the button, pass the buck and that purpose would have to be carried out by some other unsuspecting bunch of beings at a later time. So I would be bottling on my purpose.
Fourth, We might be here performing a service for some other lives, or purpose. What about for example the other animals and plants we share our lives with, or the planet, or the material of this universe? We might be fulfilling a vital custodial role within the wider system and so fulfilling our personal desires and wants in an instant might be a cowardly act of refusal to perform our natural role in nature, a role we might have actually chosen, or offered to perform. In this light, the thought experiment comes across as a conceited flight of fancy.
I think I can accept that interpretation. But it still doesn't apply to me. I have closely examined the thought processes, the emotions and the habits involved in my acting on the expectation that the future will be like the past. I have found them to be lacking in any rational foundation and have resolved to not fight my instinctive inclinations to follow them.
Having examined something does not entail that one has located a logical ground to justify it. Indeed one of the greatest blessings philosophy - the practice of closely examining one's life, experience and beliefs - has had for me, is to come to believe that almost nothing appears to have any fundamental logical grounding, and to learn to rejoice in that belief.
So it seems that my position that it is not irrational for a sceptic to expect the future to be like the past, as long as she does not claim to have any proof to support that expectation, stands firm under that definition of irrational.
Quoting John I wouldn't put it like that. I'd say that very few, if any, people in this world could know how they would act, because they are trying to predict the values they would have in a situation in which they would have undergone such monumentally transformative experiences that they could not say how they would act. I would say that those that gave definite answers to the question - in either direction - were exhibiting a lack of imagination and a lack of reflection on what the scenario really entailed.
For example, one could easily be a utilitarian who believes that brains-in-a-vat do not qualify as the sorts of creatures that are due moral consideration.
Everyone of those "x-ists must say"/"could not be committed to x-ism" claims depend on (a) the positions in question accepting that the brains-in-a-vat idea is a coherent fantasy, and (b) that whether we're talking about a brain-in-a-vat or a locomotive creature with a more complete body etc . doesn't make any difference. But none of those "isms" actually imply either (a) or (b).
Quoting John
A utilitarian could easily believe that "no personal effort is required" disables those achievements from having the same quality that achievements have when personal effort is required. The utilitarian could additionally believe that (i) achievements with personal effort required are much more valuable, and (ii) personal effort can't somehow be artificially induced or simulated.
I don't know if I'd push the button for myself.
Anyway why not, is it a love, or sentimentality for this life the way it is? (I would consider pressing it to eleiviate the suffering of people in Syria with no medical facilities regardless of my own feelings). Or is it because you think we are doing something constructive and beneficial in the long run?(like Augustinio's perspective). Or is there another reason?
With respect to other people, as I said, I wouldn't be comfortable making that decision for other people. Surely some people would want me to make that decision and some would not. I wouldn't want to force that on the people who wouldn't want it and who wouldn't choose it if they were able to make a decision for themselves.
With respect to myself, I'm unsure if I'd choose to be an ideal brain-in-a-vat because yes, I am happy with my life as it is, and also because I'd hesitate knowing that everything post-decision wouldn't be real, even knowing that post-decision I wouldn't be aware of that.
But they would be living the lives that they individually find most desirable; lives that are the expressions of their deepest wishes. Say someone wished to be a great composer; in this scenario they would become that great composer and they would produce wonderful works to universal acclaim and they would also remember all the study and practice they had had to put in to become that great composer. Of course, those memories would not be of anything that had really happened, but they would not know that. This thought experiment is really to determine if we think there is something important about reality, or if what is most important is what we experience, and what is behind that experience doesn't matter.
For example, say you are a physicalist and you believe that there is nothing more to us than our sensory and somatic experiences; experiences which are never optimal but always fraught with contingent imperfections leading to all the routine suffering and dissatisfaction experienced everyday by people. You believe that ultimately all this alternation of suffering and pleasure, satisfaction and dissatisfaction comes to nought; you just die and become 'dirt in the ground', If you could somehow live your life out in a fantasy world where you have everything you want; a perfect relationship and family, the profession you want or no need to work at all, all the pleasures continuously and no dissatisfactions, everything just goes perfectly for you, and then one day your life just ceases, without you having felt any pain or experienced any sickness; why would you not choose that, if you thought that death is the end and there are no ultimate consequences that comes with that, or any, choice?
But in the scenario your life is indistinguishable form your present life except that you are superlatively intelligent, a creative genius, a brilliant benefactor, as rich as you like, loved by everyone; all the things you could want.
And you are provided with all the memories of having made the efforts necessary to become the great person you are.
For the consequentialist all that matters are the consequences, and the consequences of this scenario are the best imaginable.
Well that's no fun is it? It's not about BEING those things, it's about BECOMING those things. Being a creative genius - if someone puts me in the skin of Da Vinci now, I'd feel like a cheater. I wouldn't enjoy it. Or being a rich man. Put me in the skin of Bill Gates. I'd feel like a crook! The whole fun is making yourself into a creative genius, or into a rich man, and so forth.
But if you are a truth relativist you believe there is no ultimate truth, and that,concomitantly, there are no ultimate consequences of any actions or experiences, and you are in a position to bestow the greatest gift on everyone. And they will never know what happened; so why wouldn't you bestow the gift?
In the optimal, tailored life of your own choosing, you can to do exactly that. In the real world, plenty of people would like to become a genius, rich or famous, but for one reason or another, can't or don't.
I don't think you can make yourself into a creative genius; although it is true that effort and discipline, as well as surpassing talent, is required to fulfill creative genius.
And I repeat again that in the scenario you will never know that you had not really made the efforts, you will have illusory memories of having made all the requisite efforts.
Or as Marchesk says you can experience actually going through making all the efforts, if that is what floats your boat.
No actually they wouldn't really like that. They'd like to BE a rich man, a genius or a famous person. Why? Well because they have others liking them, they have others willing to be their slaves and tolerate their eccentricities, and so forth. They don't really wanna become such a person - that's too hard for them.
Sure you can... why do you think there were so many creative geniuses during the Renaissance compared to now? Because they had a good, strong and healthy culture which encouraged men to push themselves to their limits. Today we have a crooked progressive culture, which encourages people to have a high paying, and prestigious job, fuck around, and waste their time casting their shadows over the earth.
Nah, some few people have the natural or God-given talent and most others simply don't. I'm not denying that there are probably many great talents that are never fulfilled for various reasons, though.
I don't buy this. Why then do we have so many geniuses during the Renaissance and so few today?
If they (the physicalist) came up with any other reason not to press it they are being disingenuous.
However I suspect there are other candidates for pressing it, some religious people, people who have a strong distaste for suffering, those with suicidal tendencies.
Genius often only becomes apparent after a few centuries. Also our culture is so complex compared to Renaissance culture that the kind of universal genius of people like Leonardo and Goethe is virtually impossible today.
The other possibility is that there are many genuises today and that you do not possess the genius necessary to recognize them.
:P
LOL! Why does no one paint a Mona Lisa today then? Why no one is writing Macbeth? Why are Macbeth and Mona Lisa widely admired still, and the many works of today's "genius" are forgotten the very next day?
Quoting John
I disagree. I think universal genius is more possible today than ever. We have ample resources, everyone can learn anything by himself with just a computer and an internet connection. In Goethe's time... alas, poor Goethe. It was so hard for him to have access to great writings, and so difficult to grow his knowledge. The problem is today that they're too busy shadowing the earth as I said, than working. They smoke some dope, and they shag each other, and of course, with doing that, when's the time to be a genius left? In Heaven maybe!
Quoting John
Don't judge others after yourself >:)
By this principle, you should name me the not so great artist by today's standard, whose works are the equivalent of the Mona Lisa. I'm all ears. I also want to hear why his works are not revered, and the Mona Lisa is.
You ignored the possibility that you simply cannot recognize such genius. You are assuming that what your ignorance tells you is the case, is the case. There are so works of literature, art and music that you will never experience, and so many people in the world that you have never met and never will meet, that there could be an abundance of genius that you will never know about. You are aware of only the tiniest fraction of what is out there. Today there are conditions for many things to achieve momentary notoriety, but not for genius to find its due acknowledgement. Luck has a lot to do with it. Of all the artists who never 'make' it' it will be circumstantial luck as to what might be unearthed and recognized as a work of genius in the future. Perhaps only in science is genius adequately recognized today.
Alas, today we have no scientists of the rank of a Newton, or a Kepler, or a Galileo. Stephen Hawking, pff. Einstein was up there, but even he's gone now.
I'm sure if I had been around just before the wheel was invented, I would have come up with the idea first. Surely a person who invented the wheel can be labelled a genius, what an amazing invention.
So says the arch-pontificator!
Maybe the paradigms are so complex today that there is no possibility of such radical shifts as those made by Newton, Kepler or Galileo. Or perhaps the non-scientist simply could not recognize such a shift, even if it had occurred.
Quoting John
Excuses are many. It's so complex - that's why we suck. It's the social pressures - that's why I'm smoking dope.
Smoking dope probably won't help diminish your delusions of grandeur.
:-}
I'm guessing the comment of mine you're responding to is this:
Quoting Terrapin Station
Are you denying that (ii) is a view that a utilitarian could hold?
Sure. But what does that have to do with whether I feel comfortable imposing something on others that they didn't request?
You said it.
Seriously though I think you should have been born in Italy during the Renaissance, you would have fitted right in in the world of the Medici's, you could have been Niccolò Machiavelli himself!
The thought experiment stipulates that people get to live their best imaginable lives. If that includes wanting to make efforts then they would receive just that.
If they wouldn't want to actually make the efforts but would find their "achievements" and abilities empty without believing they had made efforts to arrive at and develop them respectively then they would be given memories that would convince them of such.
Again, I'm guessing you're responding to this, but you're not actually answering the question I'm asking you;
Quoting Terrapin Station
First tell me what the relevance of the question is to the thought experiment. In the thought experiment we are considering a hypothetical situation in which personal effort can be artificially induced or simulated, so I don't see how an argument as to whether a utilitarian could or could not hold the position that personal effort cannot be artificially induced or simulated could be relevant.
It's relevant because it's about what a utilitarian must believe given the thought experiment. If a utilitarian believes that the thought experiment fails because it posits something that's either impossible in principle or incoherent, say, then it turns out that utilitarians do not at all have to believe what the person posing the thought experiment says they must believe. To said utilitarians, the thought experiment is irreparably flawed.
If a utilitarian doesn't want to answer the question because they don't accept the whole thought experiment, then there is nothing I can do about that. I am merely asserting what a utilitarian must do to be consistent with his or her principles if s/he does accept the thought experiment
It wouldn't be that they're not answering or not responding to it. it would be that they don't accept the assumptions being made about utilitarianism as well as the assumptions being made about what's possible with respect to brains in vats.
Nonsense; there are no assumptions, per se, being made about ultitarianism in the thought experiment. And it doesn't have to be a brain in vat; that is just an example of a conceivable infrastructure.
The question is, would utilitarians, in line with the belief that an ethical act is the one that brings maximum happiness or pleasure to the greatest number, act to give all humans their best imaginable lives if they could? If not, then why not?
Atheists use this very argument against the existence of an all powerful, all-knowing ethically good God. They say that if God could give humans their best imaginable lives then He should, and that since if He exists He can and since He doesn't, He either isn't ethical or He doesn't exist. They don't cavill over whether the humans in questions should have any choice in the matter of whether ro not they get to live the best imaginable lives.
Sure there are. After all, it merely mentions utilitarianism, and then it suggests a conclusion about what utilitarians must believe. You can't come to a conclusion about it by just mentioning the word. You have to make some assumptions about what the stance is and what it implies in order to come to a conclusion about it with respect to the thought experiment.
No, they are not part of the thought experiment; I stated how I thought the avowed position of the consequentialist on the nature of what makes choices morally good would commit them to choosing is all.
If someone who thinks they are an ultilitarian wants to claim that, although they do believe the criteria that determines the moral imperative is to choose that act that maximizes the greatest good, conceived as either pleasure or happiness, for the greatest number, but that they would nonethless not press the button; then I would want to know why. But no avowed utilitarian has made that claim so far.
Wait, I thought that Patrick Grim said something about utilitarianism with respect to this, and that seemed to be the point of it.
Quoting John
A lot of utilitarians would say that good doesn't have to do with pleasure or happiness.
Would each person be isolated or would they inhabit, via an avatar of some sort, every other person's virtual world? In other words, will they be networked? Will the other people be real or "non-player characters" driven by an AI and lacking subjectivity? If each person would be isolated in a virtual world of their own, then to press the button would be to condemn them to a largely meaningless existence devoid of the possibility of true encounter and morally significant action. And such a life cannot possibly be the "best possible life imaginable".
I'll put aside my small quibble that any virtual world must be far less rich than its host world, which would nullify any possibility of it offering the best life imaginable. If everyone would inhabit a common world and interact directly and share experience and affect one another, then I don't see much problem pressing the button. I don't see how it would be existentially much different than the world we inhabit now. The other people in the world would be real. There would be someone else, an end-in-himself/herself, on the other side of each encounter, someone who must experience what is done to them. The world would have depths. Of course, this challenges the notion of "best possible life imaginable" that most probably have in mind because it would be possible for people to treat each other in unloving ways and to obstruct their will.
Also, I suspect that most people, in dreaming of some scenario that would constitute "the best possible life imaginable", are envisioning a life without suffering, death, struggle, poverty, limitation, and so on. It seems to me implicit in the question that such a life would be one in which each person has limitless power, resources, access to aesthetic experiences, fine surroundings and possessions, and so on. In my view, such a life would be pure fluff, like living in a kitsch painting, empty of real and substantial life, completely hollow and superficial. It would be strictly masturbatory. Despite all appearances, a deep desolation would permeate everything. By far the greatest impoverishment in such a life would be the absence of other subjects with whom one might enter into the Ich-Du. This "life" would be always strictly in the mode of Ich-Es.
It would seem that to make life in a virtual world substantial and deep, you'd have to bring into it the very sorts of conditions that we find ourselves confronted with in this world that we would presumably be trying to escape by creating such a virtual world. So what would be the point in leaving the real world?
Like two people on other sides of the world each with a chess board before them, versing each other.
Quoting oysteroid
But even if this was so, you wouldn't know it. Because this is the best possible world, you'd experience the world full of 'real and substantial life', moral significance, and meaning. You may in fact be alone, but you would have no knowledge of this and you'd act and live as if you were among others. Is this really much different to the way in which we exist now?
Quoting oysteroid
Suffering. This world is full of it.
'The best way out is always through'.
(a) brains in a vat were the sorts of creatures due moral consideration,
(b) brains in a vat could be virtually identical in terms of all relevant (at least moral) qualities to brains that are further embodied and interactive with the world via those bodies' mobility,
(c) pleasure and/or happiness per personal assessments is what should be maximized for the ideal good to obtain, and
(d) brains in a vat could be such that (b) obtains and those brains have maximum pleasure and/or happiness assessments,
then one would have to say that they'd press the button.
That might work, but is it really saying much?
How things would be set up in this kind of scenario, I would answer pretty much as dukkha has.
For example, there might have to be alternative realities operating. More than one person might want to win the Nobel prize for Literature, for example.
Of course the other in this virtual world will not be real; this is the point of the thought experiment; does reality matter or does quality of experience trump it? Would it matter if none of the other characters in your virtual world had their own inner experience if there were no way you could tell?
Think of the Matrix movies, for example. Are the characters in the Matrix really interacting with one another; or is each person living inside their own simulation?
This is not necessarily the case. For example the experience of Charles Manson would be quite different to the experience of Jesus. So provided the person was of the right mind, it would be ok.