V.

10^th November 1981

…the alarm sounded in the apartment room at 7 o’clock. Hilary stood up and was taken back to the wake, finally getting out of the nightmare that had trapped him for a whole night. The pillow was wet, as was the shirt of his pajamas. He hit his face and moved violently his right arm, which tingled from being in a strange position at night for hours.

Hilary tried but couldn’t recover from that nightmare in the nightmare: a group of scientists killed by men who had been forced to undergo horrible experiments and the dream of one of these scientists, such as Henry, on the French philosopher Descartes, in turn killed by the terrible evil genius.

A vortex of fear that had swallowed the mind of Hilary who, after a few minutes, decided to get up and make a nice coffee. He went to the bathroom first and repeatedly flushed his face as if to take away the anxiety that had gripped his heart.

«It was just a dream» – he said to himself.

With her heart still beating, Hilary went into the kitchen and made coffee, the usual pancakes and a nice glass of orange juice. The fear was slowly fading away and a slight smile appeared on his face. As he bit into one of his wonderful pancakes, the phone rang.

«Hello» – he said in a squiggly voice.

«Good morning, Professor Putnam. I’m sorry to disturb you. I call to inform you that the technical problem we had yesterday has been solved and we can continue the cycle of conferences».

«Oh… perfect» – said Hilary.

«Then, see you later».

«To later, thank you».

Hilary, happy, got up and headed back to the bathroom for a refreshing shower before getting ready for his lecture and the day of study that was waiting for him.

The dream seemed to have left his mind and, in its place, the usual pre-conference pleasure, the taste of sharing with others the fruit of their own research took hold.

***

…two hours later

The room was full. Everyone was waiting for Hilary Putnam’s intervention. The theme of the lecture cycle was Mind and Reality: a buzz ran from one end of the room to the other, and words like truth, meaning, reality came out from time to time. The topics of the moment. Suddenly silence fell.

Hilary Putnam had climbed on the small stage in the middle of the room, placed the microphone and started his lecture:

«Imagine that a human being (you can imagine this to be yourself) has been subjected to an operation by an evil scientist. The person’s brain (your brain) has been removed from the body and placed in a vat of nutrients which keeps the brain alive…».

Giovanni Covino

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Notes

[1] Hilary Putnam (Chicago 1926 – Boston 2016).

[2] See Hilary Putnam, Brains in a Vat, on philosophy.as.uky.edu: https://philosophy.as.uky.edu/sites/default/files/Brains%20in%20a%20Vat%20-%20Hilary%20Putnam.pdf