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There's evidence that your brain is influenced by e.g. certain chemicals in your bloodstream produced by gut bacteria. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archi
by GuiA 10y ago
There's evidence that your brain is influenced by e.g. certain chemicals in your bloodstream produced by gut bacteria.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/06/gut-bacteria-on-the-brain/395918/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/06/gut-bacte...
So the brain in a jar model where the only interface with the real world is through nerves is most probably wrong; now your jar also needs a stomach with a fully developed microbial ecosystem. And that's just one recent mechanism that was investigated; there are probably many others.
- TelmoMenezes 10y agoYes, but it doesn't follow that the computation necessary to generate the mind is infinite or impossible to isolate.
- frobozz 10y agoNo, at most you can say it requires a way to introduce those chemicals into the bloodstream in the brain. Actually, all you need is a way to stimulate the same receptors that are stimulated by those chemicals. Just as with unit testing, you don't actually need to hook up your SUT to a real environment, you just need to hook it up to something that will exercise the same interface as a real environment.
- Ntrails 10y agoIndeed. I over-simplified - but whatever the mechanism people refer to it's mockable.
- vidarh 10y agoIf you are a brain in a jar, then all that evidence is simulated.
- hasenj 10y agoIt's just another attached input device.