At "Certain Doubts," yet another philosophy weblog (these philosophy weblogs stick together, so if you ferrer out one, you ferret out dozens), there is an interesting post on the Brains-in-Vats argument I was so cynical about earlier. The claim is that the argument is worth study; after discussing how people respond to the argument, the author (Keith DeRose) concludes:
"All of this can lead one to think that AI really is a remarkable argument. Any argument whose weakest link is that intuitively powerful and yet has such an implausible conclusion is something of a wonder."
I remain unconvinced. There are lots of arguments that are intuitively powerful in the sense he describes with implausible conclusions; they are called sophisms. My position is as it was before: worth study in the way any philosophical argument might be, but not a wonder.
