Prove You’re Not a Brain-in-a-Vat
The Problem of Hard Solipsism
Think about it. How would you prove you’re not a brain in a vat, being fed all your experiences from some ultra-advanced AI?
This article is one of a series of articles introduced by Flawed Reasons to Believe in God. If you’re new to the series, you should read the Introduction before (or after) reading the material below.
There currently is no solution to the problem of hard solipsism. You, dear reader, cannot prove you are not a brain in a vat. Alternatively, we might all live in a simulation like Neo was in the 1999 Sci-fi classic movie The Matrix. Rene Descartes was grappling with the problem when he realized he could be certain of at least one thing, “I think, therefore I am.” Unless Descartes existed as a thinker, he could not be thinking.
Theists often point to the problem of hard solipsism, which states that the only thing one can be sure of is that one's own mind exists. They twist that to a claim that one can’t know anything with any certainty. The comedy of such a claim is that it’s coming from someone who will also assert, “I Know that I Know that I Know that I Know that Jesus Christ is Lord.” In fact, the claim, “I know that we can’t know anything.” is self-contradictory.
It reminds me of Ken Ham’s “Were you there?” debate tactic, which he uses even though he wasn’t there either.
Don’t let religious apologists pull their solipsism bait and switch tricks on you. I may not be able to capital K know anything except that I exist. But I can know many things well enough to navigate life without walking into brick walls. Science knows how to launch GPS satellites with enough precision to park them in Earth’s Lagrange points, where they will maintain a geosynchronous orbit, enabling global positioning systems to work. We can build the technology you are using to access this content.
Don’t let apologists dupe you into thinking thought is impossible.
This article is one of a series of articles introduced by Flawed Reasons to Believe in God. If you’re new to the series, you should read the Introduction before (or after) reading the material above.
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