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Trolls, Skeptics & Philosophers

Rosemary Twomey questions our online epistemology.

You come across this comment on a Yankees subreddit: “The Yankees would be winning if not for horrible Aaron Judge. He brings down the team! Worst Captain EVER!!” You try to engage this person, pointing out Judge’s positive demeanor, how well liked he is by his teammates, and his offensive and defensive prowess. At every turn they repeat essentially the same remark. Eventually, you realize this person is trolling you: they’re pretending to be a Yankees fan, engaging you in conversation as though they’re expressing sincerely-held beliefs, but in fact they just enjoy annoying other people and wasting their time.

As is well-known, some skeptics in philosophy have asked: “How can you know you’re not a brain in a vat being artificially stimulated through electrodes to experience as if you’re in a real world?”. Yet ‘brain in a vat skeptics’ of this sort are much like the Redditor troll. They are philosophy trolls. Serious metaphysicians who structure their theories around responding to the brain in a vat question are wasting their time, while simultaneously legitimating an unreasonable objection.

Not all contrarians are trolls. People who argue in favor of the ‘simulation hypothesis’, for instance, think that it’s much more likely than not that we’re living in a simulation of reality. Such people look at the creative possibilities of technology, and sincerely conclude that the number of computer simulations likely run over the history of the universe by advanced alien races would be so vast as to make it probable that we’re in one of those simulations. But these individuals are not troll-like skeptics, because they hold beliefs – specifically, the belief that it is overwhelmingly likely that our experiences are illusory. However, the brain in a vat skeptic does not appear to have beliefs, only an impossible-to-refute question. ‘How do you know you’re not a brain in a vat?’ is not even an assertion, much less a positive one. As such, those who ask it cannot be directly confronted, because they don’t have a positive argument. Moreover, while some people sincerely believe the simulation hypothesis, there are no sincere brain in a vat believers. This is why the brain in a vat skeptic is sometimes presented as a sort of hypothetical person an epistemologist may use as a foil in the development of their theories. They are literally creating characters who they then use to troll themselves.

Another difference between troll-type skeptics and contrarians more broadly, is their sincerity. The simulation skeptic sincerely holds their belief, whereas the brain in a vat skeptic doesn’t sincerely believe anything at all in relation to their objection. As we will see, a lack of sincerity is a cornerstone attribute of the troll.

Another key feature of trolling is that the troll often pretends to be a member of a group that they’re actually trying to undermine. Here too the brain in a vat skeptic shows themselves to be a troll, since they are not in the game of knowledge acquisition, whereas the simulation skeptic is still seeking knowledge; they just think it’s of a radically different kind than people often assume it is.

The brain in a vat skeptic is also unlike ancient skeptics, who were by-and-large neither insincere nor imposters in the epistemological community. Ancient skeptics, of around the third century BCE to the second century CE, were deeply sincere: they took their philosophy to heart and lived out their skepticism, thinking that their lives would go better as a result. Such skeptics – including Pyrrho, Arcesilaus, Carneades, and Aenesidemus – practiced their philosophy by genuinely refusing to believe anything one way or another. In fact, the standard objection to ancient skepticism, even in its own time, was that the actions of these skeptics show that they do hold beliefs even though they say they don’t: “Why get out of the way of the cart barreling towards you if you don’t believe it’s really there?” – to which the skeptic might respond, “Well, I don’t believe that it’s not really there, either!” In any case, that this was an objection at all presupposes that ancient skeptics sincerely presented themselves as having no beliefs.

The way ancient skepticism was practiced also shows their commitment to the mission of gaining knowledge (even as it constantly slips from their grasp). Indeed, ‘skepticism’ derives from the Greek word skepsis, which means ‘investigation’. Ancient skeptics got their name from the fact that they treated every new experience as an opportunity to investigate afresh. They didn’t take things at face value; but neither did they use vague arguments to undermine the very possibility of knowledge, as the philosophical troll does. Instead, each case was investigated on its own merits. A tower in the distance looks square. The ancient skeptic asks: Is it square? They investigate by getting closer. As they approach, it starts to look round. Which shape is it, then? With no reason to prefer the closer appearance to the far away, and given that it can’t be both round and square, the ancient skeptic finds the arguments on both sides equally strong, so they come to no conclusion. (If you’re tempted to say that the closer you look at it, the better evidence you have, why not look at it under a microscope? It will look different yet again. But by what principle is that too close?) Next the ancient skeptic eats an apple and finds it tasty, but on further investigation they learn that others find the same apple sour, and the skeptical process repeats itself. And so on for all appearances… The key thing here is that investigation starts afresh with each appearance. But ancient skeptics don’t argue against investigation, given their skeptical conclusions; rather, they find that investigation fails over and over again.

Troll outline © EFF Designer Hugh D'Andrade 2013 Creative Commons 3

Modern troll-like forms of skepticism instead use general, global considerations to undermine the very possibility of knowledge, rendering continued investigation pointless. The figurehead of this tradition might be claimed to be René Descartes (1596-1650), who tries global skepticism on for himself before eventually extricating himself from it. In his Meditations (1641), he raises the specter of an evil demon who has nothing more interesting to do than to deceive Descartes about everything. Since Descartes is arguing that we ought never to believe something that is not absolutely certain, he concludes that this possibility should lead us to doubt our senses entirely – and with that, the entire body of our supposed knowledge, in one fell swoop! However, Descartes is clear in his aim here: he wants to get knowledge back, but on a surer foundation than that provided by the senses. Eventually he concludes that there must be a perfect and good God who would not allow our senses to routinely mislead us, so as it turns out, we can generally trust our senses. Thus, though Descartes sincerely considers the ‘evil demon, total deception’ hypothesis, ultimately he rejects it.

While Descartes was a real person going through an epistemological crisis, the brain in a vat skeptic is a hypothetical person employed as a rhetorical device. The fact that the brain in a vat skeptic is merely a hypothetical person is important. The philosopher is not themself the radical skeptic: instead, the skeptic is treated as a tool that allows for the refinement of the philosopher’s theory of knowledge, by, for instance, marking out knowledge’s boundaries. But unlike ancient forms of skepticism, the modern epistemologist does not live out skepticism. Instead, they engage with the skeptic’s objections. This raises certain questions. Should we engage with this kind of skeptic, or have we invented a monster? Is there anything to be gained by engaging with brain in a vat-level skepticism? Or are we feeding trolls of our own design?

What Is A Troll, Philosophically Speaking?

In 2010 Claire Hardaker utilized a 172 million word set of internet data to see how the word ‘troll’ and its cognates get employed. This led her to a working definition: a troll is a computer user “who constructs the identity of sincerely wishing to be part of the group in question, including professing, or conveying pseudo-sincere intentions, but whose real intention(s) is/are to cause disruption and/or to trigger or exacerbate conflict for the purposes of their own amusement” (‘Trolling in Asynchronous Computer-Mediated Communication’, Journal of Politeness Research, 2010, p.237). Rachel Barney, writing as Aristotle, reached a similar view without relying on databases. Pseudo-Aristotle wrote: “the troll in the proper sense is one who speaks to a community and as being part of the community; only he is not part of it, but opposed. And the community has some good in common, and this the troll must know, and what things promote and destroy it: for he seeks to destroy” (‘On Trolling’, Journal of the American Philosophical Association, Vol. 2, Issue 2, 2016). Both definitions emphasize that the troll is an outsider, imitating a member of the community they’re trolling; and both also highlight the insincerity of the troll – the troll’s intentions are to disrupt (Hardaker) or to destroy (Barney). Putting these ideas together, on both views, the key features of a troll are that they insincerely pretend to be a member of a community for the purpose of undermining that community.

The brain in a vat skeptic is a philosophical troll. First, they pretend to be a member of a community that they’re not really a member of: unlike ancient skepticism, which treated each investigation afresh as it arose, the unanswerable nature of the brain in a vat challenge means that the brain in a vat proponent is not involved in the same enterprise as us seekers after knowledge. They’ve already decided that knowledge is impossible, so they no longer seek it. Moreover, their enterprise is destructive of the larger community goal of knowledge acquisition. By contrast, Descartes tries on comprehensive skepticism, but his ultimate goal is to return to the community of knowers – which he does by the end of the Meditations. Cartesian skepticism is not destructive of knowledge; instead, it seeks to put knowledge on a firmer footing. People who are impressed by the brain in a vat skeptic’s question, on the other hand, may find themselves abandoning knowledge they once thought they had – knowledge which all us non-brain in a vat skeptics believe they still ought to have. As such, the brain in a vat skeptic is trying to undermine the community of seekers after knowledge.

I have said the brain in a vat skeptic is insincere. Since the brain in a vat skeptic is only a hypothetical person, it might be thought strange to describe them thus. But philosophers are not generally speaking fiction writers, so their characters are often underdeveloped. And it’s an open question whether, given the way the world relentlessly impresses itself upon us, it is actually possible for someone to sincerely question our most basic knowledge of being in the world. Some evidence that it’s not possible comes from the lack of actual brain in a vat skeptics, who really belive the hypothesis, since it seems that all positions that could be sincerely held (and even some that can’t be) are represented in the philosophical community. At any rate, the brain in a vat scenario is not sincerely asserted by anyone: and a merely hypothetical person can’t be sincere, since she has no beliefs or concerns to be sincere about. Moreover, the philosopher who employs the brain in a vat skeptic as a hypothetical character is not expressing their own sincerely-held belief that they might be a brain in a vat, but only drawing attention to it as an interesting thought experiment.

Someone might object that the brain-in-a-vat skeptical scenario is usually posed as a question (‘How do you know you’re not a brain in a vat?’), whereas trolls are dogmatically assertive (‘Worst Captain EVER!!’). But trolls aren’t always dogmatic. Hardaker’s research found that few trolls claim or advertise themselves to be trolling; rather, they often adopt a ‘pseudo-naïve question strategy’. Barney emphasizes that the troll can always act as though they’re innocent by asking innocent questions: “And in general the troll says what is false but sounds like the truth – or rather he does not quite say it, but rather something very close to it which is true, or partly true, or best of all merely asks a simple question about the evidence for climate change… For the perfected troll has no need of rudeness or abuse, or even of fallacy (this belongs rather to sophistic or eristic, and requires making an argument): he only makes a suggestion or indication.” This description fits well the character of the brain in a vat skeptic, too. There’s no argument there, only a suggestion.

There’s a general consensus on how we should react to an internet troll: we should ignore them. But that is not how most epistemologists treat the (sometimes self-inflicted) brain in a vat skeptic. Just ignoring the worries raised by brain in a vat skepticism is instead thought to be a shallow or unsatisfying epistemological solution, because it does not address why we find the brain in a vat question so unsettling. But if the brain in a vat skeptic is in fact a troll, the question why we’re unsettled by their point boils down to the general question of why we find insincere argumentation frustrating. There may well be a satisfying explanation of that phenomenon, but it will be a part of descriptive psychology, not normative epistemology.

So how should we philosophers respond to insincere skeptical objections? Here the internet-old adage applies: Don’t feed the trolls.

Rosemary Twomey is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Queens College CUNY.