Why trust your own brain?

[super animator]

How can you tell that the brain isn't tricking you? How can you tell that what you see, hear, taste, etc, isn't just a well design elaborate illusion?
Well I sure can't. I have no other choice, but to depend on it though.

 

[louise sheinholtz]

How can you tell that the brain isn't tricking you? How can you tell that what you see, hear, taste, etc, isn't just a well design elaborate illusion?
Well I sure can't. I have no other choice, but to depend on it though.

You are one smart cookie. WE are not who we think we are , but can learn by becoming aware of every thought that enters the mind. Then you will know which one to trust. One comes from above and the rest come from a lying source.
Be honest with yourself and learn which is which.

You have a good mind to ask that question.
Louise

 

[bhsmte]

Our brain tricks us all the time. Some people more often than others and much of it depends on whether you are an analytical thinker or an intuitive thinker.

We also have powerful defense mechanisms that our brains use (denial, projection, cognitive dissonance, etc.) are other examples of how our brains will protect our beliefs, sometimes at all costs.

 

[Tinker Grey]

Inasmuch as I get desired results, I can suppose my brain is not tricking me or is tricking me in a benign way.

When my behavior doesn't get desired results, I modify the interpretation of my senses.

If there are inconsistencies in results, I look for additional information.

These patterns of behavior have always worked. When they cease to work, I will look for new and/or additional ones.

If my brain is tricking me in ways that have no bearing in my achieving desired results, then it doesn't matter.

 

[Oafman]

Neil deGrasse Tyson said that optical illusions ought to be called brain failures.

Like this:

 

[juvenissun]

How can you tell that the brain isn't tricking you? How can you tell that what you see, hear, taste, etc, isn't just a well design elaborate illusion?
Well I sure can't. I have no other choice, but to depend on it though.

Study science. Science is trying to find something outside of your brain (i.e. data) as landmarks, so you have more confidence on what you really are.

Remind you: Adam and Eve Have Had the smart fruit. That is why we are actually smarter than ourselves.

 

[discipulus]

How can you tell that the brain isn't tricking you? How can you tell that what you see, hear, taste, etc, isn't just a well design elaborate illusion?
Well I sure can't. I have no other choice, but to depend on it though.

this is one of those philosophical questions that are only thought of in philosophical circles.

if you were to ask the average joe this question on the street they would look at you as if you were quite mad.

none of us lives in perpetual doubt about whether or not our brains are tricking us. God did not create us that way.

i mean think about it. when you are preparing to cross a busy street, do you stand there and say gee whiz, maybe these cars dont really exist and they are just illusions of my mind playing tricks on me.

of course not.

while driving down the road, do you think that the cars coming towards you are mere illusions generated by a tricky brain?

of course not.

if we do not live as if our brains are tricking us why do we ask these types of questions? is it not useless? is it not otiose?

i do understand your point however animator. its just that too much discussion in philosophy revolves around stuff that simply is self-evident. i think philosophy for the most part is an exercise of futility.

 

[fishing]

Brain in a vat scenario.

This is why Descartes suggested the only thing we may really be certain of is that, at any given moment, we are a thinking thing - cogito ergo sum

Of course, we take things on faith. We take a leap of faith and believe that the people around us are not illusions or robots and that they are in fact made of the same sort of soul stuff that we are made of.

Life is full of leaps of faith. There is also the leap of faith that we have free will. Sam Harris has made it quite clear that under a rational, Newtonian paradigm, there is so room for free will. Our thoughts are determined by our biology, experiences, etc. Of course, it doesn't seem that way to us, and that seem is important. This is where the objectivity-obsessed atheists hit a bit of a bump; they are trying to arrive at 'objectivity' through their hopelessly subjective lens. They internalize existential leaps of faith, such as presuming they are not brains in vats, that life has meaning and shouldn't be destroyed etc, but they do not admit that those are in fact leaps of faith, that they are generally internalized morals that have been developed through non-rational spiritual traditions.

Morality isn't rational.

Woah I really went on a tangent there, didn't I?

 

[essentialsaltes]

How can you tell that the brain isn't tricking you? How can you tell that what you see, hear, taste, etc, isn't just a well design elaborate illusion?
Well I sure can't. I have no other choice, but to depend on it though.

Reminds me of that great philosopher, Chico Marx...

Your Excellency, I thought you left.
Oh no, I no leave.
But I saw you with my own eyes.
Well, who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?

 

[quatona]

How can you tell that the brain isn't tricking you?

As opposed to doing what?

How can you tell that what you see, hear, taste, etc, isn't just a well design elaborate illusion?

As opposed to what, and what difference would it make anyway?

 

[GrowingSmaller]

If you say you have a brain, but the brain is decieving you such that you cannot trust your perceptions, then you have philosophically undermined the basis for the posit "I have a brain" in the first place.

Perceptions illusory.

"Brain" is a perception based concept.

Therefore brain itself is illusory.

So if there is that much illusion sufficient to doubt the validity of the life world, one cannot argue cogently that the brain is the cause (and the concept of senses is undermined too).

So either there is a known brain and not sufficient illusion for skepticism, or there is sufficient illusion for skepticism but no therefore known brain as the cause of our predicament.

But I suppose to actually verify an illusion you have to have an objective standard with which to compare the illusory world to. So the idea of total skepticism cannot come from a induction based on illusions (there are some illusions, therefore all things are illusions by generalisation). Thats because the concept "illusion" depends on "objective standard", and therefore known objective truth.

 

[Eudaimonist]

How can you tell that the brain isn't tricking you? How can you tell that what you see, hear, taste, etc, isn't just a well design elaborate illusion?
Well I sure can't. I have no other choice, but to depend on it though.

I see no evidence that it is tricking me. Without that evidence, I place the claim that the brain is tricking me in the same unsupported claim category as the existence of gods and leprechauns.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[madaz]

How can you tell that the brain isn't tricking you?

I have witnessed elaborate and complex hallucinations due to medication and I still knew my brain was tricking me. In my opinion, if what you are sensing seems unreal or somehow supernatural, then your brain is probably tricking you.

How can you tell that what you see, hear, taste, etc, isn't just a well design elaborate illusion?

I have no reason to believe it is a well designed elaborate illusion, so I don't question it.

Well I sure can't. I have no other choice, but to depend on it though.

That's right we have to depend on it, but I believe if you have a propensity to believe in the supernatural then you will have more difficulty depending on it.

 

[KCfromNC]

Our brain tricks us all the time. Some people more often than others and much of it depends on whether you are an analytical thinker or an intuitive thinker.

We also have powerful defense mechanisms that our brains use (denial, projection, cognitive dissonance, etc.) are other examples of how our brains will protect our beliefs, sometimes at all costs.

Add to that there is evidence that our conscious mind doesn't seem to have any special insight into what out brains are actually doing, e.g. http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~wegner/pdfs/Wegner&Wheatley1999.pdf. If the conscious mind can be tricked into thinking the brain did something by manipulating what we observe, how much insight does it really have into the workings of the rest of the brain?

 

[Eudaimonist]

BTW, I agree with the others that the brain does provide mental material that can easily be misinterpreted if one isn't careful. An example would be optical illusions. I don't think that the brain is trying to "trick" us, but simply provides information in certain ways.

What I object to is that it takes a "leap of faith" to reject speculations that have no real evidence in favor of them. I don't make any leap of faith when I don't believe that Scientology's body thetans exist, for instance. The burden of proof falls on them.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Paradoxum]

You can't know your experiences aren't completely an illusion. Nevertheless you have to act like they are real.

i do understand your point however animator. its just that too much discussion in philosophy revolves around stuff that simply is self-evident. i think philosophy for the most part is an exercise of futility.

What stuff does it talk about that are self-evident? This issue clearly isn't. People obviously live as if the world is real, but that doesn't mean we can know that it is real.

Brain in a vat scenario.

This is why Descartes suggested the only thing we may really be certain of is that, at any given moment, we are a thinking thing - cogito ergo sum.

Though that is false too. Your thoughts could come from somewhere else too. You don't know what you will think until you think it, and even then thoughts just appear. I know Nietzsche said something like this, though it might have been said before. All we can know is that there is a thing (which could be multiple things linked together) that experiences.

Of course, we take things on faith. We take a leap of faith and believe that the people around us are not illusions or robots and that they are in fact made of the same sort of soul stuff that we are made of.

Life is full of leaps of faith. There is also the leap of faith that we have free will. Sam Harris has made it quite clear that under a rational, Newtonian paradigm, there is so room for free will. Our thoughts are determined by our biology, experiences, etc. Of course, it doesn't seem that way to us, and that seem is important. This is where the objectivity-obsessed atheists hit a bit of a bump; they are trying to arrive at 'objectivity' through their hopelessly subjective lens. They internalize existential leaps of faith, such as presuming they are not brains in vats, that life has meaning and shouldn't be destroyed etc,

Are they leaps of faith if you accept that you are just doing it because it is necessary to live a decent life? For example, I don't believe in free will, but to live life normally I have to act like free will exists. That isn't faith... it's just living in a prudent way.

but they do not admit that those are in fact leaps of faith, that they are generally internalized morals that have been developed through non-rational spiritual traditions.

Morality isn't rational.

It depends what you mean by it being not rational. Morality isn't 'out there', to be found and tested. Maths also isn't 'out there', but is it not rational to do maths?

 

[discipulus]

You can't know your experiences aren't completely an illusion. Nevertheless you have to act like they are real.



What stuff does it talk about that are self-evident? This issue clearly isn't. People obviously live as if the world is real, but that doesn't mean we can know that it is real.



Though that is false too. Your thoughts could come from somewhere else too. You don't know what you will think until you think it, and even then thoughts just appear. I know Nietzsche said something like this, though it might have been said before. All we can know is that there is a thing (which could be multiple things linked together) that experiences.



Are they leaps of faith if you accept that you are just doing it because it is necessary to live a decent life? For example, I don't believe in free will, but to live life normally I have to act like free will exists. That isn't faith... it's just living in a prudent way.



It depends what you mean by it being not rational. Morality isn't 'out there', to be found and tested. Maths also isn't 'out there', but is it not rational to do maths?

You live in contradiction to your beliefs?

That is interesting indeed.....

 

[Davian]

How can you tell that the brain isn't tricking you? How can you tell that what you see, hear, taste, etc, isn't just a well design elaborate illusion?
Well I sure can't. I have no other choice, but to depend on it though.

I do see not evidence that my brain is "tricking me". Under the phenomenal self model of consciousness, "me" (I) am a construct of my brain.

Being No One: Consciousness, The Phenomenal Self, and First-Person Perspective with Thomas Metzinger - UCTV - University of California Television

Is the model the brain constructs of the outside world accurate? I expect that it is, in evolutionary terms, "good enough". I can safely drive my car, and climb a ladder, or ride a bicycle. When handling hot or sharp objects, it is rare that I burn/cut myself.

I don't always trust my senses, or more to the point, the interpretation of my senses that my brain hands off to my conscious self. For the work that I do in audio and video, I use electronic tools to analyze/measure sound levels, spectrum, colours, etc., as I know, for example, that my visual cortex "sees" colours in context, not absolutes, and that my hearing cannot accurately compare subtly differences in sound levels from one day to the next.

What kind of "trickery" do you think your brain is subjecting you to?

 

[HitchSlap]

I make three fundamental assumptions:

1. Reality exists.
2. We can know some things about reality.
3. Models with predictive capabilities work better than those without.

 

[Loudmouth]

How can you tell that the brain isn't tricking you? How can you tell that what you see, hear, taste, etc, isn't just a well design elaborate illusion?
Well I sure can't. I have no other choice, but to depend on it though.

The best you can do is test your conclusions from as many angles as possible, and have other people do the same.

Besides, if we live in a perfect illusion we wouldn't know it anyway, so why not pretend it is the real thing?