Challenging the very nature of reality!

DESCARTES' EVIL GENIUS (Joel Levy, A bee in a cathedral. And 99 other scientific analogies.)

If you were nothing more than a brain in a vat of fluid, wired up to a computer that simulated reality for you, would you be able to tell?

In 1641 French philosopher René Descartes (1596-1650) posed an argument that challenges the very nature of reality, posing the ultimate doubt about the universe, 'Suppose', he wrote, 'some evil genius not less powerful than deceitful, has employed his whole energies in deceiving me; I shall consider that... all ... external things are but illusions and dreams of which this genius has availed himself to lay traps for my credulity.' In other words, if the only means we have to determine the nature and existence of reality is the information that arrives in the mind via senses, it is possible that we could be deceived via these senses.

The modern version of this sceptical dilemma is the 'brain in a vat' problem. If you are not really a person with a body, walking around and interacting with reality, but actually just a brain suspended in a vat, fed a simulation of reality by a powerful computer, there would be no way to tell the difference.

This conceit forms the basis of the film The Matrix.

Interesting stuff to know:

The cerebrum - the outer part of the brain - is thought to be the seat of the conscious mind. If the cerebrum's wrinkles were all unfolded, it would cover four pieces of A4 paper.

The mind can have extraordinary powers over the body. Hindu holy men, known as saddhus, can consciously slow their heart rates to just two beats a minute and stay under water for up to six minutes.

Some Tibetan monks practise a skill known as tumo, where they learn to raise the temperature of their fingers and toes by up to 8°C (15°F), simply by an effort of will.

You spend the equivalent of 122 days asleep every year - that's about a third of your life.

The dolphin and the echidna are the only mammals that do not have REM sleep (as far as researchers can tell).

Newborn babies spend up to 70% of their sleep time in REM sleep.

From conception humans design their own reality with input from parents, family and the world. If our heavenly Father would have been our single input, how amazing could reality have been?