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Brain in a vat. A brain in a vat that believes it is walking. In philosophy, the brain in a vat (BIV) is a scenario used in a variety of thought experiments intended to draw out certain features of human conceptions of knowledge, reality, truth, mind, consciousness, and meaning. Gilbert Harman originated the scenario, [1] which Hilary Putnam ...
Hilary Whitehall Putnam (/ ˈpʌtnəm /; July 31, 1926 – March 13, 2016) was an American philosopher, mathematician, computer scientist, and figure in analytic philosophy in the second half of the 20th century. He contributed to the studies of philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, philosophy of mathematics, and philosophy of science. [5]
Philosopher Hilary Putnam argues that some versions of the thought experiment would be inconsistent due to semantic externalism. For a brain in a vat that had only ever experienced the simulated world, the statement "I'm not a brain in a vat" is true.
Twin Earth thought experiment. Twin Earth is a thought experiment proposed by philosopher Hilary Putnam in his papers "Meaning and Reference" (1973) and "The Meaning of 'Meaning ' " (1975). It is meant to serve as an illustration of his argument for semantic externalism, or the view that the meanings of words are not purely psychological.
Such scenarios had been used many times in science fiction but in philosophy it is now routine to refer to being like a 'brain in a vat' after Hilary Putnam produced an argument which, ironically, purported to show that "the supposition that we are actually brains in a vat, although it violates no physical law, and is perfectly consistent with ...
The philosopher Hilary Putnam (1975/1985) proposed this position and summarized it with the statement "meanings just ain't in the head!". Although he did not use the term "externalism" at the time, Putnam is thought to have pioneered semantic externalism in his 1975 paper "The Meaning of 'Meaning '".
In responding to skepticism, Hilary Putnam (1982 [11]) claims that semantic externalism yields "an argument we can give that shows we are not brains in a vat (BIV). (See also DeRose, 1999. [ 12 ] ) If semantic externalism is true, then the meaning of a word or sentence is not wholly determined by what individuals think those words mean.
Multiple realizability. In the philosophy of mind, multiple realizability is the thesis that the same mental property, state, or event can be implemented by different physical properties, states, or events. Philosophers of mind have used multiple realizability to argue that mental states are not the same as — and cannot be reduced to ...