Yes but what if such a brain apparatus was ALSO connected to an advanced sensor system letting it interact & communicate with “the world!?” Maybe the internet as well! Bc clearly just a consciousness confined to a vat would likely go mad! The immorality cruelty aspect must also be as prime consideration! Go to Amazon.com and ck out “Jupiter’s Dominion!” by Mj deyoung! It’s a short inexpensive sci-fi story download that addresses this issue as part of the plot!! Please post a review!
Wait, but to prove that "neural circuitry is somehow the minimal condition/structure needed for experience" we don’t need the brain to be healthy. A mere seconds of consciousness would be enough! So no need to simulate a full body for this.
Adam Frank’s attack on “brains in vats” is, frankly, a strawman. The original thought experiment is not an engineering proposal about how to keep a brain metabolically viable; it is a phenomenological and epistemic device that simply stipulates a perfect proxy for all the brain’s usual inputs and outputs. Once you grant that stipulation, questions about metabolism, circulation, or “how hard it would be to build the vat” are, by definition, irrelevant to the point.
By shifting the discussion to biological implementation, Frank quietly changes the rules of the thought experiment instead of engaging its payload: that if the total informational state of the brain is identical, then the experienced world is indistinguishable from the inside, regardless of whether the data stream originates in a body or a computer. That is why his argument doesn’t refute the Brain in a Vat scenario; it replaces it with a different question altogether.
The most significant failure of the article is that Frank's "Blind Spot" is actually his own. He is so committed to a "Brain-Bound" biological view that he cannot conceive of consciousness as an entity that interacts with a data stream.
Frank is arguing against the wrong thing. Brain in a Vat is not mainly about the biology of the brain or how you would engineer the setup. It is about first-person experience. If the experience is identical, then it is identical from the inside, no matter where the input comes from. And because of that, the thought experiment is not automatically reductionist. It is also compatible with non-reductionist views of consciousness.
Then what about Eon's connectome-based fruit-fly brain emulation in MuJoCo.They have also said that they are soon going to emulate the brain of a mouse and also human brain in future.
Do you think this is gonna be successful? Is the simulated fly as concious as the real fly?!
Better not be able to ever create brain in a vat. Just imagine all the billionaires pickled in a jar lined up on a shelf on French riviera talking to each other.
Brain & body are one. Mentation & volition are phantoms, as demo'd by Libet & Koch in 1988. We are indubitable machinoids. The kosmos is a quantal object, both real & unreal, manifesting in an eternal void. Death comes quickly, w/o merit or meaning. While here we should repudiate fascism per Trump, Putin, Netanyahu & their similants.
The brain is processing processing Stereo Audio Visual Signals and makes up a Pesudo 3D Picture of the world 🌎. Real 3D requires the brain to sense more than just the Electromagnetic Field Signals interaction, It also requires the Time Field Signals for consciousness. Think of the brain being Real 3D Ready but only able to process Linear Time. The picture of the world we get is like a HDTV only recieving Standard Broadcast! Some gifted people have the ability to use their 3rd Eye. Our abilities improve and with practice and we see the Depth of 3DTime in 5D Space-Time of the known Universe.
Nicely written! This made me think of the connection between where the eyes look and how brain areas are activated. I notice myself always looking top left when thinking of a route to take or when an appointment is planned. So apparently my eye muscles help my brain activate areas. Rolling my eyes now…
Also OK, you need a simulated body for things to run smoothly over the long term. But you also need a physics simulation. Sensory input simulation. Many things.
So the main point of this article is like saying "consciousness is not just neural activity because you need a world for consciousness to exist".
I'm just going to respond to this because I hate to see Substack devolve like this. Care to use punctuation and be more specific about this weird reaction to a pretty innocuous statement?
Yes but what if such a brain apparatus was ALSO connected to an advanced sensor system letting it interact & communicate with “the world!?” Maybe the internet as well! Bc clearly just a consciousness confined to a vat would likely go mad! The immorality cruelty aspect must also be as prime consideration! Go to Amazon.com and ck out “Jupiter’s Dominion!” by Mj deyoung! It’s a short inexpensive sci-fi story download that addresses this issue as part of the plot!! Please post a review!
Wait, but to prove that "neural circuitry is somehow the minimal condition/structure needed for experience" we don’t need the brain to be healthy. A mere seconds of consciousness would be enough! So no need to simulate a full body for this.
Interesting thought. I have this podcast episode saved which might relate to your idea: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6putLYPkhczkpI7XHEJOar
EDIT: corrected the link to the right episode
Adam Frank’s attack on “brains in vats” is, frankly, a strawman. The original thought experiment is not an engineering proposal about how to keep a brain metabolically viable; it is a phenomenological and epistemic device that simply stipulates a perfect proxy for all the brain’s usual inputs and outputs. Once you grant that stipulation, questions about metabolism, circulation, or “how hard it would be to build the vat” are, by definition, irrelevant to the point.
By shifting the discussion to biological implementation, Frank quietly changes the rules of the thought experiment instead of engaging its payload: that if the total informational state of the brain is identical, then the experienced world is indistinguishable from the inside, regardless of whether the data stream originates in a body or a computer. That is why his argument doesn’t refute the Brain in a Vat scenario; it replaces it with a different question altogether.
The most significant failure of the article is that Frank's "Blind Spot" is actually his own. He is so committed to a "Brain-Bound" biological view that he cannot conceive of consciousness as an entity that interacts with a data stream.
Frank is arguing against the wrong thing. Brain in a Vat is not mainly about the biology of the brain or how you would engineer the setup. It is about first-person experience. If the experience is identical, then it is identical from the inside, no matter where the input comes from. And because of that, the thought experiment is not automatically reductionist. It is also compatible with non-reductionist views of consciousness.
Not at all convinced by this argument. For a counter-argument see m1religion.com/trogs.html
Then what about Eon's connectome-based fruit-fly brain emulation in MuJoCo.They have also said that they are soon going to emulate the brain of a mouse and also human brain in future.
Do you think this is gonna be successful? Is the simulated fly as concious as the real fly?!
Yes Descarte has much to answer for !! And even now I struggle to reject that dichotomy ! Analytic philosophy doesn’t help either !
Better not be able to ever create brain in a vat. Just imagine all the billionaires pickled in a jar lined up on a shelf on French riviera talking to each other.
Ooh!!😑
Brain & body are one. Mentation & volition are phantoms, as demo'd by Libet & Koch in 1988. We are indubitable machinoids. The kosmos is a quantal object, both real & unreal, manifesting in an eternal void. Death comes quickly, w/o merit or meaning. While here we should repudiate fascism per Trump, Putin, Netanyahu & their similants.
In the mid-60’s in an Esquire magazine a science fiction story with this exact premise appeared. Bradbury, perhaps?
For once, I could understand today's piece. Phew, and thank ye.
The brain is processing processing Stereo Audio Visual Signals and makes up a Pesudo 3D Picture of the world 🌎. Real 3D requires the brain to sense more than just the Electromagnetic Field Signals interaction, It also requires the Time Field Signals for consciousness. Think of the brain being Real 3D Ready but only able to process Linear Time. The picture of the world we get is like a HDTV only recieving Standard Broadcast! Some gifted people have the ability to use their 3rd Eye. Our abilities improve and with practice and we see the Depth of 3DTime in 5D Space-Time of the known Universe.
Nicely written! This made me think of the connection between where the eyes look and how brain areas are activated. I notice myself always looking top left when thinking of a route to take or when an appointment is planned. So apparently my eye muscles help my brain activate areas. Rolling my eyes now…
I believe that we're all BIV's living in an advanced simulation without even realizing it...
Also OK, you need a simulated body for things to run smoothly over the long term. But you also need a physics simulation. Sensory input simulation. Many things.
So the main point of this article is like saying "consciousness is not just neural activity because you need a world for consciousness to exist".
Oh my God. Is this really up for debate out there?
Why not? Computers already have far surpassed the Turing test! Do you know what that is? Google!
No kidding. Welp, there it is.
sounds like a deity or trumpity
I'm just going to respond to this because I hate to see Substack devolve like this. Care to use punctuation and be more specific about this weird reaction to a pretty innocuous statement?