What Is Thought Stopping?

The top ten ideas include: 1. Brain in a Vat; 2. Schrodinger's Cat; 3. The Chinese Room; 4. Monkeys and Typewriters; 5 Galileo's Gravity Experiment; 6. The Ship of Theseus; 7. Einstein's Light Beam; 8. The Ticking Time Bomb; 9. The Cow in the field; 10. The Trolley Problem

Ten thoughts

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The top ten ideas include: 1. Brain in a Vat; 2. Schrodinger's Cat; 3. The Chinese Room; 4. Monkeys and Typewriters; 5 Galileo's Gravity Experiment; 6. The Ship of Theseus; 7. Einstein's Light Beam; 8. The Ticking Time Bomb; 9. The Cow in the field; 10. The Trolley Problem

Chinese name

Ten thoughts

Foreign name

Ten big ideas

Brain in a Vat

There is no more thought experiment than the so-called "brain in the tank" hypothesis. This thought experiment covers everything from cognition to

Schrodinger's Cat

Schrödinger's cat was first proposed by physicist Schrödinger and is a paradox in the field of quantum mechanics. The content is: a cat, some radioactive elements, and a bottle of poison gas are enclosed in a box for an hour. Within an hour, the chance of radioactive elements decaying is 50%. If decayed, a hammer connected to the Geiger counter would be triggered, smashing the bottle, releasing poison gas, and killing the cat. Because the probability of this happening is equal, Schrödinger believes that before the box is opened, the cat in the box is considered dead and alive.

Interpretation:

In short, the core idea of this experiment is that there is no observer when the event occurs, and the cat in the box exists in all its possible states (both dead and alive) at the same time. Schrödinger first proposed this experiment in response to an article discussing the superposition of quantum states. Schrödinger's cat also explains

The Chinese Room

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Monkeys and Typewriters

Another thought experiment that has a large part of popular culture is "

Galileo 's Gravity Experiment

To disprove Aristotle's theory that the speed of free fall depends on the mass of the object, Galileo constructed a simple thought experiment. According to Aristotle, if a light object was tied to a heavy object and then dropped from the tower, the heavy object would fall faster and the rope between the two objects would be straightened. At this time, the light object will create a resistance to the heavy object, making the falling speed slower. However, on the other hand, the mass of two objects tied together should be greater than that of any single object, so the entire system should fall faster. This contradiction proves that Aristotle's theory is wrong.

Interpretation:

This thought experiment helped prove a very important theory: regardless of the mass of the object, regardless of the resistance, the rate of free fall of all objects is the same.

The Ship of Theseus

One of the oldest thought experiments. First recorded from Plutarch. It describes a ship that can sail for hundreds of years at sea, thanks to uninterrupted repairs and replacement parts. As soon as a piece of wood rots, it will be replaced, and so on, until all the functional parts are not the first ones. The question is, will the resulting ship still be the original Ship of Theseus, or a completely different ship? If it is not the original ship, when will it no longer be the original ship? The philosopher Thomas Hobbes later came in to extend this. If the old parts taken from the ship of Theseus were used to rebuild a new ship, then which of the two ships was the true ship of Theseus?

Interpretation:

For philosophers, the ship of Theseus was used to study the nature of identity. In particular, discuss whether an object is only equal to the sum of its constituent parts. A more modern example is an evolving band until there is no original member of the band at any given stage. This problem can be applied to various fields. For enterprises, the original name remains after continuous mergers and acquisitions and replacement of the owner. For the human body, the human body is constantly undergoing metabolism and self-repair. The core idea of this experiment is to force people to reflect on the common sense that identity is limited to actual objects and phenomena.

Einstein's Light Beam

Einstein's famous special theory of relativity was inspired by his thought experiment at the age of 16. In his autobiography, Einstein recalled that he dreamed of pursuing a light in the universe. He reasoned that if he could move beside the light at the speed of light, then he should be able to see the light become "an electromagnetic field that constantly oscillates but stagnates in space." For Einstein, this thought experiment proved that for this virtual observer, all physical laws should be the same as those observed by an observer who is stationary with respect to the earth.

Interpretation:

In fact, no one knows exactly what this means. Scientists have been arguing that such a simple thought experiment has helped Einstein complete such a huge leap to special relativity. At the time, the ideas in this experiment were contrary to the now-abandoned "Ether" theory. But it took him years to prove that he was right.

The Ticking Time Bomb

If you are concerned with political current affairs in recent years, or have seen action movies, then you must be familiar with the "time bomb" thought experiment. It requires you to imagine a bomb or other weapon of mass destruction hiding in your city, and the countdown to the explosion will soon be zero. There was an insider in detention who knew where the bomb was buried. Do you use torture for intelligence?

Interpretation:

versus

The Cow in the field

One of the most important thought experiments in the field of epistemology is "the cows in the open space." It describes a farmer worried about losing his winning cow. The milkman arrived at the farm at this time, and he told the farmer not to worry because he saw the cow in a nearby open field. Although the farmer believed in the milkman, he took a personal look. He saw the familiar black and white shapes and was very satisfied. After a while, the milkman went to the open space to reconfirm. That cow was there, but it was hiding in the woods, and there was a large sheet of black and white paper wrapped around the tree in the open space. Obviously, the farmer mistaken this paper for his own cow. The question is, although the cows are always on the open land, but the farmer says he knows the cows are correct when they are on the open land?

Interpretation:

The cows in the open space were originally used by Edmund Gettier to criticize the JTB (justified true belief) theory as the definition of knowledge in the mainstream, that is, when people believe one thing, it becomes knowledge; it is actually true Yes, and people have verifiable reasons to believe it. In this experiment, the farmer believed that the cows were on the open field and was confirmed by the testimony of the milkman and his own observations of the black and white on the open field. And after the milkman later confirmed, this matter is also true. Nevertheless, the farmer did not really know where the cows were, because he believed that the derivation of the cows there was based on the wrong premise. Gettier used this experiment and other examples to explain that the theory that defines knowledge as JTB needs revision.

The Trolley Problem

The "tram problem" is one of the most well-known thought experiments in ethics. Its content is roughly: a lunatic tied five innocent people to the tram track. An out-of-control tram came towards them, and they were crushed to them a moment later. Fortunately, you can pull a lever to get the tram to another track. But there is another problem. The lunatic also tied a person on that other track. Considering the above situation, should you pull the lever? ^[1]

The above interpretation is only a reference for scientists, and there is no strong evidence to prove it.