Thought in a vat: thinking through Annie Cattrell [An article from: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biol & Biomed Sci]

This digital document is a journal article from Studies in History and Philosophy of Biol & Biomed Sci, published by Elsevier in 2004. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
This essay reflects on some aspects of the brain in a vat problem through a consideration of the work of the sculptor Annie Cattrell. Cattrell's series of sculptures 'Sense' render in three dimensions MRI scans of different sensory functions in the human brain. These objects-which could be said to represent thought itself stilled and suspended in a transparent medium-make dramatically visible the doctrine of the localization of brain function. The essay argues that the brain in a vat problem in philosophy is an outcome of the same neural 'mapping' project as made Cattrell's 'thought in a vat' possible. An interview with the artist reveals a moral dimension to her preoccupation with the localization of function. The article therefore goes on to consider the brain in a vat in the context of some of the history and ethics of the localizationist paradigm.