Tag: thought experiment

Posted in Philosophy

Mary And The Black And White Room

Posted on by Jinavie

Mary is a brilliant scientist who specialises in colour. She knows everything about colour – the spectrum, wavelengths, properties of light, the mechanism of how human vision works… She knows exactly how a certain wavelength of light will excite the retina and what kind of electrical impulse it will send in the brain. However, Mary has never seen colour. She has lived all of her life in a black and white room and can only observe the world through a black and white TV screen. The question is: if Mary was to leave the room and see the colourful world for what it is, would she learn something new?

Considering that Mary already knows everything theoretical about colour, would her seeing colour change anything? Or is the experience of seeing a colour something that you cannot learn without actually experiencing it?

This was a thought experiment proposed by Frank Jackson to question the nature of knowledge. Is physical knowledge truly everything, or is there something more than that? In philosophy, there is a concept called qualia, which describes the subjective, qualitative properties of experiences. That is, experience is a unique type of knowledge that cannot be learnt without experiencing it first-hand.

A further expansion of this idea is the refutation of physicalism – the school of thought that argues that everything (including knowledge and the mind) is physical. The logic is that since Mary knew everything “physical” about colour before leaving the room, her learning “something’ (i.e. experience of colour) is a direct argument against all knowledge being physical, as she learnt something “new”.

Another way to look at it is this. Some things in life can only be learnt through experiencing it. It is not enough trying to learn about life and the world purely from stories and books. To truly learn everything, you must get out there and experience it yourself.

Posted in Philosophy

Buridan’s Ass

Posted on by Jinavie

French philosopher Jean Buridan proposed the following thought experiment. Imagine a donkey that is equally hungry and thirsty. It is placed exactly in the middle of a pail of water and a stack of hay. The donkey wants to eat the hay because it is hungry, yet it also wants to go for the pail of water to quench its thirst. However, it is precisely the same distance from the food and the water, meaning it has to sacrifice one for the other. Unable to choose between the hay and water, the donkey ultimately dies from hunger and thirst.

We laugh at the stupidity of the ass, but how often are we placed in such a predicament where we try to chase two things at once and end up with nothing? How often do we miss an amazing opportunity just because we failed to make a decision?

Posted in Science & Nature

Silence Of The Trees

Posted on by Jinavie

A timeless philosophical question goes like this:

If a tree falls in a forest, does it make a sound?

This may sound absurd, but the question hangs on the definition of sound. Is sound the physical phenomenon of vibrating particles forming a soundwave, or is sound the sensory information that we perceive by converting said soundwave using our hearing system? If you accept the first definition, then yes, the falling of the tree will generate energy that pushes on the air particles around it, causing a soundwave that if someone were to hear it, would sound as a “thud”. But if you accept the second definition, then that tree would not have made a “sound” per se because no one was around to perceive the soundwave. Following this logic, a sound cannot exist without a recipient to hear it.

As simple as this may seem at face value, the riddle explores some deep philosophical and scientific issues.

The most obvious one has been discussed: the definition of sound. But then one must question what would happen if a tape recorder was running when the tree fell. Can a machine hear, even though it cannot “sense”? Is the sound we hear being played from the recorder the same as the sound that was originally made by the tree?

Following on from this thought, how do we know that the sound you hear is an accurate interpretation of the actual soundwave? It is common knowledge that the brain frequently modifies the senses to change what it sees and hears, as seen in various illusions. Furthermore, the brain can generate sensory information without any input, known as hallucinations. You assume that your hearing is flawless and accurate, but in your mind, it is almost impossible to know for sure that the sound you heard is “real”. Taking this further leads in to the massive debate of “what is real?” and “is reality real or is it a product of our mind?”.

A more fundamental question is this: if no one was around to hear the tree fall, does it matter if it made a sound? A pragmatic philosopher might say “no”, as whether the tree made a sound or not makes no difference to your life. However, a scientist may say “yes” as the tree did fall and a soundwave was generated. Whether a person was around to observe it is irrelevant as it does not change the fact that something real occurred. Then what effect does observation have on reality? How do we know that trees make the same sound when we are not around to hear it?

This is a crude dissection of the vast number of questions the riddle offers, but it shows how such a simple thought experiment can be an effective tool to engage your critical thinking. If you do not fully understand the philosophy discussed, at least you can take away the fact that you can use the excuse of “sound is only a perception, I did not hear you, therefore what you said did not happen” when someone tells you to do something.

Posted in Philosophy

Thief And Murderer

Posted on by Jinavie

Imagine that you have been incarcerated for committing a crime. You get to choose one of the prisoners as your roommate, but your choice is limited to a thief and a murderer. Who would you trust more?

Most people would consider the thief’s crimes to be lighter and choose him without a doubt. They would rather live with someone who stole some jewellery than some beast that killed another human being.

But if you think about it in depth, you may come to the opposite conclusion. Stealing is often a meticulous and calculated crime that involves logical planning, but murder is more often a crime of passion that is spontaneous (of course the person may be a psychopath). Ergo, statistically speaking thieves tend to be more predisposed to a criminal nature than murderers. A thief will easily repeat their crime, whereas those who have murdered often do not repeat it. Furthermore, thieves tend to target people they do not know, where as murderers often kill someone that they know. Statistically, you are more likely to die in the hands of someone you know well than a stranger.

Therefore, it just might be that sharing a room with a murderer is preferable to a thief (maybe the murderer will not steal all your secret food). This would definitely be the case if the “murderer” was actually framed like Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption. Of course, the wiser choice still is to not commit the crime in the first place so you do not end up in prison.

Posted in Philosophy

Fundamental Malevolence

Posted on by Jinavie

Human beings are fundamentally evil. This was a theory concerning human nature put forward by Xunzi – a leading Chinese Confucian philosopher, along with Confucius and Mencius. Xunzi stated that human beings naturally seek out only their own interests and greed, envying and hating each other so much that they are bound to fight if left alone. He suggested that people needed to learn etiquette and culture themselves to correct this.

Xunzi’s philosophies are on a background of the chaotic setting of the Warring States Period. The Warring States Period was a period when China was split into many different countries, all warring with each other to gain dominance over each other’s lands. During these wars, Xunzi saw countless cases of people looting and killing each other, which led him to the conclusion that people are naturally selfish beings. He believed that human beings focus on their greed and self-preservation from the moment of birth. He also believed that leaving people without order would indubitably lead to social chaos. Thus, to effectively rule over the people, a leader must place limits such as laws, ethics, etiquette and culture.

From an evolutionary point of view, the theory of fundamental malevolence (성악설, sung ak sul) makes sense. Would a starving lion mourn the death of a baby zebra? Protecting one’s own interests is a great way to increase your chance of survival and propagating your genes.

The more you carefully observe people’s behaviour, the more credibility the theory seems to gain. Human beings are selfish beings who become jealous of others for having more than themselves, kill someone because they tried to take away their love and engage in fratricidal war because others do not share their beliefs. You as the reader may state that you cannot imagine hurting anyone, let alone taking a life. In that case, let us examine the following thought experiment.

One day, you are kidnapped. When you come about, you find that you are trapped in a pitch-black room, tied to a pole. The room appears to be completely empty and you cannot see or hear anything. Suddenly, you hear a voice coming from the other side of the room. The voice talks about how it will murder you in a violent, excruciating way, over and over. The voice continues to threaten you in a macabre way for three days. Just when you are near your breaking point from the overwhelming fear of imminent death, another voice appears. The voice says: “If you nominate someone you are close to that I can kill in your stead, I will let you go and not harm you in any way”. Would you have the courage to not give a name?

Posted in Science & Nature

Buttered Cat Paradox

Posted on by Jinavie

Cats always fall on their feet. Buttered toast always seems to fall buttered side down. So what would happen if we tied a buttered toast on a cat’s back and then dropped the cat? Would the cat land on its feet or would the toast land on its buttered side?
Or would we achieve perpetual motion and anti-gravity simultaneously as they cancel each other and never touch the ground?

Although the paradox is obviously a humorous thought experiment, there is some truth to the separate adages. 
Cats have a natural righting reflex that allows them to twist their upper body so that they land on their feet. This gracious manoeuvre is developed as a kitten and actually involves quite complex physics where the cat is able to turn around without changing their net angular momentum. Since cats have a small body and very light body weight, their terminal velocity (100km/h compared to a human’s 210km/h) when falling is much less and allows them to absorb the shock easily when landing. Furthermore, when falling cats naturally spread their limbs out to slow their fall as much as possible. All these factors let a cat land safely on its feet even if dropped from a high place. Ironically, the lower they are dropped from, the more likely that the cat would fall on its back.

The other side of the paradox is slightly more complicated. The adage that toast falls buttered side first is actually an example of how if something bad can happen, it will happen. However, physicists have discovered that toast is more likely to fall on its buttered side.
When toast falls off a plate, it is highly likely to tip as it hits the edge. This causes it to rotate as it begins to fall. There are two explanations on why the buttered side is more likely to be facing down. Firstly, butter adds weight to one side and heavier objects fall faster in the face of gravity. Secondly, using experimental data it has been found that toast only rotates about 180 degrees by the time it falls the height of the table or person from where it was dropped from. 

Despite it only being a tongue-in-cheek thought, one can only wonder how many scientists have made some toast, buttered it, tied it to a cat and dropped the cat off a ladder.

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Posted in Philosophy

Aliens

Posted on by Jinavie

People tend to ask “Do aliens exist?”, but a more interesting thought is “What if aliens do not exist?”.

If there are no aliens in this vast universe, then that indicates that we are the only form of intelligent of life. If so, are we not one of nature’s greatest creations and wouldn’t the destruction of such an achievement be foolish? Because if humanity was to become extinct, then that would result in the only species able to think of such a question ceasing to exist.
This theory can further be understood as saying that Earth is the only place in the universe where life can and does exist. Ergo, we (as possibly the last intelligent life) should protect the planet from destruction so that life can continue in the universe.

However, if aliens were to exist, it would be better to ignore them and not search for them. Many dream that they will be benevolent, bringing us advanced technology and knowledge, but in the history of mankind, there is rarely a situation where two worlds meet and the weaker is not looted, enslaved and destroyed.