"Brain in a jar" redirects here. For the biology of brain in a vat, see isolated brain.
Philosophical thought experiment
A brain in a vat that believes it is walking
In philosophy, the brain in a vat (BIV) is a scenario used in a variety of thought experiments intended to draw out certain features of human conceptions of knowledge, reality, truth, mind, consciousness, and meaning. Originated by Gilbert Harman,[1] Hilary Putnam turned the scenario into a modernized version of René Descartes's evil demon thought experiment. Following many science fiction stories, the scenario involves a mad scientist that might remove a person's brain from the body, suspend it in a vat of life-sustaining liquid, and connect its neurons by wires to a supercomputer that would provide it with electrical impulses identical to those a brain normally receives.[2] According to such stories, the computer would then be simulating reality (including appropriate responses to the brain's own output) and the "disembodied" brain would continue to have perfectly normal conscious experiences, such as those of a person with an embodied brain, without these being related to objects or events in the real world. According to Putnam, the thought of "being a brain-in-a-vat" (BIV) is either false or meaningless. Considered a cornerstone of Semantic externalism, the argument produced significant literature. The Matrix franchise and other fictional works (below) are considered inspired by Putnam's argument.[3]
^Putnam, Hilary. "Brains in a Vat" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 6 October 2021. Retrieved 21 April 2015. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
^Chalmers, David J (1 September 2004), "The Matrix As Metaphysics", Philosophers Explore The Matrix, Oxford University PressNew York, NY, pp. 132–176, ISBN 978-0-19-518106-7, retrieved 20 November 2023
In philosophy, the braininavat (BIV) is a scenario used ina variety of thought experiments intended to draw out certain features of human conceptions...
Boltzmann brain thought experiment as a reductio ad absurdum argument for evaluating competing scientific theories. In contrast to braininavat thought...
because it is, ina certain way, self-refuting.": 7 Putnam's argument notwithstanding, the braininavat scenario is usually presented as a sceptical argument...
to be followed by a large literature with subsequent variations like braininavat. Nick Bostrom's premise: Many works of science fiction as well as some...
abraininavat, so that their words "brain" and "vat" still pick out real brains and vats, rather than simulated ones). Further, if even brains in vats...
Robert Nozick's "experience machine", the concept of a simulated reality and the braininavat thought experiment. The Wachowskis asked star Keanu Reeves...
theory, as in Mary the color scientist, philosophical zombies, and braininavat-scenarios. Because of the subjective nature of the mind, the phenomenological...
include: The "Braininavat" hypothesis is cast in scientific terms. It supposes that one might be a disembodied brain kept alive inavat, and fed false...
imagines abrain, sustained apart from its body inavat of nutrients, and hooked up to a computer which is capable of stimulating it in such a way as to...
the brain-in-a-vat thought experiment. This experiment involves confronting the global skeptic position that we, in fact, are all just brains invats being...
"D+" on an A+ to F scale. Philosopher Slavoj Žižek called the film “much better than The Matrix.”[citation needed] Film portal Braininavat eXistenZ,...
Wirehead (science fiction), a fictional user of pleasure-inducing devices Braininavat Nozick, Robert (1974). Anarchy, state, and utopia. New York: Basic Books...
following form: Where S is a subject, sp is a skeptical possibility, such as the braininavat hypothesis, and q is a knowledge claim about the world: If S...
philosophical skepticism, such as the braininavat thought experiment. Process reliabilism is a form of epistemic externalism. A broadly reliabilist theory of...
have a theory of everything. Other related hypotheses include braininavat-type scenarios where the perceived universe is either simulated ina low-resource...
be a comprehensive illusion created to deceive us. The same premise can be found in Hilary Putnam's braininavat scenario proposed in the 1980s. A connection...
Bovine immunodeficiency virus, a cattle virus similar to HIV Braininavat, a scenario for thought experiments Business in Vancouver, weekly news journal...
Global Information