Re:Do Psychedelics Just Provide Comforting Delusions?
by pmoriarty on Tuesday June 08, 2021 @10:47AM
(#27435885)
"The thought experiment says there's an incredibly advanced virtual reality machine that you can hook yourself up to if you want. You can program it to give you the most rich, rewarding, satisfying virtual reality experiences for as long as you like. You don't have to know it's virtual, it can be subjectively
indistinguishable from an incredibly wonderful life in the real world. The question some people ask is psychological one of: would you plug in? But the question is actually the normative one: Should you plug in? Would it be a good decision for you to do that?
"Nozick thinks, and a lot of other people have agreed that, no, you shouldn't. Or, at least, that if you did, you would be sacrificing something important--knowledge of
reality."
But it's an open question whether in the ordinary state of consciousness itself one knows reality.
There are plenty of philosophies and religions, such as the various forms Buddhism, Hinduism, and Gnosticism, which deny the reality of the ordinary world, and posit a transcendent reality.
There have also been more "scientific" theories about the world being a virtual reality construct, and of philosophical thought experiments which considered the possibility of us being "brains in vats" or of other people being "philosophical zombies", and so on.
Reality is very slippery, and even if Letheby is right that most philosophers are naturalists, that doesn't give them a monopoly on truth.
"Nozick thinks, and a lot of other people have agreed that, no, you shouldn't. Or, at least, that if you did, you would be sacrificing something important--knowledge of reality."
But it's an open question whether in the ordinary state of consciousness itself one knows reality.
There are plenty of philosophies and religions, such as the various forms Buddhism, Hinduism, and Gnosticism, which deny the reality of the ordinary world, and posit a transcendent reality.
There have also been more "scientific" theories about the world being a virtual reality construct, and of philosophical thought experiments which considered the possibility of us being "brains in vats" or of other people being "philosophical zombies", and so on.
Reality is very slippery, and even if Letheby is right that most philosophers are naturalists, that doesn't give them a monopoly on truth.