If you or I is a brain in a vat, stimulated by a scientist or alien or demon to perceive illusory images, what about reality changes? Think about it before answering. In fact, you may wish to pause reading this in order to at least briefly contemplate your answer before proceeding. Utilize logic and simply think. After all, the answer is so clear that you may not even think about it.
At most, if I am a brain in a vat, there is then one (or more) layers between me and objective reality, but I am still experiencing faint distortions of ultimate material reality and material reality (the material world) itself still exists. The world projecting the simulation would still have a finite past and therefore require an external cause--what I refer to as God. Any existing moral obligations would still have binding and universal properties, and I am still accountable for my decisions and actions. An external world still exists. Logic still reveals truth. The only difference is the addition of a new layer (or layers) between us and true reality.
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| I will use this photo to visualize an analogy. This woman is using virtual reality goggles--what she is viewing is not real, but artificial and manufactured. But clouds, the sky, a bird, and other objects from the external world still exist in reality. In the same way, the "brain in a vat" hypothesis only postulates that there may be an extra layer between us and reality. Think of it this way: if your senses are being deceived you still have senses. There is still much legitimate knowledge to be obtained in such a universe, but it will merely be accessed solely by logic and whatever experiences which logic can verify. If you don't perceive reality directly, it still exists. |
The "brain in a vat" poses an epistemological problem because it highlights the limitations of our awareness of reality, but it does not pose an ontological problem. As I've proven above, reality would still exist and ultimate truths--the existence and reliability of logic, the existence of the self, the existence of God, existing moral truths--would still be just as legitimate as if we perceived them directly instead of by detached deductive reasoning. This demonstrable fact is usually forgotten or unmentioned and therefore undiscovered in talks about whether or not our senses present reality to us as it is. I have only heard one or two people mention these facts when discussing the issue in my entire life--and that is very philosophically and rationally disappointing. Even sound Christian philosophers like William Lane Craig never bring this up when asked about brains in vats. Instead, they usually attempt to persuade the questioner that to investigate such a subject is futile and that they should just accept reality as they perceive it. This actually opens the doorway to postmodernism, which people like Craig condemn and usually straw man and misrepresent as relativism, although it is an entirely different worldview, thus adding more confusion to the questioner's mind. People may walk away truly believing that nothing is ultimately knowable, which is a self-refuting impossibility, instead of walking away intellectually fortified and aware.
I have mentioned in an earlier post that my generation is one of the most skeptical ones in allegedly recorded history [2], and yet despite this acknowledged fact Christian apologists often avoid the kind of logicality and explanations I am presenting now in an effort to subjectively persuade skeptics who likely will not care, as they should if we have an obligation to use reason, about personal compulsion, emotional security, or probability estimates. Instead of proving that reality remains entirely unchanged by the presence of an added simulation layer, they waste time and words hoping to fallaciously demonstrate that we can never know if we are in a simulation or they simply do not mention how many of their conclusions are still entirely true or, in some cases, likely, even if their senses are distorted or deceived.
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| In the 1999 movie The Matrix, a concept similar to the brain in a vat idea is presented. In the titular matrix, though, individuals are not merely minds or brains having their senses falsely stimulated but are whole people with their own bodies that appear just as they do in the computer program. People sometimes overlook simple details of the simulation hypothesis. If rape is wrong in reality, then being in a matrix doesn't affect that truth. Things like time and logic that exist in all possible worlds still exist in the simulation. |
Does any of this shock you? If so, you weren't using reason properly and/or intellectuals in your life, including potential Christian apologists, did not succeed in proving to you that the foundations of reality are unavoidable because there is nowhere to escape them from. If you know any Christian apologists who fit the description I have painted here, please share this information with them, refute them, and guide them back to the truth. Show that any possible "matrix" or "simulation" does not discredit or even slightly threaten the necessary existence of God. Explain to them how God could reach through even into a simulation to provide to us specific revelation in the form of the Bible.
So, am I a brain in a vat? If I am, my life will still bear the consequences of my decisions and I am still able to know at least certain crucial truths about reality. Does this knowledge surprise you? If so, then you have perhaps joined many others in failing to notice the obvious when wondering if your senses are perceiving an illusion or a simulation. Christian apologists, fellow rationalists, and seekers of truth--do not succumb to this ignorance. Allow reason to guide you to whatever aspects of reality are inescapable, even if you are several dimensions removed.
[1]. http://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/12/brain-in-vat.html
[2]. http://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/01/information-why-quantity-and-easy.html
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