ABSTRACT
We are all used to thinking that our senses reveal a world that exists independently of our minds, but is this belief justified? What can I know about this external world? Can I be sure that what my senses report to me is accurate? Maybe my senses are giving me radically misleading information about what is going on in the world outside of my mind. Can I even know that an external world exists? Philosophers have been examining these questions for centuries. Some philosophers hold a position called skepticism, according to which genuine knowledge in such matters is unattainable. As we shall see, the science-fiction virtual-reality genre is ideal for introducing this topic, and the movies The Matrix and Vanilla Sky are both excellent sources for the standard arguments supporting skepticism and for hints at how modern philosophers have reacted to these arguments. My advice is to read up to and including section 1.3, then to watch the movies before resuming reading the rest of the chapter. The first two sections introduce the topic of skepticism in very general terms; having it under your belt before viewing TheMatrix and Vanilla Sky will help you extract more of the philosophical content from the movies. The material beginning in section 1.4 makes constant reference to the movies, so it would be most profitably read after viewing the movies.
