8/3/2019 braininavatJP

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J O H N P O L L O C KA Brain in a Vat*

John Pollock (1940- ), of the University of Ari-zona, has written important b o o k on the theory ofknowledge, the philosophy of mind, and cognitivescience.It all began that cold Wednesday night. I was sittingalone in my office watching the rain come down onthe deserted streets outside, when the phone rang.It was Harry's wife, and she sounded terrified. Theyhad been having a late supper alone in their apart-ment when suddenly the front door came crashing inand six hpoded men burst into the room. The menwere armed and they made Harry and Anne lie facedown on the floor while they went through Harry'spockets. When they found his driver's license one ofthem carefully scrutinized Harry's face, comparingit with the official photograph and then muttered,"It's him all right." The leader of t he intruders pro-duced a hypodermic needle and injected Harry withsomething that made him lose consciousness almostimmediately. For some reason they only tied andgagged Anne. Two of the men left the room andreturned with a stretcher and white coats. They putHarry on the stretcher, donned the white coats, andtrundled him out of the apartment, leaving Annelying on the floor. She managed to squirm to thewindow in time to see them put Harry in an ambu-lance and drive away.

*From John Pollock, Comernporaw Theories of Knowledac(Savage, MD: R o m a n 8 ~ittlefield, 986). pp. 1-8. ~ e ~ r i n t i dby permission of Rowman & Littlefield.

By the time she called me, Anne was comingapan at the seams. It had taken he r several hours toget out of her bonds, and then she called the police.To her consternation, instead of uniformed officers,two plain clothed officials arrived and, without evenlooking over the scene, they proceeded to tell herthat there was nothing they could do and if she knewwhat was good for her she would keep her mouthshut. If she raised a fuss they would put out the wordthat she was a psycho and she would never see herhusband again.Not knowing what else to do, Anne called me.She had had the presence of mind to note down thenumber of the ambulance, and I had no great diffi-culty tracing ir to a private clinic at the outskirts oftown. When I amved at t he clinic I was surprised tofind it locked up like a fortress. There were guardsat the gate and it was surrounded by a massive wall.My commando training stood me in good stead as Inegotiated the 20 foot wall, avoided the barbedwire, and silenced the guard dogs on the other side.The ground floor windows were all barred, but Imanaged to wriggle up a drainpipe and get inthrough a second story window tfiat someone hadleft ajar. I found myself in a laboratory. Hearingmufled sounds next door I peeked through the key-hole and saw what appeared to be a complete oper-ating room and a surgical team laboring over Harry.He was covered with a sheet from the neck downand they seemed to be connecting tubes and wiresto him. I stifled a gasp when I realized that they hadremoved the top of Harry's skull. To my consider-

able consternation, one of the surgeons reached intothe open top of Harry's head and eased his brainout, placing it in a stainless steel bowl. The tubesand wires I had noted earlier were connected to thenow disembodied brain. The surgeons carried thebloody mass carefully o some kind of tank and low-ered it in. My first thought was that I had stumbledon a covey of futurist ic Satanists who got their kicksfrom vivisection. My second thought was that Ha rrywas an insurance agent. Maybe this was their way ofgetting even for the increases in their malpracticeinsurance rates. If they did this every Wednesdaynight, their rates were no higher than they should be!My speculations were interrupted when th e lightssuddenly came on in my darkened hidey hole and Ifound myself looking up at th e scaries t group ofmedical men I had ever seen. They manhandled meinto the next room and strapped me down on anoperating able. I thought, "Oh, oh, I'm for it now!"The doctors huddled at the other end of the room,but I couldn't turn my head far enough to see whatthey were doing. They were mumbling among them-selves, probably deciding my fate. A door openedand I heard a woman's voice. The deferential man-ner assumed by the medical malpractitioners madeit obvious who was boss. I strained to see this mys-terious woman but she hovered just out of my view.Then, to my astonishment, she walked up and stoodover me and I realized it was my secretary, Margot.I began to wish I had given her that Christmas bonusafter all.It was Margot, but it was a different Margot thanI had ever seen. She was wallowing in the headywine of authority as she bent over me. "Well Mike,you thought you were so smart, tracking Harry hereto the clinic," she said. Even now she had the sexiestvoice I have ever heard, but I wasn't really thinkingabout that. She went on, "It was all a trick just toget you here. You saw what happened to Harry.He's not really dead, you know. These gentlemenare the premier neuroscientists in the world today.They have developed a surgical procedure wherebythey remove the brain from the body but keep italive in a vat of nutrient. The Food and DrugAdministration wouldn't approve the procedure,but well show them. You see all the wires going toHany's brain? They connect him up with a powerfulcomputer. The computer monitors the output of hismotor cortex and provides input to th e sehsory cor-tex in such a way that everything appears perfectlynormal to Harry. It produces a fictitious mental life

JOHN POLLOCK 153that merges perfectly into his past life so that he isunaware that anything has happened to him. Hethinks he is shaving right now and getting ready togo to the office and stick it to another neurosurgeon.But actually, he's just a brain in a vat.""Once we have our procedure perfected we'regoing after th e head of the Food and Drug Admin-istration, but we needed some experimental subjectsfirst. Harry was easy. In order t o really tmt our com-puter program we need someone who leads a moreinteresting and varied life-someone like you!" 1was starting to squirm. The surgeons had drawnaround me and were looking on with malevolentgleams in their eyes. The biggest brute, a menwitha pockmarked face and one beady eye staring outfrom under his stringy black hair, was f o n d l i arazor sharp scalpel in his still-bloody hands andlooking as if he could barely restrain his excitement.But Margot gazed down at me and murmured in thatincredible voice, "I'll bet you think we're going tooperate on you and remove your brain just like weremoved Hany's, don't you? But you have nothingto worry about. We're not going to remove yourbrain. We already did-three months ago!"With that they let me go. I found my way back tomy office in a daze. For some reason, I haven't toldanybody about this. I can't make up my mind. I amracked by the suspicion that I am really a brain in avat and all this I see around me is just a figment ofthe computer. After all, how could I tell? If thecomputer prog;am really works, no matter what Ido, everything will seem normal. Maybe nothing Isee is real. It's driving me crazy. I've even consid-ered checking into that clinic voluntarily and askingthem to remove my brain just so that I can be sure.

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