51. Living In A Vat

Synopsis - Brian has an accident and only his brain survives. Unable to find a suitable donor body, doctors then hook Brian's brain to a supercomputer that feeds him sufficient stimuli that 'Brian' can now live his life 'normally' as his brain perceives. But is he really living or are any of us?

Isn't this basis of the Matrix movies?(I wrote that before reading Baggini's thoughts on the matter.) And what he writes about a 90% chance that we could be in a fake environment is indeed startling.

Perhaps atheists would use this argument to explain that miracles are merely the deeds of a supercomputer, sort of like the larger-than-life animations we see in the movies. These illusions would be an experiment by some puppet master. Thinking about it makes it kinda cool but at the same it makes us sad guinea pigs at the mercy of a higher being that sits in front of a computer.

I read a science fiction story when I was 11 about how God came into being. He was a kid who had special abilities and was groomed by similar others when his abilities manifested. He was later told to create life and be in charge all that went on in that experimental realm. The kid's name was G O Dextrium.

Another story I read had the solar system in a terrarium-like lab environment. It took large biblical events and reduced each to experimental intervention e.g. the great flood happened because a scientist accidentally spilled water on the terrarium. So on and so forth.

I can only conclude that if indeed we are controlled by a computer, wow, the programming must be awesome.

There's little room to really argue any defence for or against this idea. Already most of the planet already believes in some form of higher being to explain the universe's existence. The rest of us just simply take it one day at a time.