brain-in-a-vat...
so i found this account of this experiment and was intrigued. and then i started thinking about the fact that the brain in question was 'removed' from a person and placed in the vat, so then, wouldn't it still have whatever info was stored in it prior to removal? i mean, i'd like to think that what's in my brain now wouldn't immediately dissipate upon physical removal, assuming the 'life-sustaining fluid' was doing it's job.
so then for this account to make sense, this brain-in-the-vat must be memory-free, which suggests a newborn's brain, with only enough know-how to suckle, breathe and eliminate, all of which would be moot if it were removed upon delivery...
since newborns make me squeamish, i backtracked, into a new question: if the brain-in-the-vat isn't newborn and therefore has a memory, how does that affect its concept of its in-vat-existence?
walk good. think hard.
posted by sweet trini @ 11:19 pm
2 comments
2 Comments:
According to the logic of "The Matrix," your brain will die if it doesn't have something to do--"whole crops were lost." This is why the machines created the matrix--to stimulate our brains while they harvest our precious bioelectricity.
So, I guess my feeling about the experiment is that a brain is meaningless if it doesn't have some kind of input to process. It would remain totally dormant (if it didn't have stuff left over inside it, like you said).
i guess then the question is: how involved is the nerve-stimuli being provided to the brain? is it actually prompting the brain to process information?
i may try to find out more...
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