Dismantling Descartes

In the 1999 movie The Matrix, Neo emerges from a vat of jelly shortly after taking the Red Pill. It suggested that there is a separation between the mind and the body and that the brain as the master driver of experiences could be hijacked to keep the body subjugated until its useful life—under the control of an outside force—had terminated. Likewise, students taking philosophy are often introduced to Rene Descartes’ “Cogito ergo sum,” which translates as, “I think, therefore I am.” The central idea of the discourse is that the mind is proof of existence, even if the body cannot be verified. Indeed, many of us seem to live one life inside our heads while our body moves through a different, physical world. By way of introducing the mind-body dichotomy, it also suggested an unintended hierarchy. Do any of us really believe we are mere “brain in a vat”?