While thought experiments are meant to challenge readers to think about things in different ways they always seem to miss the mark for me. They are like really bad stories with continuity errors, plot holes, and preachy subtext. Maybe it is because they are usually created by academics but thought experiments wreak of pretentious attempts to dumb down a moral, social, or scientific concept into a clever puzzle for the masses. They aren’t experiments anyway. They are just what-if statements that aren’t fun. I’m sure there are a few thought experiments that I might like and I have probably tried to come up with one or two myself. I am not immune to trying to encapsulate my cleverness in a word puzzle and I don’t mind a challenge but something is troubling to me about how these types of tests are posed.

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Thought experiments remind me of riddles or puzzles that are worded in a way that is purposefully misleading. The writer has already thought about the problem and can imagine how others will react and then writes the thing in a way that will confound the reader. One trick in riddles is when the writer uses two different versions of the same word but it is not apparent in the phrasing. The writer controls the context in a way that on its surface seems one way but if you know the trick you see it another way. It is designed to fail.

Many thought experiments are written in a way that makes the scenario seem plausible or simple or weirdly complicated to reveal some truth about the reader. These experiments tend to imply that an answer is either binary, super simple, or endlesslessly complicated. To explain how much I don’t like how thought experiments are generated and implemented I will critique some examples.

Example 1:

Mary lives in a black-and-white room, reads black-and-white books, and uses screens that only display images in black and white to learn everything that has ever been discovered about color vision in physics and biology. One day, her computer screen breaks and displays the color red. For the first time, she sees color.

Firstly, what kind of psychopath would put Mary into a room and restrict her to this torture? That is a real problem here. Also, just because she only sees screens and books in black-and-white she would presumably be able to see her skin and maybe her clothes or her hands or some other stuff that has color. Also, how old is she and why hasn’t she gone crazy? People can’t be neglected to this degree and develop normally. Has she never accidentally cut herself? How has she learned the language to be able to understand the words in the books and on screen?

The main question in this scenario is whether seeing something red adds something to the knowledge of the concept of red and the easy answer is, obviously she does! Seeing something is information and so she is getting new information about the color red. She wouldn’t label it red unless someone told her that that is what red looks like so there’s another issue with the scenario. The idea that experiencing additional stimulus doesn’t make a difference is so inane it doesn’t make sense to ask it. This thought experiment highlights why I hate thought experiments because it asks it as if it is getting at some deep truth about life but it is just absurd and needlessly complicated. If someone knows a bunch of stuff about water and swimming and then jumps in a pool, do they know something new about water? Of course they do!

Example 2:

Imagine that super neuroscientists have created a machine that can simulate pleasurable experiences for the rest of your life. The simulation is ultra-realistic and indistinguishable from reality. There are no adverse side effects, and specific pleasurable experiences can even be programmed into the simulation. Regarding pleasure experienced, the machine offers more than is possible in several lifetimes.

This scenario highlights the problems of plausibility and realism that are so prevalent in thought experiments. This seems more like a child’s “what if” scenario than some important philosophical riddle. It is unlikely that scientists would or could create a machine that only simulates pleasure and that there would be no negative consequences to using such a device. There are no situations where a benefit can be had without a cost. Also, what kind of pleasure are they talking about? Sexual pleasure? Auditory pleasure? Gustatory pleasure? A mixture? If it is a mixture of pleasures then in what order and at what frequency would they give these pleasures to not make them boring? Even if they could work this out wouldn’t the person experiencing these pleasures be overwhelmed by the excess of stimulation which would lead to some psychosis? The idea that people should think about pleasure and pain and how to live their lives is very interesting and important, but this thought experiment is neither clever nor interesting to me.

Example 3:

You’re standing next to a tram track, watching as a runaway tram approaches five people who are chained to the track and unable to escape. However, if you notice a nearby lever, the tram would be diverted onto a different track, killing the person connected to that track in its place. What do you do?

This might be my least favorite thought experiment. I hate this one because it is used so often and the smugness that people who propose it is insufferable. They think this is some kind of moral rosetta stone, some kind of ethical Turing test, or some sort of philosophical messiah. Get over yourselves! The scenario is ridiculously unrealistic. Why would these people be tied to a railway? Why would someone be trying to test you in this manner? Why you? Why is there no way to communicate with someone else to help in the situation? Why should I do anything at all? Why doesn’t the train have a built-in braking system that can sense when objects or people are obstructing the railway? Where is the driver? Where are the police? Why do I have access to a switch? The idea that I should just take the scenario as is and try to work out an answer just because it is posed to me is obnoxious at best. I’m not interested in being psychoanalyzed by someone posing such an annoying situation and acting like it reveals something valuable about myself or anyone else. There are no people tied to a railway. I am not anywhere near a train.

Riddle Example 1:

I have cities, but no houses. I have mountains, but no trees. I have water, but no fish. What am I?

I also hate most riddles. This is an example of a stupid one. It is manipulative and trivial. I do not like when people use language to manipulate me. This is especially true when those people act as if they are smart for knowing the answer ahead of time. I don’t like when people make things purposefully obscure. I like clarity and shared understanding. I don’t like to be controlled or made to feel stupid. I don’t like when people use others for their amusement without their consent. I don’t like pranks. These activities are designed to set one person against another in a way that I feel goes against the spirit of cooperation, comradery, and education. It doesn’t inspire curiosity in me and it doesn’t create joy or peace. I tend to get frustrated when I try to engage with these kinds of puzzles or thought experiments. The answer to the above riddle is MAP. It is about a map, except that it isn’t accurate in that maps can have trees as much as they can have mountains and if there is a little picture of a fish then it has fish just like it has water. It’s fucking stupid!

One thing I do like is magic. I enjoy the hell out of some magic and I think it is because the magician isn’t trying to make you feel stupid. They are trying to inspire awe and curiosity. It engages the part of the brain that tries to figure out things that don’t make sense. It takes advantage of assumptions, and automatic processes and shows us that we are susceptible to manipulation without pointing to the manipulation as shameful. It reveals to us that we are ignorant without shame. Even if we never figure out how the magic was accomplished we know that there was some trick, some skill involved that in theory is knowable. The magician isn’t trying to make me feel lesser but instead is trying to bring me into their world and show me how things could be if I were to spend time learning their techniques.

Here is a thought experiment that I like:

Example 4:

Is it possible for an all-powerful deity to create a task that it cannot complete? Even if it can come up with such a task, it is not all-powerful because it cannot do it. If it cannot create such a work, it is limited by its incapacity and thus is not all-powerful.

As much as this is a kind of thought experiment it is also a logical syllogism in narrative form. It is one of the best proofs of the non-existence of the sort of god with the characteristics claimed by Christians, Jews, and Muslims. It shows how inconsistent the logic is behind the claim that God is all-powerful. It is an illogical concept for anything to be all-powerful. It is similar to the concept that god is all-good, all-powerful, and all-knowing and yet there is so much suffering. This makes no sense, especially considering that humans are supposedly made in god’s image which would negate any argument that the definition of good or suffering would be different for god than us. If god cares about humans and we should care about god then why doesn’t god make things better for us? What have you done for me lately god?

In conclusion, I don’t like thought experiments, riddles, or pranks. I think that people are very clever and are looking for opportunities to show off their cleverness but this is usually one-sided. I think that it is pretentious to posit ridiculous scenarios and pass them off as wisdom. It reminds me of a child saying, “Look what I can do!” Most thought experiments require the scenario to be unrealistic to highlight some impossible or extreme moral dilemma that is unlikely to ever occur in real life. Real life tends to be much more complicated and ethics in practice involve many gray areas of consideration. Sometimes, in real life, there is no time to think about what is right or wrong and one simply acts or freezes, and judging these actions only occurs afterward. The legal system is fraught with complex moral situations and it sometimes gets things very wrong but it still attempts to consider as much as possible before it offers a verdict.

Instead of thought experiments, I would prefer to examine real-world scenarios and discuss as many aspects related to them as possible. I like to dive into the gray areas and not limit my thinking to a narrow tract. Asking questions, doing research, perspective-shifting, and scientific examination seem to be better modes of inquiry than absurd riddles, and old-fashioned thought experiments. I also think that being wise is being humble enough to admit when I don’t know and being put into a situation that makes my ignorance the butt of someone else’s joke. I know that sometimes the point of a thought experiment is to show that there is no right answer or to spark thought around a topic but I don’t think that that is the actual result when thought experiments are utilized. Maybe I just don’t like tests.

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