Can a single thought experiment have multiple outcomes?

What is an example of a thought experiment?

Examples of thought experiments include Schrödinger’s cat, illustrating quantum indeterminacy through the manipulation of a perfectly sealed environment and a tiny bit of radioactive substance, and Maxwell’s demon, which attempts to demonstrate the ability of a hypothetical finite being to violate the 2nd law of …

What was the simple thought experiment?

But he did devise a simple thought experiment that told us something profound about gravity. Take two weights, one light, one heavy. If heavier objects fall faster than light ones, as Aristotle said, then the lighter weight will lag behind.

What is the point of thought experiments?

The purpose of a thought experiment is to encourage speculation, logical thinking and to change paradigms. Thought experiments push us outside our comfort zone by forcing us to confront questions we cannot answer with ease. They demonstrate gaps in our knowledge and help us recognize the limits of what can be known.

What is a thought experiment and what are they supposed to accomplish?

Thought experiments are basically devices of the imagination. They are employed for various purposes such an entertainment, education, conceptual analysis, exploration, hypothesizing, theory selection, theory implementation, etc. Some applications are more controversial than others.

How do you make a thought experiment?


Examines what their responses would be or what actions. And ideas would be appropriate to given the circumstances. Or what would follow from the experiment.

What is a thought experiment quizlet?

A thought experiment is an experiment carried out in our imagination. This is where we Imagine a certain situation, Follow through some of the consequences of that situation, and draw a general conclusion.

How did Einstein do his thought experiments?

In his youth, he mentally chased beams of light. For special relativity, he employed moving trains and flashes of lightning to explain his most penetrating insights. For general relativity, he considered a person falling off a roof, accelerating elevators, blind beetles crawling on curved surfaces and the like.

Do you think thought experiment is still useful in science in the present time explain?

General Science



The thought experiment is useful in all aspects of life, not just science. Thought experiments allow us to explore possibilities, ponder scenarios, while applying what we already know about the world in order to give structure and order to our “experiments”.

What was Galileo’s hypothesis in his thought experiment?

According to the story, Galileo discovered through this experiment that the objects fell with the same acceleration, proving his prediction true, while at the same time disproving Aristotle’s theory of gravity (which states that objects fall at speed proportional to their mass).

What does Mary’s room thought aim to prove?

Mary’s Room is a thought experiment that attempts to establish that there are non-physical properties and attainable knowledge that can be discovered only through conscious experience. It attempts to refute the theory that all knowledge is physical knowledge.

What is the point of Jackson’s thought experiment about the color challenged scientist?

There they create patterns of neural activity that corresponds to the millions of colors most humans can distinguish. Now imagine that one day Mary's black and white screen malfunctions. And an apple

What qualia means?

qualia include the ways it feels to see, hear and smell, the way it feels to have a pain; more generally, what it’s like to have mental states. Qualia are experiential properties of sensations, feelings, perceptions and, in my view, thoughts and desires as well.

Why is qualia a problem for Physicalists?

Proponents of qualia claim that no physical theory of mind can explain the qualitative character of subjective experience because qualia are not reducible to the physical properties of the mind. On the other hand, physicalists argue that mental states are brain states and brain states are physical states.

What is the difference between physicalism and dualism?

The Physicalism view claim that an entire human being comprises of a physical entity with various physical properties. On the other hand, the dualism view claims that human beings have a dual entity comprising a physical entity (the body) and a non-physical entity (the mind).

Is consciousness a qualia?

Consciousness, the evidence strongly indicates, is not qualia, not the awareness of this or that perceptual, conceptual or emotional content, but reflexive, autonoetic awareness as such. Content may be subject to copyright.

Are qualia irreducible?

The third section brings out some of the main arguments for the view that qualia are irreducible and non-physical.

What are the three laws of qualia?

First, they are irrevocable: I cannot simply decide to start seeing the sunset as green, or feel pain as if it were an itch; second, qualia do not always produce the same behaviour: given a set of qualia, we can choose from a potentially infinite set of possible behaviours to execute; and third, qualia endure in short- …

Is pain a qualia?

In contemporary usage, the term has been broadened to refer more generally to properties of experience. Paradigm examples of experiences with qualia are perceptual experiences (including nonveridical perceptual experiences like hallucinations) and bodily sensations (such as pain, hunger, and itching).

What is Epiphenomenalism dualism?

Epiphenomenalist dualism: the physical world can cause mental states but mental states cannot cause changes in the physical world – i.e. the causal interaction is one way. Physical -> mental: Getting hit in the head causes the mental state of pain.

What is multiple realizability theory?

In the philosophy of mind, the multiple realizability thesis contends that a single mental kind (property, state, event) can be realized by many distinct physical kinds. A common example is pain.

What is an epiphenomenon?

Definition of epiphenomenon



: a secondary phenomenon accompanying another and caused by it specifically : a secondary mental phenomenon that is caused by and accompanies a physical phenomenon but has no causal influence itself.