#daniel postgate

Devon-based independent bookseller Postscript Books are currently offering copies of Clangers - The Complete Scripts 1969–1974 by Daniel and Oliver Postgate at substantial discount

Ahead of his 50th anniversary next year, this week sees the release of the hugely popular Bagpuss animated series in high definition - and there are other celebratory happenings, too

Bagpuss celebrates his 50th birthday today, and several celebratory happenings have been laid on to mark this milestone – and there's the opportunity to celebrate this special birthday in aid of a good cause, Hospices of Hope, too

Bagpuss celebrates his 50th birthday today, Monday 12th February marking the stop-motion series, centred on a  “saggy old cloth cat” and his friends, was first broadcast on the BBC back in 1974. Several celebratory happenings have been laid on to mark this milestone – and there’s the opportunity to celebrate this special birthday in aid of a good cause, Hospices of Hope, too. Just 13 episodes of…

Ivor the Engine steams back to DVD

Fabulous Films will release a new collection of Peter Firmin and Oliver Postgate’s Ivor the Engine next month.

Inspired by Dylan Thomas‘ poetry and created by hand, initially in a tumbledown cow shed, Ivor the Engine, first broadcast on ITV in 1959, was the show that led to the creation of some of Britain’s most popular children’s television programmes – Bagpuss, The Clangers, Noggin the Nog,

If only people were so sympathetic.

The Brain in the Vat

For those that read philosophy, the brain in the vat is sort of a staple thought experiment.  It goes quite far back into philosophical history if - as I do - you believe it's a modern rewrite of Descarte's evil Demon.

The general idea is that if you believe our experiences correlate with (or are identical to) mental states, or patterns of neuronal firings, then it becomes possible in theory to simulate experience exactly without the external stimuli we usually associate it with.  You can experience "red" in the absence of actual "red", as long as your neuronal firings match the "red" pattern.  Get it?  In fact, you can eat a red apple while lounging on a red pillow, watching a red sunset, in your experiences, while your reality is in fact only your brain in a vat, being fed these experiences via electrical impulses.

Philosophers bring this up a lot, but Alva Noe, author of the book I'm currently reading (called "Out of Our Heads") says that, as a thought experiment, the brain in the vat has got to go.

The thought experiment (he says) rests on the assumption that consciousness resides completely in the brain.  Noe would say it's more of a property of the entire body and it's environment.  (In fact, Noe says it's something we do, not something we have, but his full thesis can be saved for a later post).

Thinking very carefully about the vat, Noe points out that it would have to provide oxygen and nutrients.  It would have to eliminate wastes, and possibly fight off infection.  A vat that could do all this begins to seem complicated, and the implication is that only something as complicated as an animal body (or perhaps an animal head) could do it.

A brain also requires stimulation... at least in all the famous thought experiments.  A brain in complete "sensory" deprivation wouldn't tell us much about consciousness.  So, electrical impulses corresponding to things like "red", and "the taste of apple" would have to be fed into the brain.  Noe suggests that this could be so difficult to encode that the easiest way may be to have something resembling rods and cones (or taste buds), and expose them to the real thing.

Perhaps the only vat capable of meeting the high standards of the classic thought experiments is a body, and perhaps the easiest (only?) way to furnish realistic experiences is to present the actual experiences to that body.  Our vat turns out to be not so different from the same old, ultra-complicated world we live in.

Do I buy all this?  I'm not sure yet.  But... it made me think.