For me, the head in a jar is about assumed reality, and about a clearly defined mind/body duality.

What does it mean to you?

sits quietly in ita's corner of the room.

What I'm talking about is when theorists/scientists/philosophers start posing the question of whether or not the body is a necessary element to thought/life/consciousness.

I see. That doesn't indeed align with The Matrix, but is a subset of my interpretation of the scenario.

Still have no idea what's inherently male about it, but I don't read enough theorists/scientists/philosophers to be an expert.

In fact, it seems reasonably core to philosopy -- anything I can come up with (though not explore well, of course) before my tenth birthday doesn't strike me as all too abstract.

the question of whether or not the body is a necessary element to thought/life/consciousness.

Ah, I see.

I really haven't encountered this particular idea often enough to have strong feelings about it - my gut reaction would be a big fat honking "well of course it is. Duh!" At which point the theorist/scientist/ philosopher would likely hit me with a big dusty book.

But I do remember getting very animated about the concept of AI, because I don't think that something we could recognise as thought/life/consciousness, or that we could engage with in any meaningful dialogue, could exist without a biological body and a context.

I have no solid basis for this, though, and could perhaps be shown that I am in fact on crack.

I don't see any reason the body is a necessary part, but it does assume something's going to be faking some of its functions, or the brain dies. So that's a semantic game.

I'm really lousy at philosophy, because I just end up saying "Well, that could be taken care of by something beyond my ken. And there are lots of things like that."

Every nightmare is a desire trying to break the surface, right? Or so would a Freudian say. I like the idea of head-in-a-jar as an overblown fear/wish of castration.

You know what? A head in a jar still has eyes and ears and can probably tell it's had its body amputated. A brain in a jar, without sensory input of any kind, would be a lot more like the Matrix interface, in that all sensation being fed to the sensation-interpreters is not acutally coming from the body's own sensation-gatherers.

There's a marvellous John Collier brain-in-a-jar story.

IIRC, Niven has an ongoing long-time (30 yrs+) marriage to an anything-but-stupid woman.

Yeah, and Heinlein had a long-lasting marriage to an anything-but-stupid woman, but he still had very very strange ideas about women and how they worked.

I haven't heard anybody say "Niven is a sexist". I have heard "Mindless females is a really creepy and disturbing idea."

my gut reaction would be a big fat honking "well of course it is. Duh!"

See, me too. Which is where I think the gender thing, or at the very least gender theory, comes in. And no, I have absolutely no intention of getting into gender theory right now because BOORRRING!

because I don't think that something we could recognise as thought/life/consciousness, or that we could engage with in any meaningful dialogue, could exist without a biological body and a context.

Well let's say it's housed in a computer. Doesn't then computer=input/output interface=body? So see, you still have a body, at least by my reckoning. Which is part of what I found interesting about the Matrix--the whole weird cyborg body of the AI.

Which is where I think the gender thing, or at the very least gender theory, comes in

I know you don't want to get into it, but maybe there's a one-sentence answer to explain to me where gender has anything to do with it.

I just don't see it, not least of all because my reaction is, and always has been, "why not?"