Hilary Putnam's Self-Refutation Argument Against Brain-in-a-Vat Skepticism (w/Dr. Sandy Goldberg)

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Let's assume that our science develops to the point where it's possible to put brains into vats. Next, let's also assume that scientists successfully put some brains into vats. Does this argument mean that the people whose brains scientists put into vats won't be able to make the claim that they are brains in a vat, even though they actually are? What if it's a scenario where the simulation is so perfect that it mirrors the causal relationships of the real world, and thus the BIVs' (BIV=Brain in a VAT) language does connect them to their environment in a reliable way (i.e. the simulation is a perfect copycat of reality)? In this case, would Putnam's argument still apply, or would it not, because the condition for meaningful reference would be met within the simulation? What if in the future, we could hook up a microphone, camera, and speakers to one of these BIVs, turn them on, and then communicate with the BIV? Remember: the BIV's simulated reality in this scenario is a copycat version or our reality. If it then said "I'm a BIV!" would its sentence be true for us, and false/meaningless to the BIV?

Also, if we accept Putnam's argument, aren't we accepting a contradiction? Because we're accepting two mutually exclusive conclusions: (a) it might be possible to figure out that we're in a simulation, and even perhaps to escape it; and (b) any statement we make about whether or not we're in a simulation is either false or meaningless, but never true. So (a) says that's it might be true that we're in a simulation, but (b) says we can't even make the statement "it might be true that we're in a simulation."