Well are we???\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t possibly tell you, because maybe I don\u2019t know it.\u00a0 This is a classic scenario designed by philosophers to put forth the question: can we know anything?\u00a0 There are many who would argue that we can and provide many examples, \u2018I\u2019m sitting at my desk typing this blog post.\u2019\u00a0 Because I can verify it, and it is true, then I have clear knowledge of it.\u00a0 Right?\u00a0 Well, not according to the skeptical hypothesis which is \u201ca scenario in which you are radically deceived about the world, yet your experiences of the world is exactly as it would be if you were not radically deceived\u201d (Pritchard, 169).\u00a0 This states that you as an individual feel as though you were living in a reality, but in actuality, it isn\u2019t reality and you are being suspended in a state of belief as though it were reality.\u00a0 This also means that if you were to consider something knowledge in this virtual reality, it wouldn\u2019t be considered knowledge in actual reality because it isn\u2019t true.\u00a0 Hence my title.<\/p>\n
Nozick thought of this before and used this example in his argument against Feldman.\u00a0 \u201cIf someone is floating in a tank and oblivious to everything around them and is given electrical and chemical stimulation to the brain, the belief that he or she is floating in a tank with his or her brain being stimulated cannot be known by that person.\u201d (Nozick, 2)\u00a0 Although he uses this tank floating idea to support a different argument, it shows philosophers have thought about the idea before.<\/p>\n
This is similar to the movie The Matrix<\/i> (Pritchard 169-170) where an individual, Neo, has lived in a virtual reality oblivious to the fact that he is being controlled by supercomputers.\u00a0 He feels and thinks as though he is in reality, yet as it turns out, he hasn\u2019t been.\u00a0 Now Neo has obtained experiences and different personality traits that all contribute to his knowledge of everything, yet as it turns out everything in Neo\u2019s world is false.<\/p>\n
This thought process can also be referenced from Inception<\/i> where the main character Cobb is trying to redeem his past illegal failures by infiltrating the subconscious of an individual and implanting an idea without the individual ever knowing.\u00a0 Later, that individual will continue through his life never knowing that this idea that stands out so fresh in his mind was never his to begin with and was secretly implanted in his mind by foreigners unbeknownst to him.<\/p>\n
My question then is that if we were to be under the influence of some supercomputer, or a brain floating in a vat, or have ideas implanted in our minds, would the knowledge that we gain (or think we gain) in those situations truly count as knowledge?\u00a0 If I were to type this blog post, and have knowledge of having done so, but as it turns out, only have done that because I am in a virtual reality brought on by an Oculus Rift kind of technology, would I truly have knowledge of having typed this post?\u00a0 Or would it not be considered knowledge because I\u2019m not in a definable, physical reality?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Well are we???\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t possibly tell you, because maybe I don\u2019t know it.\u00a0 This is a classic scenario designed by philosophers to put forth the question: can we know anything?\u00a0 There are many who would argue that we can and provide many examples, \u2018I\u2019m sitting at my desk typing this blog post.\u2019\u00a0 Because I … Continue reading Are we Brains Floating in Vats??!?!?!?<\/span>