I personally believe that the brain in a vat doesn't pass Occam's razor... but I have no proof.
The related "This is all a simulation" argument is interesting, especially as computer power increases. If we ever get to the stage where we can simulate even a simpler sentience in a far smaller universe at a fraction of real speed then how do we know that's not exactly what's happening with us... ?
"There are worlds who are simulations" !== "Most / all worlds are simulations". The second assumption is possible but by no means implied by the first. If we could create such complex simulations, it would prove only that it's possible that we live in one.
On the bottom end of the stack, for such thought exercises ordered by descending charm, it could be that we live in a simulation created by someone / something that exists in the real reality, and we aren't even in a sophisticated pinnacle of technology achievement like a supercomputer, but in the real reality equivalent of a cheap videogame given away as a real reality equivalent of swag: "Universe 2000, Acme Inc special edition".
Ouch. What a depressing thought.
Probably make a decent sci-fi short story. Now if only I had the talent or patience for writing...
Afai(!)k, there might as well not be a top layer but infinite nesting -- or, even more charmingly, endless recursion, each simulation containing not another layer, but another iteration of itself. This at least would eliminate the embarrassment of being "less real" than the above layer.
--edit-- My own thoughts were along the lines of - humans decide we're probably in a simulation, and try to figure out how we could attempt communication with the simulators. To do so we decide to build our own simulation, then run it at double speed and watch how they try to communicate with us. Then recurse...
If you ever read a story like that, you'll know someone with the same idea but more motivation than me wrote it :)
edited: initially linked to the wrong movie
p AND ~p --> TRUE
If you're trying to claim that only scientific ideas are worth entertaining, then the problem is that that claim itself is not scientific.
The commenter you're responding to does not even understand the problem if he thinks science can solve it, as others have pointed out.
Or, for that matter, look at Hillary Putnam. Notice that he was a rather accomplished mathematician: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Putnam#Mathematics_and.... I believe he also had an extensive knowledge of physics, though I don't think he had any discoveries in the field.
(Edited to be a little nicer).
Far from being excluded, philosophers have defined a large chunk of what modern science is.
If you mean that he's responsible for our understanding of science, that's debatable. Outside of philosophy, Popper is extraordinarily well known, and you can't avoid people speaking as if falsification is all there is to philosophy of science. Within philosophy, he is respected, but I don't think his particular views are particularly popular.
If we are brains in vats, then the hypothesis that we are brains in vats is only brains-in-vats-falsifiable, unless one includes the very premise of metaphysical reality that Putnam is suggesting is in need of justification.
Keep in mind that Putnam's paper substantially predates The Matrix and that the search for the premises of scientific rationality goes back at least to Descartes, and that so far the two best solutions are still basically Kant's model of mediated access to reality and claims relying upon a priori that we have direct access to a reality as it exists outside human experience [see Nagal's What is it like to be a Bat?]
Yes, you could be a brain in a vat.
The fun thing about this quack philosophy is that's it's falsifiable [...]
I know what a vat is here in subjective world, I am able to imagine a situation in which such a thing exists somewhere with something like my perceived centre of consciousness within it being fed false data. Should that (or some other solipsistic scenario as yet unimagined) actually be the case I am fully aware I do not have the terms of reference to accurately describe the scenario as I have been relying on false data for my entire life. However an accurate description of the scenario is entirely unnecessary to the thought experiment itself and dismissing the entire argument based on the statement that we cannot properly describe a vat is to fail to address the root of the argument and attempt escape on a technicality.
Or, in other words, you could be a brain in a vat.
Yes, I could be a brain in a vat.
(Or, more generally, this "quack philosophy" is trying to get us to think about what knowledge is, and you can't understand how science works without thinking about the concept of knowledge).
The fun thing about this quack philosophy is that's it's falsifiable, that in a couple decades, we'll actually have brains in vats, and kids will play games where they shuffle a kid's brain around and have him guess if he's in a vat or not. And with the higher-end iVats, they'll never be able to tell. And they'll totally ridicule the tenured philosophy faculty, they'll be so mean, what the hell have you been doing with your grant money?