> you should ask yourself what alcohol and drugs are.
A way of inducing an altered state of consciousness, just like sleeping and meditating. This isn't problematic for the "brain in vat" scenario.
A way of inducing an altered state of consciousness, just like sleeping and meditating. This isn't problematic for the "brain in vat" scenario.
Sleeping and meditating are both internal to the brain, but alcohol only becomes internal to the brain if it has some physical access to the brain.
For the brain in a vat theory to work, the computer controlling the simulation would have to monitor the amount of alcohol that is in the bloodstream of the simulated being, and adjust the alcohol in the vat accordingly?
IF a consciousness was housed in a black box (a brain, but we're ignoring it's internals) AND that black box had inputs connected to a computer that can send signals to the black box that it WOULD interpret as signals of sight, sound, touch, hunger, intoxication, etc.
THEN how is one suppose to conclude that they are not just a consciousness in a box because they 'feel' drunk after they 'feel' they've ingested alcohol.
There's no need to monitor alcohol levels because the alcohol hasn't been proven to exist!