Zeno
03-11-2003, 01:25 AM
There is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has said it. – Cicero
To prove Cicero right and that philosophy is an engaging pastime, I submit the following:
Brain in a Vat. Contemporary counterpart of Descartes’ hypothesis that one’s beliefs are induced by an evil genius.
Used within a premise in arguments for skepticism, the hypothesis says that nothing exists except one’s brain – in a vat, in order that its electrochemical activity should be sustained – so that whatever may seem to one to be the case, its seeming so is accounted for by such activity alone. The skeptic invites one to say ‘For all I know, I am a brain in a vat, and there is no external world’.
Brains in vats are introduced also in philosophy of mind in connection with the idea that a person’s psychological faculties require nothing but a brain’s operation.
From:The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, Oxford University Press, 1995 p 102.
************************************************** *********
Setting aside for the moment, Descartes’ evil genius, is this ‘brain in a vat’ something that concerns Poker Players. Is your brain in a Vat? Does only a functional brain account for your knowledge of the external world? Are you actually a disembodied entity? Does this have implications for poker theory and how you can play poker? For example, do some poker players think of poker only has a “brain in a vat” type phenomena?
And then we come to the obvious question of - who makes the vats? This becomes a very disconcerting problem does it not? Other difficulties also arise. Your brain sitting around the poker table in a vat, that resembles an old, decayed wooden wash tub, trying to grasp cards, say check or raise, pick up tells, or muck a pair of deuces preflop.
And going a bit further, is the 2+2 website nothing more than a lot of brains in vats, all interconnected electronically and communicating thoughts only. Is this all an illusion? Is there really nobody at the other “end of the line”. For all you know, Zeno may be just another brain in a vat. A big vat; I would like to boast. And if that is not throwing everyone a straight line…….
And finally, is Mason’s play of late been affected by a lack of Vat Space. A Vat gap?
Can you postulate a Vat Gap Theory?
Lastly, again remember - are there really other people out there? Think about it. Think long and hard. Ponder the significance. It will start to eat at your brain after while.
Better hope no one tips your vat over.
-Zeno "Not that Zeno...The other one."
To prove Cicero right and that philosophy is an engaging pastime, I submit the following:
Brain in a Vat. Contemporary counterpart of Descartes’ hypothesis that one’s beliefs are induced by an evil genius.
Used within a premise in arguments for skepticism, the hypothesis says that nothing exists except one’s brain – in a vat, in order that its electrochemical activity should be sustained – so that whatever may seem to one to be the case, its seeming so is accounted for by such activity alone. The skeptic invites one to say ‘For all I know, I am a brain in a vat, and there is no external world’.
Brains in vats are introduced also in philosophy of mind in connection with the idea that a person’s psychological faculties require nothing but a brain’s operation.
From:The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, Oxford University Press, 1995 p 102.
************************************************** *********
Setting aside for the moment, Descartes’ evil genius, is this ‘brain in a vat’ something that concerns Poker Players. Is your brain in a Vat? Does only a functional brain account for your knowledge of the external world? Are you actually a disembodied entity? Does this have implications for poker theory and how you can play poker? For example, do some poker players think of poker only has a “brain in a vat” type phenomena?
And then we come to the obvious question of - who makes the vats? This becomes a very disconcerting problem does it not? Other difficulties also arise. Your brain sitting around the poker table in a vat, that resembles an old, decayed wooden wash tub, trying to grasp cards, say check or raise, pick up tells, or muck a pair of deuces preflop.
And going a bit further, is the 2+2 website nothing more than a lot of brains in vats, all interconnected electronically and communicating thoughts only. Is this all an illusion? Is there really nobody at the other “end of the line”. For all you know, Zeno may be just another brain in a vat. A big vat; I would like to boast. And if that is not throwing everyone a straight line…….
And finally, is Mason’s play of late been affected by a lack of Vat Space. A Vat gap?
Can you postulate a Vat Gap Theory?
Lastly, again remember - are there really other people out there? Think about it. Think long and hard. Ponder the significance. It will start to eat at your brain after while.
Better hope no one tips your vat over.
-Zeno "Not that Zeno...The other one."