Augustine wrote the Matrix
I may or may not be writing this essay from the inside of a vat.
In “The Teacher” Augustine writes “we can’t know the thoughts of the speakers, though we speak the same language and the words are Latin and are clearly heard”. This passage suggests that despite speaking the same language in clear words, we cannot know the actual thoughts of speakers. His message here highlights the “temple of the mind” as something we may be more familiar with while analysing the knowability of external words, signs and communication - the thoughts of other people. Augustine presents a reality where the only thoughts we can know are our own.
In my first year as an undergraduate I signed up for Philosophy 100 where we learned about skepticism via the “Brains in a Vat” theory. While my young mind may not have had the abstract capacity to really identify with Augustine's religious undercurrents or Descartes' dense philosophy, the contemporary Brain in a Vat idea really stuck. Having watched the movie ‘The Matrix’, the Brains in a Vat idea was very digestible and built capacity in my perspective to later engage with more complex philosophy. I still haven’t decided whether or not I might be a brain in a vat, but the idea definitely shaped the way I interact with other people by shedding light on something I do believe; there is no way for me to really know the thoughts of other people, or as Augustine would put it, speakers. The only thoughts I can really try to know are my own. If I might be a brain in a vat, so might everyone else. How exciting!
Between Augustine’s not knowing the “thoughts of speakers” and the Brains in a Vat theory, both ideas point to the independence of inner thought and our inability to verify external stimuli as true. The presentation of both texts relies on establishing a clear definition of what can be known of the external world. Augustine specifically focuses on language and the thoughts of others while Brains in a Vat zeroes in on whether we can validate anything about the external world. It is even possible that these two ideas are historically linked. As I write this paragraph, it dawns on me that the Brain Vat Theory might have actually been inspired by Agustine’s “The Teacher''. A few clicks of the mouse suggest that Brains in a Vat was inspired by Descartes’ “I think Therefore I Am” which in turn was rooted in Agustinian principles. This sweet engagement with “The Teacher” after this epiphany feels like meeting the grandparent of the Brains in a Vat Theory.
A critic might argue that a relation between two concepts above serves as an observation of history and not a meaningful association. A more technical critic might point out that these theories are too different from one another to allow any claim of influence between them. While both theories have to do with the knowing of thoughts, Augustine’s messaging is more focused on communication with God and not knowing the thoughts of others, while the Brains in a Vat theory is less about others and more centered on whether or not I can know if I am a brain in a vat and what’s going on with my self-thought.
This critic may have picked the red pill. My suggestion of the causal history that led us from Augustine’s message through Descartes to Brains in a Vat and later to the Matrix may in fact be a historical observation. What makes it a meaningful association is the way these philosophical theories paved the way for my understanding in reverse chronological order, connecting the more recent pop culture to the ancient. It is difficult to say that any thought that comes about is not in some way influenced directly or indirectly by theories that came before. This does not depend on the actual validity of what was written in ink by Descartes, the inventor of Brains in a Vat or the creators of the Matrix and if they intended to follow the good word of St.Augustine. On the distinction between knowing the thoughts of others or knowing the vat status of the self, I will point out that it may be argued that the two are linked but not mutually exclusive. What I find most exciting is that one medium (film) has the power to be of service to the understanding of skepticism even for a brain in a vat like me. If I cannot know whether or not I am a Brain in a Vat, how could I begin to fathom what the thoughts of others are?