The first one fails terribly. I’ve had dreams where I’ve thought I’ve proven some statement I’m thinking about and when waking up can remember most of the “proof” and it is clearly incoherent. No, subconscious, the fact that Martin van Buren was the 8th President of the United States does not tell me anything about zeros of L-functions. (I’ve had other proofs that were valid though so I don’t want the subconscious to stop working completely).
The second one seems more viable. May I suggest using something like electromagnetic stimulation of specific areas of the brain rather than deliberately damaging sections? For that matter, the fact that drugs can alter thought processes not just perception also strongly argues against being a brain in the vat by the same sort of logic.
I like your idea way better than mine. Smoke dope to prove you’re not in the Matrix!
Regarding the first point, yes, I guess dreams can hijack your reasoning in arbitrary ways. But maybe I’m atypical like that: whenever my dreams contain verse, music or math proofs, they always make perfect sense upon waking. They do sound “creatively weird”, and I must take care to repeat them in my mind to avoid amnesia, but they work fine on real world terms.
The first one fails terribly. I’ve had dreams where I’ve thought I’ve proven some statement I’m thinking about and when waking up can remember most of the “proof” and it is clearly incoherent. No, subconscious, the fact that Martin van Buren was the 8th President of the United States does not tell me anything about zeros of L-functions. (I’ve had other proofs that were valid though so I don’t want the subconscious to stop working completely).
The second one seems more viable. May I suggest using something like electromagnetic stimulation of specific areas of the brain rather than deliberately damaging sections? For that matter, the fact that drugs can alter thought processes not just perception also strongly argues against being a brain in the vat by the same sort of logic.
I like your idea way better than mine. Smoke dope to prove you’re not in the Matrix!
Regarding the first point, yes, I guess dreams can hijack your reasoning in arbitrary ways. But maybe I’m atypical like that: whenever my dreams contain verse, music or math proofs, they always make perfect sense upon waking. They do sound “creatively weird”, and I must take care to repeat them in my mind to avoid amnesia, but they work fine on real world terms.