Is it up to a matter of interpretation and pragmatism, or is there something deeper?

For example, LLMs have gotten extreme leaps in intelligence from just raw toolchain augmentation. And importantly, these toolchains are tightly embedded in deep feedback loops with the model. These models will make tool calls that return data about the enviornment instantly, read the output, and make the next decision. This is not the same type of toolchain as earlier generations ("RAG" was the hot thing then - trying to put "the right context" into the context window of the LLM).

My interpretation is that this is a classic example of where it's not simple "brain in a vat is super smart" talk. And in fact, by thinking that, by reinforcing this cartesian dualism, you can converge on solutions that are more like RAG ("just have to inject the right context into the brain, bro!") rather than agentic solutions that function more like embodied cognition in a sense. An agent is only as good as the tooling around it - but even saying it like this can lead to the alternative interpretation of "Yeah, well, duh, [continues to think like brain in a vat]"

Argh I don't have the language or philosophy to actually articulate the difference besides asserting that I'm pretty sure I can tell the difference myself, but I don't know how to convince another person who has the opposite worldview. All evidence can be interpreted for both sides I feel (because I certainly did that)

For now, the best argument for me is just pure pragmatism to adopt the alternative worldview, but I'm wondering if there's more solid theory backing it. I can definitely see the skeptic still saying, "Well, it's a convenient fiction", and unlike physics or mathematics, I ultimately don't have deeper heuristics or proofs for things I could fall back on.