I wonder if a people took the time to let The Matrix
movie sink in, or if they just agreed with it, agreed it was thought provoking, and took it for what it was in it’s simplest form, just a movie. Most people don’t know that the whole modern “brain in a vat” question actually originated from an amazing philosopher named Hilary Putnam (a skeptic’s skeptic if I had to label him). And, of course the movie brought forth a lot of questions; A LOT. But, The main question of “Are we just brains in vats connected to computers?” is what I’d like to focus on.
So…. Are we just experiencing what these super computers projects upon us and labeling it “reality”? Are we just brains in vats connected to computers?
Difficult question to answer really, if we answer yes there is no concrete proof we can come up with to support our theory, and if we answer no, we would have to take in the fact that brains in vats connected to computers would not know they are connected to them, thus their answer would in fact be no (catch-22).
I guess the only way to think about it is through the notion that you can’t disprove that you are not a brain in a vat. And if you look at it that way, and give the notion of you being a “vat brain” a chance you start to realize that everything you know could be wrong, and thus you would actually know nothing true, leading to this whole psychological mind trip thing where you become a skeptic of EVERYTHING and will most likely be labeled crazy/psychotic by modern society (which is good… I’ll explain later).
Anyways, one thing I did find wrong in the movie was the whole red pill, blue pill thing. When the f**k have you ever found the solution to a problem worth solving to actually be easy? “All you have to do to figure out true reality, something millions, if not billions, of philosophers worked their entire lives to figure out, is take a pill, it’s that easy”… Really? You wouldn’t have to work your ass off, you wouldn’t have to make finding the “truth” your life’s purpose (like how others did)?
Here comes reality… no such pill exist. And if they did you kinda have to ask yourself whether once you took them you would be escaping your current reality or just trading it for another false reality set upon you by someone else.
By now, you probably wondering where the hell I’m going with this whole thing? The answer… I’m telling you to be more skeptic in life. Just as Hilary Putnam did, you must be skeptic about everything you see, do, feel, etc. and even be skeptic about your own ideas. Without skepticism we wouldn’t have the world we have today. For example, I believe it was a skeptic that wondered why slavery existed, I believe it was a skeptic that mistrusted the notion of the sun being dragged across the sky everyday by a “god”. And, if you take it into context all scientists and people of great change were in fact skeptics. They chose not to believe what the majority believed. Thus making the world a better place (right?).
Anyways, I’m only hoping one thing happens from you reading this. I’m hoping you tell me I’m full of shit. And, I hope you go out and do something about it (I’m hoping you’ll be skeptical of me) because that’s how you better yourself, that’s how you learn (or go insane… both can apply).
Hmmm… maybe the red pill wasn’t in fact a “pill” after all, maybe, just maybe, it represented the skeptic mindset, the acceptance of a world that deceives you, and the acceptance of you never seeing the world blissfully ignorant ever again… Hmmm.