[MD] moq thought experiement 1.

[Ham Priday]

 [Krimel]
> Thoughts on TE1:
> This thread was often hard to read because I had so many
> reservations about the experiment. It started out as sci-fi but
> gravitated toward an ill conceived understanding of the
> brain-in-a-vat scenario. Brain-in-a-vat is a modern variant on
> Descartes' clever demons argument. It is the idea that our
> experience is being manipulated by some external agency for
> purposes of its own which may or not be in harmony with our own.

[Craig]:
> An ill conceived understanding of the brain-in-a-vat scenario, indeed.
> Neither the Brain-in-a-vat nor Descartes's clever demons argument
> is a morality tale.  Their point is epistemological.  In each case it is
> an attempt to drive a wedge between our experience & reality.

Craig is correct.  (How did we ever manage to turn epistemology into 
daemonology?)  In fact Descartes never "argued for" demons, nor did he 
originate the 'Brain-in-a-vat' analogy.  This argument is a contemporary 
take on the Meditations, by Hilary Putnam and others, specifically where 
Descartes concedes that his perceptions cannot be trusted, speculating that 
an evil demon might be controlling his experience, or that he might only be 
dreaming.

But since Krimel has raised the analogy of an "external agency" manipulating 
our experience "for its own purposes", how is this different from Pirsig's 
theory of a moral universe that "moves all things to betterness"?  Whether 
daemonic or not, if man is programmed by an external agency, he is clearly 
not a free agent, thus ruling out the possibility that the cognitive subject 
can choose his own values and direct his own actions in the world.

I submit that it is Pirsig, not Descartes, who has put man in a cosmic "vat" 
by denying him the autonomy of free choice and self-determination.  At least 
Descartes acknowledged that he was a unique entity whose experience was 
proprietary and non-transferable.

What are your thoughts on this aspect of "agency"?

--Ham