scholarly journals Putnam's flawed modelling in his brain-in-a-vat thought experiment

2021 ◽  
Vol 60 (4-2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hennie Lótter
Keyword(s):  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Brain In A Vat

scholarly journals Brain in a Vat or Body in a World: Brainbound Versus Enactive View of Experience

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evan Thompson ◽  
Diego Cosmelli
Keyword(s):  
Thought Experiment ◽  
The Body ◽  
Careful Examination ◽  
Living Body ◽  
The World ◽  
Neuronal Processes ◽  
Argument Proceeds ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Brain In A Vat ◽  
Embodied Agent

We argue that the minimal biological requirements for consciousness include a living body, not just neuronal processes in the skull. Our argument proceeds by reconsidering the brain-in-a-vat thought experiment. Careful examination of this thought experiment indicates that the null hypothesis is that any adequately functional “vat” would be a surrogate body, that is, that the so-called vat would be no vat at all, but rather an embodied agent in the world. Thus, what the thought experiment actually shows is that the brain and body are so deeply entangled, structurally and dynamically, that they are explanatorily inseparable. Such entanglement implies that we cannot understand consciousness by considering only the activity of neurons apart from the body, and hence we have good explanatory grounds for supposing that the minimal realizing system forconsciousness includes the body and not just the brain. In this way, we put the brain-in-a-vat thought experiment to a new use, one that supports the “enactive” view that consciousness is a life-regulation process of the wholeorganism interacting with its environment.

scholarly journals The advantages of neomoorean antiskeptical strategy

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 615-628
Author(s):  
Jelena Mijic
Keyword(s):  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Conditional Analysis ◽  
Epistemic Contextualism ◽  
The Third ◽  
Contextualist Theory ◽  
Satisfactory Answer ◽  
Analysis Of Knowledge ◽  
Skeptical Paradox ◽  
Brain In A Vat

This paper aims to argue in support of the neo-Moorean attempt(s) to solve a skeptical paradox. It defends the thesis that neo-Mooreans retain advantages and avoid disadvantages of rival anti-skeptical strategies - namely epistemic contextualism. The puzzle that a radical skeptic poses is exemplified by Nozick?s famous Brain in a Vat thought experiment, which enables construing valid arguments consisting of jointly inconsistent but independently plausible premises. The first and the second part of the paper are devoted to Nozick?s conditional analysis of knowledge and De Rose?s epistemic contextualism, both based on the sensitivity principle. Referring to De Roses? contextualist theory, we demonstrate that the failure of Nozick?s conditional analysis of knowledge to provide a satisfactory answer to a skeptical paradox does not concern the sensitivity principle but rather closure denial and embracing the so-called ?abominable conjunction?. In the third part, we point out the weaknesses of the presumably most successful, contextualist response to the paradox. We explain that even though DeRose?s anti-skeptical strategy is built upon Nozick?s theory, he successfully surmounts its difficulties. Yet it seems that as a contextualist, he necessarily makes some concessions to a radical skeptic. Eventually, the article introduces Black?s neo-Moorean anti-skeptical theory based on the sensitivity principle as a strategy that makes neither concessions, nor counterintuitive proposals.

scholarly journals We Don't Know We Have Hands and it's Fine

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 106-117
Author(s):  
Nicolien Janssens
Keyword(s):  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Context Sensitive ◽  
Ordinary Knowledge ◽  
Knowledge Claims ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Brain In A Vat

Based on the brain in a vat thought experiment, skeptics argue that we cannot have certain knowledge. At the same time, we do have the intuition that we know some things with certainty. A way to justify this intuition is given by semantic contextualists who argue that the word “knows” is context sensitive. However, many have objected to the intelligibility of this claim. In response, another approach called “moderate pragmatic contextualism” was invoked, which claims that “knows” itself is not context sensitive, but knowledge assertions are. I show, however, that to refute skepticism, moderate pragmatic contextualism rests on unjustified and implausible assumptions as well. Since no form of contextualism works as a response to skepticism, I argue that we should simply accept skepticism. However, I argue that skepticism is not a problem because skeptic pragmatic contextualism can offer a plausible explanation of why we have the intuition that our ordinary knowledge claims are true, even though they are not. I conclude that skeptic pragmatic contextualism offers the most plausible response to the brain in a vat thought experiment.

scholarly journals We Don’t Know We Have Hands and It’s Fine

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 106-116
Author(s):  
Nicolien Janssens ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Context Sensitive ◽  
Ordinary Knowledge ◽  
Knowledge Claims ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Brain In A Vat

Based on the brain in a vat thought experiment, skeptics argue that we cannot have certain knowledge. At the same time, we do have the intuition that we know some things with certainty. A way to justify this intuition is given by semantic contextualists who argue that the word “knows” is context sensitive. However, many have objected to the intelligibility of this claim. In response, another approach called “moderate pragmatic contextualism” was invoked, which claims that “knows” itself is not context sensitive, but knowledge assertions are. I show, however, that to refute skepticism, moderate pragmatic contextualism rests on unjustified and implausible assumptions as well. Since no form of contextualism works as a response to skepticism, I argue that we should simply accept skepticism. However, I argue that skepticism is not a problem because skeptic pragmatic contextualism can offer a plausible explanation of why we have the intuition that our ordinary knowledge claims are true, even though they are not. I conclude that skeptic pragmatic contextualism offers the most plausible response to the brain in a vat thought experiment.

Epistemological Status of Models and Thought Experiments in Economics

2015 ◽  
pp. 123-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
O. Koshovets ◽  
T. Varkhotov
Keyword(s):  
Natural Science ◽  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Thought Experiments ◽  
Theoretical Modeling ◽  
Epistemological Status ◽  
Epistemological Analysis ◽  
Field Of Inquiry

The paper considers the analogy of theoretical modeling and thought experiment in economics. The authors provide historical and epistemological analysis of thought experiments and their relations to the material experiments in natural science. They conclude that thought experiments as instruments are used both in physics and in economics, but in radically different ways. In the natural science, a thought experiment is tightly connected to the material experimentation, while in economics it is used in isolation. Material experiments serve as a means to demonstrate the reality, while thought experiments cannot be a full-fledged instrument of studying the reality. Rather, they constitute the instrument of structuring the field of inquiry.

On Education as a Commodity (The Distinguishedl Lecture)

1993 ◽  
Vol 32 (4I) ◽  
pp. 541-582 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Ali Khan
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Education ◽  
Thought Experiment ◽  
British Museum ◽  
Native Literature ◽  
Correct Estimate

I have no knowledge of either Sanskrit or Arabic. But I have done what I could to form a correct estimate of their value. I have never found one ... who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia. i If truth is not to be found on the shelves of the British Museum, where, I asked myself, picking up a notebook and a pencil, is truth.2 Education is a weapon whose effect depends on who holds it in his hand and who is struck with it.Consider a shop, here and now, which stocks a finite but very large number of commodities, each of whose characteristics is known to both the shoppers and the shopkeeper, and each of whose prices is posted at the shopdoor. Let one of these cOinmodities be units of undergraduate education, measured in years. The following scenario, thought-experiment if one prefers, brings out how the shop functions. I send someone shopping. I give him a slip marked "five years of undergraduate education." He takes the slip to the shopkeeper, who.......

What is the meaning of the pullback Schwarzschild metric?

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matheus Pereira Lobo
Keyword(s):  
Black Hole ◽  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Schwarzschild Metric

We propose a thought experiment regarding the pullback Schwarzschild metric, considering that there is no interior of a black hole.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document