Weekly Blog Post #3

Wednesday, August 28th, 2013

Do we all live in a Brain in a Vat?

      Many advances in science have caused controversy based on ethical issues and concerns, notably in biotechnology. Examples of these advances are stem cells. Stem cells have the ability to replace deficient cells in the body and provide solutions for cases that had been unresolved before. For example, maybe a victim of paralysis might be cured. So these advances, though raising concerns and running into disapproval, have their reasons to be developed and supported. However, I do not really understand the purpose of creating or developing the technology for a Brain in a Vat. 

      From the perspective of an outsider, of someone who is not in the state of a Brain in a Vat, the idea is absurd. The individual is basically dead, or at least I think is not alive. His brain has been taken out of the body and placed in a jar. The brain of the individual is locked in a simulated world, fooled to believe that it is in the "real" world. Why would anyone think of developing a technology that messes up with the reality of another individual? What would be the purpose of the experiment? To prove that humans can manufacture an artificial world? To prove that humans have the power of creating a world parallel to the world we are living now? To prove that humans can be cruel enough to rob people of their lives, of the reality, to make another world, another reality, by connecting their brains to a bunch of electrical circuits? 

       I just wanted to point this out, because the brain in a vat reading had bugged me. Well, it's not as if I began wondering whether I am living under the state of a brain in a vat, or because I am questioning the reality around me. But I was just wondering whether this was a true event, whether people did actually perform this experiment and were trying to develop the technology to create worlds for a brain in a vat. Maybe the Brain in a Vat was just fiction, a text written by the author to demonstrate a point of his. Mm, at the end of the day, I guess that what is important is my perspective. I live in my world, a world filtered by my perspective, my values, my emotions, my desires... Everyone lives according to their perspectives, and it would be impossible to have two people thinking/living exactly the same way. The perspective applies to anything, really. Even going back to the stem cells. Some people will reject it because stem cells do not fit their perspective of the world, while others will embrace because they accept it as a part of the world they live in.