Meta Treks: A Star Trek Philosophy Podcast

The Problem of the External World.  How can you know that the physical world you perceive around you is real and not an illusion, a dream, or a holodeck simulation? In this episode of Meta Treks, hosts Mike Morrison and Zachary Fruhling debate the philosophical problem of the external world through the lens of Star Trek. Mike and Zachary discuss whether it is possible for characters in Star Trek to know for sure that they are not stuck in a holodeck, in a telepathic projection, or in an illusion created by a member of the Q Continuum.  Mike and Zachary consider several possible responses to the the problem of the external world from the history of philosophy, including Rene Descartes's response to his own radical Cartesian skepticism, Hilary Putnam's linguistic response to the "Brain in a Vat" argument, the pragmatic response of rejecting the problem outright, and George Berkeley's theory of idealism as a middle ground between skepticism and empirical knowledge of the external world. Finally, Mike and Zach