Thought experiment By Arnab k.

banerjee

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A thought experiment or Gedankenexperiment (from German) considers some hypothesis, theory,[1] or principle for the purpose of thinking through its consequences. Given the structure of the experiment, it may or may not be possible to actually perform it, and, in the case that it is possible for it to be performed, there need be no intention of any kind to actually perform the experiment in question. The common goal of a thought experiment is to explore the potential consequences of the principle in question. Famous examples of thought experiments include Schrdinger's cat, illustrating quantum indeterminacy through the manipulation of a perfectly sealed environment and a tiny bit of radioactive substance, and Maxwell's demon, in which a supernatural being is instructed to attempt to violate the second law of thermodynamics.

Origin Johann Witt-Hansen established that Hans Christian rsted was the first to use the Latin-German mixed term Gedankenexperiment (lit. thought experiment) circa 1812.[7] rsted was also the first to use its entirely German equivalent, Gedankenversuch, in 1820. Much later, Ernst Mach used the term Gedankenexperiment in a different way, to denote exclusively the imaginary conduct of a real experiment that would be subsequently performed as a real physical experiment by his students.[8] Physical and mental experimentation could then be constrasted: Mach asked his students to provide him with explanations whenever the results from their subsequent, real, physical experiment differed from those of their prior, imaginary experiment.

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The English term thought experiment was coined (as a calque) from Mach's Gedankenexperiment, and it first appeared in the 1897 English translation of one of Machs papers.[9] Prior to its emergence, the activity of posing hypothetical questions that employed subjunctive reasoning had existed for a very long time (for both scientists and philosophers). However, people had no way of categorizing it or speaking about it. This helps to explain the extremely wide and diverse range of the application of the term "thought experiment" once it had been introduced into English In its broadest usage, thought experimentation is the process of employing imaginary situations to help us understand the way things really are (or, in the case of Herman Kahns "scenarios", understand something about something in the future). The understanding comes through reflection upon this imaginary situation. Thought experimentation is a priori, rather than an empirical process, in that the experiments are conducted within the imagination (i.e., Browns (1993) "laboratory of the mind"), and never in fact. Thought experiments, which are well-structured, well-defined hypothetical questions that employ subjunctive reasoning (irrealis moods) "What might happen (or, what might have happened) if . . . " have been used to pose questions in philosophy at least since Greek antiquity, some pre-dating Socrates (see Rescher 1991). In physics and other sciences many famous thought experiments date from the 19th and especially the 20th Century, but examples can be found at least as early as Galileo. Thought experiments have been used in philosophy, physics, and other fields (such as cognitive psychology, history, political science, economics,

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social psychology, law, organizational studies, marketing, and epidemiology). In law, the synonym "hypothetical" is frequently used for such experiments. Regardless of their intended goal, all thought experiments display a patterned way of thinking that is designed to allow us to explain, predict and control events in a better and more productive way. Theoretical consequences In terms of their theoretical consequences, thought experiments generally:

challenge (or even refute) a prevailing theory, often involving the device known as reductio ad absurdum, (as in Galileo's original argument, a proof by contradiction), confirm a prevailing theory, establish a new theory, or simultaneously refute a prevailing theory and establish a new theory through a process of mutual exclusion.

Practical applications Thought experiments can produce some very important and different outlooks on previously unknown or unaccepted theories. However, they may make those theories themselves irrelevant, and could possibly create new problems that are just as difficult, or possibly more difficult to resolve. In terms of their practical application, thought experiments are generally created in order to:

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challenge the prevailing status quo (which includes activities such as correcting misinformation (or misapprehension), identify flaws in the argument(s) presented, to preserve (for the long-term) objectively established fact, and to refute specific assertions that some particular thing is permissible, forbidden, known, believed, possible, or necessary); extrapolate beyond (or interpolate within) the boundaries of already established fact; predict and forecast the (otherwise) indefinite and unknowable future; explain the past; the retrodiction, postdiction and hindcasting of the (otherwise) indefinite and unknowable past; facilitate decision making, choice and strategy selection; solve problems, and generate ideas; move current (often insoluble) problems into another, more helpful and more productive problem space (e.g., see functional fixedness); attribute causation, preventability, blame and responsibility for specific outcomes; assess culpability and compensatory damages in social and legal contexts; ensure the repeat of past success; or examine the extent to which past events might have occurred differently.

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ensure the (future) avoidance of past failures.

Possibility

The scenario presented in a thought experiment must be possible in some sense. In many thought experiments, the scenario would be nomologically possible, or possible according to the laws of nature. John Searle's Chinese Room is nomologically possible. Some thought experiments present scenarios that are not nomologically possible. In his Twin Earth thought experiment, Hilary Putnam asks us to imagine a scenario in which there is a substance with all of the observable properties of water (e.g., taste, color, boiling point), but which is chemically different from water. It has been argued that this thought experiment is not nomologically possible, although it may be possible in some other sense, such as metaphysical possibility. It is debatable whether the nomological impossibility of a thought experiment renders intuitions about it moot. In some cases, the hypothetical scenario might be considered metaphysically impossible, or impossible in any sense at all. David Chalmers says that we can imagine that there are zombies, or persons who are physically identical to us in every way but who lack consciousness. This is supposed to show that physicalism is false. However, some argue that zombies are inconceivable: we can no more imagine a zombie than we can imagine that 1+1=3. Others have claimed that the conceivability of a scenario may not entail its possibility. Other criticisms The use of thought experiments in philosophy has received other criticisms, especially in the philosophy of mind. Daniel Dennett has derisively referred to certain types of thought experiments such as the Chinese Room experiment as "intuition pumps", claiming they are simply thinly veiled appeals to intuition which fail when carefully analyzed. Another criticism that has been voiced is that some science fiction-type

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thought experiments are too wild to yield clear intuitions, or that any resulting intuitions could not possibly pertain to the real world. Another criticism is that philosophers have used thought experiments (and other a priori methods) in areas where empirical science should be the primary method of discovery, as for example, with issues about the mind. Top 10 Most Famous Thought Experiments 10. The Trolley Problem One of the most well known thought experiments in the field of ethics is the Trolley Problem, which goes something like this: a madman has tied five innocent people to a trolley track. An out of control trolley car is careening toward them, and is moments away from running them over. Luckily, you can pull a lever and divert the trolley to another track. The only problem is that the madman has also tied a single person to that track. Considering the circumstances, should you pull the lever? What it Means: The trolley problem was first proposed by the philosopher Philippa Foot as a means of critiquing the major theories in ethical philosophy, in particular utilitarianism, the system which proposes that the most moral decision is always the one that provides the greatest good for the greatest number. From a utilitarian point of view, the obvious choice is to pull the lever, saving five and only killing one. But critics of this theory would state that in pulling the lever you become complicit in what is clearly an immoral actyou are now partially responsible for the death of the lone person on the other track. Others, meanwhile, argue that your mere presence in the situation demands that you act, and that to do nothing would be equally immoral. In short, there is no wholly moral action, and this is the point. Many philosophers have used

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the trolley problem as an example of the ways that real world situations often force individuals to compromise their own moral codes, and that there are times when there is no totally moral course of action. 9. The Cow in the Field One of the major thought experiments in epistemology (the field of philosophy that deals with knowledge) is what is known as The Cow in the Field. It concerns a farmer who is worried his prize cow has wandered off. When the milkman comes to the farm, he tells the farmer not to worry, because hes seen that the cow is in a nearby field. Though hes nearly sure the man is right, the farmer takes a look for himself, sees the familiar black and white shape of his cow, and is satisfied that he knows the cow is there. Later on, the milkman drops by the field to double-check. The cow is indeed there, but its hidden in a grove of trees. There is also a large sheet of black and white paper caught in a tree, and it is obvious that the farmer mistook it for his cow. The question, then: even though the cow was in the field, was the farmer correct when he said he knew it was there? What it Means: The Cow in the Field was first used by Edmund Gettier as a criticism of the popular definition of knowledge as justified true beliefthat is, that something becomes knowledge when a person believes it; it is factually true; and they have a verifiable justification for their belief. In the experiment, the farmers belief that the cow was there was justified by the testimony of the milkman and his own verification of a black and white object sitting in the field. It also happened to be true, as the milkman later confirmed. But despite all this, the farmer did not truly
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know the cow was there, because his reasoning for believing it turned out to be based on false premises. Gettier used this experiment, along with a few other examples, as proof of his argument that the definition of knowledge as justified true belief needed to be amended. 8. The Ticking Time Bomb If youve paid any attention to political discourse over the past few yearsor ever seen an action movie, for that matterthen you are no doubt familiar with the ticking time bomb thought experiment. It asks you to imagine that a bomb or other weapon of mass destruction is hidden in your city, and the timer on it will soon strike zero. You have in your custody a man with knowledge of where the device is planted. Do you resort to torture in order to get him to give up the information? What it Means: Like the trolley problem, the ticking time bomb scenario is an ethical problem that forces one to choose between two morally questionable acts. It is most often employed as a counter argument to those who say the use of torture is inexcusable under any circumstances. Its also used as an example of the way lawslike those the U.S. has against torturing prisonerswill always be set aside given extreme circumstances. Thanks to its fictionalized use in television shows like 24, along with its constant position in political debates, the ticking time bomb scenario has become one of the most frequently repeated thought experiments. An even more extreme take on the problem was presented in a British news article earlier this year. That version proposes that the terrorist in question wont respond to torture, and asks if one would be willing to

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resort to torturing the mans wife and children as a means of extracting the information from him. 7. Einsteins Light Beam Its a little known fact that Albert Einsteins famous work on special relativity was spurred by a thought experiment he conducted when he was only 16 years old. In his book Autobiographical Notes, Einstein recalls how he once daydreamed about chasing a beam of light as it traveled through space. He reasoned that if he were able to move next to it at the speed of light, he should be able to observe the light frozen in space as an electromagnetic field at rest though spatially oscillating. For Einstein, this thought experiment proved that for his imaginary observer everything would have to happen according to the same laws as for an observer who, relative to the Earth, was at rest. What it Means: In truth, no one really knows for sure. Scientists have long debated how this deceivingly simple thought experiment helped Einstein make the massive theoretical leap required to arrive at special relativity theory. At the time, the ideas in the experiment contradicted the nowdebunked belief in the aether, an invisible field through which light was believed to travel. It would be years before he could prove he was right, but this thought experiment was somehow the germ, as he called it, for Einsteins theory of special relativity, one of the ideas that first established him as a towering figure in theoretical physics.

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6. The Ship of Theseus One of the oldest of all thought experiments is the paradox known as the Ship of Theseus, which originated in the writings of Plutarch. It describes a ship that remained seaworthy for hundreds of years thanks to constant repairs and replacement parts. As soon as one plank became old and rotted, it would be replaced, and so on until every working part of the ship was no longer original to it. The question is whether this end product is still the same Ship of Theseus, or something completely new and different. If its not, at what point did it stop being the same ship? The Philosopher Thomas Hobbes would later take the problem even further: if one were to take all the old parts removed from the Ship of Theseus and build a new ship from them, then which of the two vessels is the real Ship of Theseus? What it Means: For philosophers, the story of the Ship of Theseus is used as a means of exploring the nature of identity, specifically the question of whether objects are more than just the sum of their parts. A more modern example would be a band that had evolved over the years to the point that few or no original members remained in the lineup. This notion is also applicable to everything from businesses, which might retain the same name despite mergers and changes in leadership, to the human body, which is constantly regenerating and rebuilding itself. At its heart, the experiment forces one to question the commonly held idea that identity is solely contained in physical objects and phenomena.

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5. Galileos Gravity Experiment One of the earliest thought experiments originated with the physicist and astronomer Galileo. In order to refute Aristotles claim that the speed of a falling object is dictated by its mass, Galileo devised a simple mental example: According to Aristotelian logic, if a light object and a heavy object were tied together and dropped off a tower, then the heavier object would fall faster, and the rope between the two would become taut. This would allow the lighter object to create drag and slow the heavy one down. But Galileo reasoned that once this occurs, the weight of the two objects together should be heavier than the weight of either one by itself, therefore making the system as a whole fall faster. That this is a contradiction proved that Aristotles hypothesis was wrong. What it Means: One of the most famous stories about Galileo is that he once dropped two metal balls off the Leaning Tower of Pisa to prove that heavier objects do not fall faster than lighter ones. In actuality, this story is probably just a legend; instead, it was this elegant thought experiment that helped prove a very important theory about gravity: no matter their mass, all objects fall at the same rate of speed. 4. Monkeys and Typewriters Another thought experiment that gets a lot of play in popular culture is what is known as the infinite monkey theorem. Also known as the monkeys and typewriters experiment, the theorem states that if an

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infinite number of monkeys were allowed to randomly hit keys on an infinite number of typewriters for an infinite amount of time, then at some point they would almost surely produce the complete works of Shakespeare. The monkeys and typewriters idea was popularized in the early 20th century by the French mathematician Emile Borel, but its basic ideathat infinite agents and infinite time will randomly produce anything and everythingdates back to Aristotle. What it Means: Simply put, the monkeys and typewriters theorem is one of the best ways to illustrate the nature of infinity. The human mind has a difficult time imagining a universe with no end or time that will never cease, and the infinite monkeys help to illustrate the sheer breadth of possibilities these concepts create. The idea that a monkey could write Hamlet by accident seems counterintuitive, but in fact it is mathematically provable when one considers the probabilities. The theorem itself is impossible to recreate in the real world, but that hasnt stopped some from trying: In 2003, science students at a zoo in the U.K. tested the infinite monkey theorem when they put a computer and a keyboard in a primate enclosure. Unfortunately, the monkeys never got around to composing any sonnets. According to researchers, all they managed to produce was five pages consisting almost entirely of the letter s. 3. The Chinese Room The Chinese Room is a famous thought experiment first proposed in the early 1980s by John Searle, a prominent American philosopher. The experiment asks you to imagine that an English speaking man has been
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placed in a room that is entirely sealed, save for a small mail slot in the chamber door. He has with him a hard copy in English of a computer program that translates the Chinese language. He also has plenty of spare scratch paper, pencils, and file cabinets. Pieces of paper containing Chinese characters are then slipped through the slot in the door. According to Searle, the man should be able to use his book to translate them and then send back his own response in Chinese. Although he doesnt speak a word of the language, Searle argues that through this process the man in the room could convince anyone on the outside that he was a fluent speaker of Chinese. What it Means: Searle conceived the Chinese Room thought experiment in order to refute the argument that computers and other artificial intelligences could actually think and understand. The man in the room does not speak Chinese; he cant think in the language. But because he has certain tools at his disposal, he would be able convince even a native speaker that he was fluent in it. According to Searle, computers do the same thing. They dont ever truly understand the information theyre given, but they can run a program, access information, and give a clear impression of human intelligence. 2. Schrodingers Cat Schrdingers Cat is a paradox relating to quantum mechanics that was first proposed by the physicist Erwin Schrdinger. It concerns a cat that is sealed inside a box for one hour along with a radioactive element and a vial of deadly poison. There is a 50/50 chance that the radioactive element will decay over the course of the hour. If it does, then a
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hammer connected to a Geiger counter will trigger, break the vial, release the poison, and kill the cat. Since there is an equal chance that this will or will not happen, Schrdinger argued that before the box is opened the cat is simultaneously both alive and dead. What it Means: In short, the point of the experiment is that because there is no one around to witness what had occurred, the cat existed in all of its possible states (in this case either alive or dead) simultaneously. This notion is similar to the old if a tree falls in the woods and theres no one there to hear it, does it make a sound? riddle. Schrdinger originally conceived of his theoretical cat in response to an article that discussed the nature of quantum superpositions, a theory that defines all the possible states in which an object can exist. Schrdingers Cat also helped to illustrate just how weird the rules of quantum mechanics really were. The thought experiment is notorious for its complexity, which has encouraged a wide variety of interpretations. One of the most bizarre is the many worlds hypothesis, which states that the cat is both alive and dead, and that both cats exist in different universes that will never overlap with one another. 1. Brain in a Vat There has been no more influential thought experiment than the socalled brain in a vat hypothesis, which has permeated everything from cognitive science and philosophy to popular culture. The experiment asks you to imagine a mad scientist has taken your brain from your body and placed it in a vat of some kind of life sustaining fluid. Electrodes have been connected to your brain, and these are
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connected to a computer that generates images and sensations. Since all your information about the world is filtered through the brain, this computer would have the ability to simulate your everyday experience. If this were indeed possible, how could you ever truly prove that the world around you was real, and not just a simulation generated by a computer? What it Means: If youre thinking this all sounds a bit like The Matrix, youre right. That film, along with several other sci-fi stories and movies, was heavily influenced by the brain in a vat thought experiment. At its heart, the exercise asks you to question the nature of experience, and to consider what it really means to be human. The idea for the experiment, which was popularized by Hilary Putnam, dates all the way back to the 17th century philosopher Rene Descartes. In his Meditations on the First Philosophy, Descartes questioned whether he could ever truly prove that all his sensations were really his own, and not just an illusion caused by an evil daemon. Descartes accounted for this problem with his classic maxim cogito ergo sum (I think therefore I am). Unfortunately, the brain in a vat experiment complicates this argument, too, since a brain connected to electrodes could still think. The brain in a vat experiment has been widely discussed among philosophers, and many objections have been raised over its premise, but there is still no good rebuttal to its central question: how do you ever truly know what is real?

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Thought experimentation skills The skills needed for effective thought experimentation are:

Effective time management - you need to create blocks of time in which to conduct your thought experiments without interruption. Visualization - you need to improve your ability to visualize with as much clarity and precision as possible. Concentration - you need to be able to focus intently. Back ground study - you need to study from existing knowldge of whatever field your thought experiment involves. A dash of wildness - you need to be willing to break the rules and climb outside of the accepted tenets of the field of study. Clarity of Purpose - the mind so easily goes off on random tracks unless you give it a specific purpose.

Setting up a thought experiment: It's easy to set up a thought experiment. You just ask yourself deep thought provoking questions that make great thought experiment prompters: What If... <you fill in the blanks>? What if I were a genius? What if I was someone who could easily solve this problem? What if my brain could read at 25,000 words a minute?

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What if I could take formless energy and instantly shape it into any physical thing I desired? What if I could sense and read the thoughts of other people? If I was.... <fill in the blanks>. If I was standing at the magnetic north pole, can I go in a northerly direction? If I was a woman instead of a man (or vice versa), what would my life be like? If I was from Iraq instead of America (or vice versa), how would I view the world? If I was a person of pure unconditional love, how would I think, feel and act, and how different would my life be? How would other people respond to me? What would happen if....? What would happen if we found a way to use 100% of our brain potential? What would happen if there was no money in the world? What would that be like? What would I do if I didn't have to earn money to survive? Asking deep thought provoking questions enables you to view the world like genius poet and artist, William Blake, who wrote: "To see a World in a Grain of Sand, And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand, And Eternity in an hour."

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To "hold Infinity in the palm of your hand" is classic thought experimentation. Poets and Quantum Physicists are very similar in the thought experiments they conduct. Exercises : Five Thought Experiments to Expand Your Mind and Transform Your Thinking: 1. Deep thoughts in deep space. Close your eyes. Imagine that you are floating up out of your body and rise up through the ceiling, through the roof of your building, and continue to rise up over your neighbourhood. As you go up you can see further and further. You see your town or city, you rise higher and can see your state or county, you rise higher and can see your country, you keep going higher and you can see the planet Earth receding below you as you travel far, far away. Deeper and deeper into space. See if you can travel into infinity. Keep going. Can you find the edge of the Universe? Reach a point where you feel comfortable to pause there in deep space, trillions of light years from The Earth. Begin to think about your life and about human life from this perspective, so very far away, so very far removed from emotional issues. See what insights come to you as you explore deep thought. Use the Powers of 10 java slide show to help you visualize your journey from the microcosm to the macrocosm - it's brilliant. (An alternative version of the thought experiment, is to imagine that you are expanding bigger and bigger out into the universe. Keep going and going until you are the Universe. Keep going until you begin to get a semblance that you are everything, that you are God, the Quantum Field, the Life Force, Infinite Intelligence, the Omnipresence.)
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2. Borrowed Genius. A thought experiment in activating your genius. This one is easy to apply. This thought experiment from Win Wenger involves closing your eyes, and imagining yourself in a tranquil Eden-like garden. Have one of your genius heroes appear in the garden. Maybe it's Albert Einstein, or Leonardo da Vinci, or Mozart, or someone that is inspirational to you. Have them stand before you and greet you. Then, your genius turns around and you step up behind him or her. Then you step into the body of your genius and it's as though you are wearing that genius like a space suit or actually becoming that genius. When you feel that you are fully merged with that genius, you can start to think about your challenge, or area of interest with the brain of your genius! 3. Rubber Time: A Thought Experiment in Time Travel In the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, it says that if you meditate and achieve Samadhi with the concept of Time (past, present and future), that you can understand and know the past and future. Al Bielik, Duncan Cameron and Preston Nichols have all testified to knowledge of US experiments in Time Travel. They describe how geniuses Albert Einstein, Wilhelm Reich, Nikola Tesla, and John von Neumann conducted top secret experiments into invisibility in the early 1930's and stumbled upon time travel (see The Philadelphia Experiment). This work evolved into the Montauk Project where it is said that time travel was mastered to some extent. Conduct your own thought experiment in Time Travel. Close your eyes and imagine what the world will be like in 10 years, 20 years, 50 years, 500 years, 5000 years, 5,000,000 years. Ask yourself deep thought questions about your field of interest. Notice the changes in the way people live as you travel into the future. How do they travel? What are the predominant beliefs? How are societies organised 5,000 years in the

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future? Notice how humans evolve or change? Be like a reporter as you travel through time. You can also do this experiment in reverse, travelling back in time, to the very beginning of time and beyond. What's the other side of the Big Bang? Another experiment in time is to imagine that there are parallel universes and that you are existing in them all. Review your life and think of all the points where you had choices to make. You chose the course that you did, but imagine that an aspect of yourself in a parallel universe chose a different course and is living a life determined by that choice. (eg.You married Bill but could have married Ben. In the parallel universe, you married Ben instead and your life is made different by all the different choices you made there.) 4. The God Thought Experiment: If there is a God, or a Universal Energy, and that energy is everywhere in everything, then everything about YOU must be made up of that. If God is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent, then everything that you are is God and as such those qualities are inherent in you. If everything that you are is GOD, then what you are must be omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. Conduct a thought experiment along these lines. Notice how all your feelings can take on a very different hue when you stop labelling them as you normally do, and instead label them as part of the energy of God. Will you be able to say, "Peace, be still and know that I am God," and know that to be true? If God is everywhere in everything, then "There is only God". With that viewpoint, how different does your world become? 5. A Wilde Experiment in Thought Power. Stuart Wilde, metaphysician and author of The Quickening offers many

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interesting and mind-expanding thought experiments. One involves conceptualising and enlivening the etheric body to make for more powerful thought forms, easier out-of-body experiences, and greater mental control. Here's what you do. Sit or lie down, relax with your eyes closed and your attention focussed inwardly. Relax your body. Then imagine your arms and legs growing so that they are 1 metre longer than normal. Shrink back to normal size. Then imagine your body growing even bigger again. Then go back to normal size again. Do this once more. Now imagine that your body is rotating around to face the opposite direction. Try and feel this happening, although your physical body remains absolutely still. This is your etheric energy body that is moving. Return back to your start position. Now imagine that your feet are rising into the air while your head is sinking down through the floor until you are upside down. Return to normal position in alignment with your physical body. Now imagine moving in the opposite direction. Keep playing these mental games and feeling your energy body expanding, and contracting, rotating and spinning until you feel you are getting good at it. The next stage is to imagine your body standing up, and then to imagine it standing across the room (or up on the ceiling) looking back at your physical body. Practicing this thought experiment can lead to startling effects. You may have lucid dreams or have a full blown out-ofbody experience (which is great fun!). Either way it will expand your mind and give you a new concept of yourself. Jack Schwartz uses a similar technique to develop pain control (he can stick a sailors' needle right through his bicep, because he has learned to disassociate from the physical body and instead inhabit the etheric energy body).

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Thought experiments enable you to play with nature and develop your own hypotheses and insights about life. In experimenting with thought, you use your brain in productive, creative and innovative ways which help unleash the genius within.

Bibliography Wikipedia http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-most-famous-thoughtexperiments.php http://www.wilywalnut.com/thought-experiments.html

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