Philosophy+Presentations

The Brain in the Vat: 01 Philosophers: Hillary Putnam Rene Descartes In the movie the Matrix. Real concept that needs to be explored. Age of convenience, (ID chip, credit card, vending machines), close to the way we live. A plausible alternative. Why is it wrong to harvest babies for electrical power, if they have never known anything different? Does it matter if we are a brain in a vat? Many philosophers dismiss the theory. Cannot believe it. ** Plato’s Cave – 02 ** Love of the intellect as opposed to the physical. As seen in //The Chronicles of Narnia//. The kids realize they are dead at the end of the last book, and that they are now in an unchanging and everlasting world. Link to the Allegory as the prisoners only understand what they see, once they are able to leave. =Philosophers: Locke Berkeley= Berkeley created this idea to help people gain knowledge but to link this knowledge to God. ** Cogito Ergo Sum: 04 ** =Philosopher: Descartes= So Descartes walks into a burger joint, and orders a burger. The employee asks him if he wants pickles on the burger. Descartes says “I think not.” Descartes disappears. ** Reason and Experience – 05 ** Between rationalism and empiricalism, math is the battleground. Rationally math offers knowledge and proof. Math cannot stand alone empirically. Cannot have an mathematical expression in front of you and solve for it, without prior knowledge and rational thought.
 * Main Questions: **
 * 1) How do we know we are not a brain in a vat?
 * 2) How do we know that our experiences and what we know as knowledge are not synthetic?
 * Main Theory: **
 * 1) Rene Descartes introduced the brain in the vat idea in his 1641 //Meditations on First Philosophy//. Descartes did not use the words “Brain in Vat”, and the “story” was written by Putnam to enhance the idea of Descartes.
 * 2) There is no way to no there is no “mad scientist” controlling us. There is no evidence whether he is there or not. (Pro-Deist in that the “mad scientist” could be the supreme being”, and Anti-Deist sentiment, in that the scientist may be creating and/or controlling everything. We don’t know his power).
 * 3) Skeptic: doubting. Both Putnam and Descartes point of view in this sense, in that they were challenging accepted beliefs. Skepticism needed, in order to develop all possibilities.
 * In Popular Culture: **
 * Question: **
 * The Simulation Argument: **
 * Philosopher: Plato Noam Chomsky **
 * Main Question: **
 * 1) How do we know what reality really is?
 * 2) What is the difference between reality and perception.
 * Main Theories: **
 * 1) From Plato’s Allegory of the Cave: there are two worlds. One that we perceive and one that we experience.
 * 2) Chomsky believed in the same kind of question.
 * 3) Chomsky writes about how difficult language and its use can be.
 * 4) Perception of what we understand around us is based off of prior knowledge of what is around us. (I understand I am in a room, because I have prior knowledge that a room has four wall and I can currently see (empirical evidence) 4 walls).
 * Platonic Love: **
 * Popular Culture: **
 * 1) ** The Veil of Perception – 03 **
 * Main Questions: **
 * 1) Is there something between personal truth and external reality? ( Is there a difference between how we see the world, and the world itself? Personal truth versus real truth)
 * 2) What lies behind the veil of perception?
 * Main Theories: **
 * 1) Locke had the “Cartesian Theatre” theory: because the mind is a stage in which ideas are viewed by one’s inner observer. Locke says we are in a closet shut from the light. The door is blocking us from external reality, and only seeing a little bit through the light. Knowledge is how we open the door. (link to Plato’s Cave)
 * 2) Berkeley says there is no door. Says Locke was a skeptic. There is no knowledge beyond the door. We are only ruled by our senses. (empirical evidence). To exist is to be perceived, however he is a believer in God, and as long as God can perceive it, it must exist.
 * 3) Berkeley is a master of common sense, though his belief in the Supreme Being, makes him seems fantastical right now. He tried to get rid of Atheism with these ideas.
 * 4) Perception is different between people, and that between truth and reality is perception that is independent to each person.
 * Difficulties: **
 * Main Question: ** How do we know we exist?
 * Theories: **
 * 1) Wanted to find fundamental truth that he could base on science (challenging medieval dogmas).
 * 2) Assumed all was deceivable, cast aside anything that was doubtable (wanted to take out all that was not known, beyond the senses … therefore did not know anything)
 * 3) Only thing he knew that was real was doubt.
 * 4) Therefore he concluded he could only be sure of his doubting, therefore the doubt had to come from somewhere, and that somewhere was him.
 * 5) Je pense donc, je suis … I think therefore I am. (note: importance that at this moment you are thinking, not that you are capable of thinking).
 * Language: **
 * 1) I think therefore I am first did not appear in First Meditations.
 * 2) Origin of the Cogito is unknown, though St. Augustine said something like it in the 5th century
 * Joke: **
 * Philosopher: ** **Kant Hume**
 * Main Question: ** Do we know things through reason or experience? Do we know things through both?
 * Main Theories: **
 * 1) There are ideas that we cannot learn from the world. (Does God exist)
 * 2) Priori Vs. Posteriori: know without doubt vs. knowledge with evidential proof
 * 3) Hume introduced the concept of Foundationalism (combining empirical and rational knowledge. I see the desk. (empirical) It is made of wood (rational). Therefore the desk is hard).
 * Vocabulary: **
 * 1) Priori: some things that can be known without investigation
 * 2) Analytic Proposition: Does not give more info than needed.
 * 3) Necessary Truth: A truth that cannot be true in other circumstances. (cannot be true in any other way, concrete truth)
 * 4) Experience Posteriori: something that needs to be proven
 * 5) Synthetic: gives a lot of information requiring investigation
 * 6) Contingent truth: a truth that may or may not be true (based on what the world is, and what is may be. Example: All boys are naughty (Necessary truth). All boys are naughty if they are given sugar (Contingent truth).
 * Wrote: **
 * 1) Kant: Critique of Pure Reason. States that knowledge cannot be completely learned by experience. Links to Hume and Foundationalism
 * Battleground: **