My Take | How to test Descartes’ evil genius hypothesis in labs
- Computer scientists, physicists and neuroscientists are on the verge of creating the empirical conditions to test French philosopher’s famous thought experiment
“I shall then suppose, not that God who is supremely good and the fountain of truth, but some evil genius not less powerful than deceitful, has employed his whole energies in deceiving me; I shall consider that the heavens, the earth, colours, figures, sound, and all other external things are nought but the illusions and dreams of which this genius has availed himself in order to lay traps for my credulity; I shall consider myself as having no hands, no eyes, no flesh, no blood, nor any senses, yet falsely believing myself to possess all these things; I shall remain obstinately attached to this idea, and if by this means it is not in my power to arrive at the knowledge of any truth, I may at least do what is in my power [i.e. suspend my judgment], and with firm purpose avoid giving credence to any false thing, or being imposed upon by this arch deceiver, however powerful and deceptive he may be.”
Meditations on First Philosophy, Meditation 1, Rene Descartes
Last year, two groups of US neuroscientists independently published two stunning papers that led to sensational news headlines like “Frankenswine” and “Aporkalypse”.
An outside neurologist was brought in, who thought they had misread their electroencephalogram (EEG) used to detect electrical activities in neurons. Still all parties involved thought the EEG activity was possible in principle and that the Yale team was right to shut down the experiment.
Instead of pig neurons, another group, based at the University of California, San Diego, was experimenting with hundreds of miniature human brains, called brain organoids, that were grown from human stem cells.