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¶ … Hypothetical Scenario:
The creation of a "sensory bar" and the First Meditation of Rene Descartes
At the beginning of the "First Meditation" the French philosopher Rene Descartes takes a philosophical posture known as radical skepticism: he resolves to doubt anything that cannot be proven. After all, he rationalizes, he is aware of the fact that sometimes he is dreaming and since this is the case, might not all the world be a dream? "As if I were not a man who sleeps at night and often has all the same experiences while asleep as madmen do when awake -- indeed sometimes even more improbable ones. Often in my dreams I am convinced of just such familiar events -- that I am sitting by the fire in my dressing-gown -- when in fact I am lying undressed in bed" (Descartes 1). The "sensory module" theoretically attempts to circumvent this possibility, alerting the user whenever he or she is misperceiving the world, either because of dreaming or simply not wearing his or her glasses.
However, this solution is a very literal and unsatisfactory answer to the deeper philosophical questions Descartes is raising. Descartes' skepticism is so radical, he would merely counter that it is possible that the sensory bar itself and the data which it gives back is a dream. True, when we are dreaming the machine reads "zero...
"I realize that there is never any reliable way of distinguishing being awake from being asleep" (Descartes 2). Although we might occasionally experience a strong sense of demarcation between the waking and dreaming world, this might itself be a delusion.
Even the sensation of having a body is not necessarily a confirmation that our senses are accurate. "Suppose then that I am dreaming -- it isn't true that I, with my eyes open, am moving my head and stretching out my hands. Suppose, indeed that I don't even have hands or anybody at all" (Descartes 2). The sensory bar is just another, glorified version of our hands, eyes, tongue, and other methods of accessing the world. These can be delusions and these also can yield false data. It is just as possible to "test" the accuracy of our hands by touching our fingers to a hot plate and then noting that they are singed. But just like the "zero percent" accuracy reading of the sensory bar, the burn on…
Work Cited
Descartes, R. Meditations on First Philosophy. Web. 12 Oct 2014.
http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/pdfs/descartes1641_1.pdf
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