There are many people who mentally developed while paralyzed that literally drive around their bodies via motorized wheelchair. I don't think there's any evidence that a brain couldn't exist or develop in a jar, given only the inputs modern AI now has (text, video, audio).
> any evidence that a brain couldn't exist or develop in a jar
The brain could. Of course it could. It's just a signals processing machine.
But would it be missing anything we consider core to the way humans think? Would it struggle with parts of cognition?
For example: experiments were done with cats growing up in environments with vertical lines only. They were then put in a normal room and had a hard time understanding flat surfaces.
This isn't remotely a hypothetical, so I imagine there are some examples out there, especially from back when polio was a problem. Although, for practical reasons, they might have had limited exposure to novelty, which could have negative consequences.
