The stress here is more on underlining the levels at which we have become a product of our own suppositions. I demonstrate here that current scientific knowledge cannot prove that anything around us is really happening. I expose the problem , but the solution is left to the reader, and no where do I haughtily claim that some particular supposition is wrong. But I demonstrate that there is no way we can claim that life around us is any more different from the dream we experience.
I take you step by step to demonstrate this
1.Brain in the Vat
Situation-
This is an interesting puzzle . Today it is assumed by neuroscientists that every thought and feeling is a consequence of some brain activity. Well that is not a proven statement but it is a strongly held view. This view makes brain in the vat as real as it can be. How do we know the world? By the excitation that the nerves leading to the brain recieve. This means that the light falling on the optical nerves are not conducted as light itself to the brain but they just excite the nerve and the signals are interpreted within the nervous system and finally these impulses make us correlate with the world we know. This means that we can take the brain out of the skull and attach it to a computer, which would then send signals to the brain The brain would then have no way of knowing that it is not in the skull.
Conclusion- The information about the world collected by the brain is just a consequence of neuron activation and hence there is no way we can know using the brain alone ,whether or not the world really exists.
2. Myth of brain as a reliable observation tool.
Situation-
We Have seen through vat problem of brain, that nothing can be known truly of the world .If the individual's world view were just the consequence of the stimulation of brain cells then it is important to prove that through some principle of nature, brain happened to be stimulated in just the right way necessary for it to know about the world accurately. Any scientist would say that experience is a consequence of brain wiring. Based on this information let us come to the next point. People who report strange experiences claim them to be real. But an average individual does not see this. Immediately the scientists dub these experiences as hallucinations. whatever. But these experiences are also a consequence of brain wiring. Brain wiring leads to experience. But then how different is that experience from the experience of the normal individual, unless it can be proven that the normal individual's brain , can exactly map information of the world and present it as a coherent thought. The argument that can be made in support of the "exact map theory" is that more than one person sees the same observation and that instruments devised to measure physical phenomenon lead to the same results as the results being observed by the brain. If more than one individual can observe the same result can it not be because they have similar brain wiring. wherever brain wiring is different, there observations are different.so based on this argument one cannot support the exact map theory.Now the instruments making observations - what do they do and why do they work the way they do? Let us understand that instruments were built to finetune observations of the material world or observe phenomena that cannot be observed by senses of the body. In either case, the instruments were built to support the inferences made out of the observations of the brain.These inferences are logically consistent with the observations made. Therefore the instruments will observe phenomena in line with logically inferred possibilties of the world as conceived by the brain. But the conception of the world as understood by brain is itself due to brain wiring. Therefore observation of instruments is a mere function of brain wiring. And hence observation of instruments cannot be taken as evidence that brain understands world correctly. Thus we see the two possible reasons cited to prove that brain is a right map, cannot be really used to prove anything concrete about our understanding of the world or our understanding of the brain.
Conclusion- This completely proves that brain is only assumed to be a reliable tool for the purpose of practicality but there is no proof, on the contrary there is plenty of reason to disbelieve in the very nature of world presented by brain.
3. How much strength is there in the supposition that brain could be responsible for an individual's mind?
Situation- Is it the hen and egg problem? Did mind come first or the brain? Scientists would say it is the brain.Because brain causes mind. There is no evidence even by the standards of science . Evidences are cited to disprove the contrary claim.But these are lengthy arguments which can be easily disposed off as baseless and of no consequence to any understanding. I could argue with specific points in the comment section. What we however observe is that many a times, when we think there is brain activity which can be measured .we may also find brain activity which could affect the mind. Good . Now we can see that the same thing is possible in reverse, that mind affects brain activity too.Mind specifically affects how brain processes information. It is mind that conceives that something is happening around it. It is mind that conceives that an event in the world affects the body and also the brain.It is mind which conceives of the idea called brain, without this mind brain would cease to exist as an entity and which can be experienced. Therefore this is truly a case of the hen and egg problem.
Conclusion- The claim by some , that brain alone causes the mind to exist is purely a supposition. There is no strong reason to claim that this supposition is true.
4. The one principle that we know which is not a supposition
Situation-"At this moment I exist".
This is not a supposition. How do we know that?
If I were not true, then there is nothing called my imagination, my supposition, my belief, the validity and invalidity of all these claims dissappear. But I know I suppose, because I do. Therefore I dont need a proof to know I exist. But do you? That you only know. I hope you get the point!
Conclusion- Any theory that does not show how the structure of the world is derived from the individual's awareness of oneself is not a sound basis for understanding the nature of the world. The Reason is that awareness is the basis for all other understanding and reason is that it is the only truly unfalsifiable premise.
5.Finally the supposition model responsible for what we know of the world.
Layer 1- We start with the Individual I. This is true. But then I assumes different concepts regarding thoughts and about the mind. For instance I might assume that mind is real, I might also assume that mind is necessary for "I" . All these are unproven suppositions. So these suppositions comprise the first layer.
Layer 2- Layer 1 contributes to assumptions . Depending on how one views of one's own mind, one's assumptions about one's own brain varies. So all suppositions regarding the relation between mind and brain is unproven and hence these suppositions are dependant on layer 1 suppositions.This is Layer2
Layer3-Brain's conception of world. This is again a consequence of layer 2 suppositions,more the number of suppositions in layer2,greater the number of suppositions in layer 3.
Layer 4-Inferences made due to interaction with others and due to inferences derived from signals transmitted by mechanical instruments.These set of suppositions come into place as a consequence of layer 3 suppositions.
If we represent this as a visualizable model, we can create a three dimensional pyramid like structure based on our suppositions.This is how we really construct the world. These layers of suppositions must be deconstructed in order to truly understand the world.
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