[ { "id": "trolley", "slug": "trolley", "title": "Trolley Problem", "category": "ethics", "associated_thinkers": [ "Philippa Foot", "Judith Jarvis Thomson" ], "original_publication": "Foot, The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of the Double Effect (1967); Thomson’s later developments", "difficulty": "Beginner", "themes": [ "killing", "intention", "consequences" ], "references": [ { "title": "Tamar Gendler, The Trolley Problem, Open Yale Courses", "url": "https://oyc.yale.edu/philosophy/phil-181/lecture-14", "kind": "academic", "support": "Academic discussion supporting the scenario and principal distinctions in Trolley Problem; historical work is mediated unless an original text is explicitly identified." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "thought experiment", "related_experiments": [ "transplant", "violinist" ], "file_path": "experiments/ethics/trolley.md", "summary": "When, if ever, may saving several lives justify foreseeably killing one?" }, { "id": "violinist", "slug": "violinist", "title": "The Violinist", "category": "ethics", "associated_thinkers": [ "Judith Jarvis Thomson" ], "original_publication": "A Defense of Abortion (1971)", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "bodily autonomy", "rights", "obligation" ], "references": [ { "title": "Judith Jarvis Thomson, A Defense of Abortion (1971), university-hosted text", "url": "https://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/Phil160,Fall02/thomson.htm", "kind": "academic", "support": "Academic discussion supporting the scenario and principal distinctions in The Violinist; historical work is mediated unless an original text is explicitly identified." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "thought experiment", "related_experiments": [ "drowning-child", "transplant" ], "file_path": "experiments/ethics/violinist.md", "summary": "Does a right to life automatically include a right to another person’s bodily support?" }, { "id": "experience-machine", "slug": "experience-machine", "title": "Experience Machine", "category": "ethics", "associated_thinkers": [ "Robert Nozick" ], "original_publication": "Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974); revised presentation in The Examined Life (1989)", "difficulty": "Beginner", "themes": [ "well-being", "authenticity", "pleasure" ], "references": [ { "title": "Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Experience Machine", "url": "https://iep.utm.edu/experience-machine/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Academic discussion supporting the scenario and principal distinctions in Experience Machine; historical work is mediated unless an original text is explicitly identified." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "thought experiment", "related_experiments": [ "marys-room", "violinist" ], "file_path": "experiments/ethics/experience-machine.md", "summary": "Is the quality of experience all that makes a life good for its subject?" }, { "id": "utility-monster", "slug": "utility-monster", "title": "Utility Monster", "category": "ethics", "associated_thinkers": [ "Robert Nozick" ], "original_publication": "Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974)", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "aggregation", "fairness", "welfare" ], "references": [ { "title": "Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974), chapter 3, p. 41", "url": "https://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/readings/nozick.pdf", "kind": "primary", "support": "The relevant passage directly states the utility-monster possibility and Nozick’s qualified “seems to require” inference about increasing total utility. Read at printed p. 41 in a University of Colorado-hosted PDF reproduction; the complete book was not consulted." }, { "title": "Richard Yetter Chappell, Negative Utility Monsters", "url": "https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/utilitas/article/abs/negative-utility-monsters/03A3CD2DF0B295A4F1B1EDC69F77597C", "kind": "academic", "support": "The Cambridge abstract and bibliographic record describe Nozick’s positive-gain monster and Chappell’s separate negative-utility variation. The full article was not accessed; this source is used to distinguish the variation, not to establish the whole argument." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Consequentialism", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consequentialism/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Sections 1 and 3 distinguish classic maximizing, aggregative, total-utility commitments from other consequentialist approaches and discuss distribution and prioritarianism. Context only; it does not establish Nozick’s original attribution." }, { "title": "Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Robert Nozick", "url": "https://iep.utm.edu/nozick/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Section 2 and subsection 2(a) discuss Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Nozick’s rights-based view, and rights as side-constraints. Context only; the consulted entry does not discuss the utility-monster passage." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "thought experiment", "related_experiments": [ "repugnant-conclusion", "experience-machine" ], "file_path": "experiments/ethics/utility-monster.md", "summary": "Can maximizing total well-being justify extreme concentration on a single beneficiary?" }, { "id": "transplant", "slug": "transplant", "title": "Transplant Problem", "category": "ethics", "associated_thinkers": [ "Philippa Foot", "Judith Jarvis Thomson" ], "original_publication": "Twentieth-century trolley and transplant debates; Foot (1967), Thomson’s later discussions", "difficulty": "Beginner", "themes": [ "rights", "killing", "medical ethics" ], "references": [ { "title": "Tamar Gendler, The Trolley Problem, Open Yale Courses", "url": "https://oyc.yale.edu/philosophy/phil-181/lecture-14", "kind": "academic", "support": "Academic discussion supporting the scenario and principal distinctions in Transplant Problem; historical work is mediated unless an original text is explicitly identified." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "thought experiment", "related_experiments": [ "trolley", "organ-lottery" ], "file_path": "experiments/ethics/transplant.md", "summary": "Why might killing one to save five be forbidden even when five lives would certainly be saved?" }, { "id": "repugnant-conclusion", "slug": "repugnant-conclusion", "title": "Repugnant Conclusion", "category": "ethics", "associated_thinkers": [ "Derek Parfit", "Henry Sidgwick (precursor)" ], "original_publication": "Reasons and Persons (1984); earlier aggregation concerns predate Parfit", "difficulty": "Advanced", "themes": [ "population ethics", "aggregation", "quality of life" ], "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Repugnant Conclusion", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/repugnant-conclusion/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Academic discussion supporting the scenario and principal distinctions in Repugnant Conclusion; historical work is mediated unless an original text is explicitly identified." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "argument", "related_experiments": [ "nonidentity-problem", "utility-monster" ], "file_path": "experiments/ethics/repugnant-conclusion.md", "summary": "Can enough minimally good lives make a world better than one containing fewer excellent lives?" }, { "id": "drowning-child", "slug": "drowning-child", "title": "Drowning Child", "category": "ethics", "associated_thinkers": [ "Peter Singer" ], "original_publication": "Famine, Affluence, and Morality (1972)", "difficulty": "Beginner", "themes": [ "beneficence", "distance", "demandingness" ], "references": [ { "title": "Peter Singer, Famine, Affluence, and Morality (1972), university-hosted text, search-index evidence", "url": "https://faculty.uca.edu/rnovy/Singer--FamineAffluence%26Morality.htm", "kind": "academic", "support": "University-hosted text was found in indexed search evidence; direct open timed out. Full-text verification used the separately listed Giving What We Can reproduction." }, { "title": "Peter Singer, Famine, Affluence, and Morality, full text reproduced by Giving What We Can", "url": "https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/get-involved/videos-books-and-essays/famine-affluence-and-morality-peter-singer", "kind": "academic", "support": "Directly retrieved full text of the original philosophical essay; supports shallow-pond scenario, comparable-sacrifice principle, distance and bystander arguments. Host includes advocacy material distinct from Singer’s text." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "thought experiment", "related_experiments": [ "violinist", "utility-monster" ], "file_path": "experiments/ethics/drowning-child.md", "summary": "How far does an easy duty of rescue extend beyond people immediately in front of us?" }, { "id": "nonidentity-problem", "slug": "nonidentity-problem", "title": "Nonidentity Problem", "category": "ethics", "associated_thinkers": [ "Derek Parfit", "Gregory Kavka" ], "original_publication": "Modern formulations in population-ethics work of the 1970s–1980s; Reasons and Persons (1984)", "difficulty": "Advanced", "themes": [ "future generations", "harm", "identity" ], "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Nonidentity Problem", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nonidentity-problem/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Academic discussion supporting the scenario and principal distinctions in Nonidentity Problem; historical work is mediated unless an original text is explicitly identified." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Repugnant Conclusion", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/repugnant-conclusion/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Academic discussion supporting the scenario and principal distinctions in Nonidentity Problem; historical work is mediated unless an original text is explicitly identified." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "thought experiment", "related_experiments": [ "repugnant-conclusion", "fission" ], "file_path": "experiments/ethics/nonidentity-problem.md", "summary": "Can a choice be wrong even if it makes no particular person worse off than that person otherwise would have been?" }, { "id": "organ-lottery", "slug": "organ-lottery", "title": "Survival Lottery", "category": "ethics", "associated_thinkers": [ "John Harris" ], "original_publication": "The Survival Lottery (1975)", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "fairness", "consent", "risk" ], "references": [ { "title": "Harvard ABLConnect, Thought Experiment of the Day, quoting John Harris", "url": "https://ablconnect.harvard.edu/book/thought-experiment-day", "kind": "academic", "support": "Academic discussion supporting the scenario and principal distinctions in Survival Lottery; historical work is mediated unless an original text is explicitly identified." }, { "title": "Tamar Gendler, The Trolley Problem, Open Yale Courses", "url": "https://oyc.yale.edu/philosophy/phil-181/lecture-14", "kind": "academic", "support": "Academic discussion supporting the scenario and principal distinctions in Survival Lottery; historical work is mediated unless an original text is explicitly identified." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "thought experiment", "related_experiments": [ "transplant", "trolley" ], "file_path": "experiments/ethics/organ-lottery.md", "summary": "Can an impartial procedure make compulsory lethal sacrifice morally acceptable?" }, { "id": "ship-of-theseus", "slug": "ship-of-theseus", "title": "Ship of Theseus", "category": "identity", "associated_thinkers": [ "Plutarch", "Thomas Hobbes (reassembly variation)" ], "original_publication": "Plutarch, Life of Theseus §23, ancient account; Hobbes’s later addition", "difficulty": "Beginner", "themes": [ "persistence", "parts", "identity" ], "references": [ { "title": "S. Marc Cohen, Identity, Persistence, and the Ship of Theseus, University of Washington", "url": "https://staff.washington.edu/smcohen/320/theseus.html", "kind": "academic", "support": "Academic discussion supporting the scenario and principal distinctions in Ship of Theseus; historical work is mediated unless an original text is explicitly identified." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "thought experiment", "related_experiments": [ "teletransporter", "lockes-prince-and-cobbler" ], "file_path": "experiments/identity/ship-of-theseus.md", "summary": "What allows an object to remain the very same object while its parts change?" }, { "id": "teletransporter", "slug": "teletransporter", "title": "Teletransporter", "category": "identity", "associated_thinkers": [ "Derek Parfit" ], "original_publication": "Reasons and Persons (1984), modern influential presentation", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "survival", "copying", "continuity" ], "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Personal Identity", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-personal/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Academic discussion supporting the scenario and principal distinctions in Teletransporter; historical work is mediated unless an original text is explicitly identified." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "thought experiment", "related_experiments": [ "fission", "ship-of-theseus" ], "file_path": "experiments/identity/teletransporter.md", "summary": "Does perfect psychological reconstruction preserve you, or merely produce someone much like you?" }, { "id": "fission", "slug": "fission", "title": "Fission and Personal Identity", "category": "identity", "associated_thinkers": [ "Derek Parfit", "David Wiggins", "Sydney Shoemaker" ], "original_publication": "Twentieth-century personal-identity debates; Parfit, Reasons and Persons (1984)", "difficulty": "Advanced", "themes": [ "identity", "branching", "survival" ], "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Personal Identity", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-personal/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Academic discussion supporting the scenario and principal distinctions in Fission and Personal Identity; historical work is mediated unless an original text is explicitly identified." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "thought experiment", "related_experiments": [ "teletransporter", "brain-transplant" ], "file_path": "experiments/identity/fission.md", "summary": "Can one person survive as two people without being identical to both?" }, { "id": "swampman", "slug": "swampman", "title": "Swampman", "category": "identity", "associated_thinkers": [ "Donald Davidson" ], "original_publication": "Knowing One’s Own Mind (1987)", "difficulty": "Advanced", "themes": [ "mental content", "history", "externalism" ], "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Donald Davidson", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/davidson/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Academic discussion supporting the scenario and principal distinctions in Swampman; historical work is mediated unless an original text is explicitly identified." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "thought experiment", "related_experiments": [ "teletransporter", "chinese-room" ], "file_path": "experiments/identity/swampman.md", "summary": "Do a thinker’s meanings and thoughts depend partly on a history outside the thinker’s present physical state?" }, { "id": "lockes-prince-and-cobbler", "slug": "lockes-prince-and-cobbler", "title": "Locke’s Prince and Cobbler", "category": "identity", "associated_thinkers": [ "John Locke" ], "original_publication": "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, II.xxvii (added in 1694)", "difficulty": "Beginner", "themes": [ "consciousness", "responsibility", "personhood" ], "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Locke on Personal Identity", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke-personal-identity/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Academic discussion supporting the scenario and principal distinctions in Locke’s Prince and Cobbler; historical work is mediated unless an original text is explicitly identified." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "thought experiment", "related_experiments": [ "brave-officer", "brain-transplant" ], "file_path": "experiments/identity/lockes-prince-and-cobbler.md", "summary": "Does the person follow bodily continuity or continuity of consciousness?" }, { "id": "brain-transplant", "slug": "brain-transplant", "title": "Brain Transplant: Brown and Robinson", "category": "identity", "associated_thinkers": [ "Sydney Shoemaker" ], "original_publication": "Self-Knowledge and Self-Identity (1963)", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "embodiment", "memory", "survival" ], "references": [ { "title": "Open University Digital Archive, Philosophy in the Open: Debates and Discussions", "url": "https://www.open.ac.uk/library/digital-archive/exhibition/330/theme/1/page/14", "kind": "academic", "support": "Directly retrieved Open University archive essay by Amy Kind explicitly attributes Brown/Robinson to Shoemaker 1963 and discusses Brownson and fission." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Personal Identity", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-personal/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Academic discussion supporting the scenario and principal distinctions in Brain Transplant: Brown and Robinson; historical work is mediated unless an original text is explicitly identified." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "thought experiment", "related_experiments": [ "lockes-prince-and-cobbler", "fission" ], "file_path": "experiments/identity/brain-transplant.md", "summary": "Which person, if either, survives when brain and the rest of the body come apart?" }, { "id": "brave-officer", "slug": "brave-officer", "title": "Brave Officer", "category": "identity", "associated_thinkers": [ "Thomas Reid" ], "original_publication": "Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man (1785), III.vi", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "memory", "transitivity", "identity" ], "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Reid on Memory and Personal Identity", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reid-memory-identity/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Academic discussion supporting the scenario and principal distinctions in Brave Officer; historical work is mediated unless an original text is explicitly identified." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "thought experiment", "related_experiments": [ "lockes-prince-and-cobbler", "fission" ], "file_path": "experiments/identity/brave-officer.md", "summary": "Can a relation that fails transitivity constitute identity, which is transitive?" }, { "id": "marys-room", "slug": "marys-room", "title": "Mary’s Room: The Knowledge Argument", "category": "consciousness", "associated_thinkers": [ "Frank Jackson" ], "original_publication": "Epiphenomenal Qualia (1982); What Mary Didn’t Know (1986)", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "knowledge", "experience", "physicalism" ], "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Qualia: The Knowledge Argument", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia-knowledge/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Academic discussion supporting the scenario and principal distinctions in Mary’s Room: The Knowledge Argument; historical work is mediated unless an original text is explicitly identified." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "thought experiment", "related_experiments": [ "zombies", "inverted-spectrum" ], "file_path": "experiments/consciousness/marys-room.md", "summary": "If Mary learns something upon seeing red, does that show that physical knowledge leaves out facts about consciousness?" }, { "id": "zombies", "slug": "zombies", "title": "Philosophical Zombies", "category": "consciousness", "associated_thinkers": [ "David Chalmers", "Robert Kirk and other twentieth-century contributors" ], "original_publication": "Modern zombie debates: Kirk (1974); Chalmers, The Conscious Mind (1996)", "difficulty": "Advanced", "themes": [ "consciousness", "possibility", "physicalism" ], "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Zombies", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/zombies/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Academic discussion supporting the scenario and principal distinctions in Philosophical Zombies; historical work is mediated unless an original text is explicitly identified." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "thought experiment", "related_experiments": [ "marys-room", "china-brain" ], "file_path": "experiments/consciousness/zombies.md", "summary": "Is a physically identical world without consciousness genuinely possible?" }, { "id": "chinese-room", "slug": "chinese-room", "title": "Chinese Room", "category": "consciousness", "associated_thinkers": [ "John Searle" ], "original_publication": "Minds, Brains, and Programs (1980)", "difficulty": "Beginner", "themes": [ "understanding", "computation", "semantics" ], "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Chinese Room Argument", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chinese-room/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Academic discussion supporting the scenario and principal distinctions in Chinese Room; historical work is mediated unless an original text is explicitly identified." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "thought experiment", "related_experiments": [ "china-brain", "philosophical-mill" ], "file_path": "experiments/consciousness/chinese-room.md", "summary": "Is executing a formally specified program sufficient for understanding?" }, { "id": "inverted-spectrum", "slug": "inverted-spectrum", "title": "Inverted Spectrum", "category": "consciousness", "associated_thinkers": [ "John Locke", "Sydney Shoemaker", "Ned Block" ], "original_publication": "Locke, Essay II.xxxii.15; modern functionalist versions developed in the twentieth century", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "qualia", "function", "perception" ], "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Inverted Qualia", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia-inverted/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Academic discussion supporting the scenario and principal distinctions in Inverted Spectrum; historical work is mediated unless an original text is explicitly identified." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "thought experiment", "related_experiments": [ "marys-room", "zombies" ], "file_path": "experiments/consciousness/inverted-spectrum.md", "summary": "Could experiences differ while every relevant functional role remains the same?" }, { "id": "bat", "slug": "bat", "title": "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?", "category": "consciousness", "associated_thinkers": [ "Thomas Nagel" ], "original_publication": "What Is It Like to Be a Bat? (1974)", "difficulty": "Beginner", "themes": [ "subjectivity", "perspective", "explanation" ], "references": [ { "title": "Thomas Nagel, What Is It Like to Be a Bat? (1974), university-hosted original paper", "url": "https://home.csulb.edu/~cwallis/382/readings/482/nagel.what.is.it.like.to.be.a.bat.1974.pdf", "kind": "academic", "support": "Original article directly retrieved as a 17-page PDF; supports echolocation case, subjective point of view, and limits of reductive explanation; bibliographic header confirms October 1974." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Qualia: The Knowledge Argument", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia-knowledge/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Academic discussion supporting the scenario and principal distinctions in What Is It Like to Be a Bat?; historical work is mediated unless an original text is explicitly identified." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Qualia", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Directly retrieved scholarly overview of phenomenal character, first-person knowledge, and physicalist alternatives." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "thought experiment", "related_experiments": [ "marys-room", "zombies" ], "file_path": "experiments/consciousness/bat.md", "summary": "Can an objective description fully capture an experience available only from a particular point of view?" }, { "id": "china-brain", "slug": "china-brain", "title": "China Brain", "category": "consciousness", "associated_thinkers": [ "Ned Block" ], "original_publication": "Troubles with Functionalism (1978; later reprint versions)", "difficulty": "Advanced", "themes": [ "functionalism", "systems", "qualia" ], "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Qualia", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Academic discussion supporting the scenario and principal distinctions in China Brain; historical work is mediated unless an original text is explicitly identified." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "thought experiment", "related_experiments": [ "chinese-room", "fading-and-dancing-qualia" ], "file_path": "experiments/consciousness/china-brain.md", "summary": "Can the right functional organization produce consciousness in an extremely unfamiliar physical implementation?" }, { "id": "philosophical-mill", "slug": "philosophical-mill", "title": "Leibniz’s Mill", "category": "consciousness", "associated_thinkers": [ "Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz" ], "original_publication": "Monadology §17 (1714)", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "mechanism", "perception", "explanation" ], "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Leibniz’s Philosophy of Mind", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/leibniz-mind/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Directly retrieved SEP section 1 reproduces and analyzes Monadology §17, explicitly dated 1714; original full Monadology was not separately inspected." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Chinese Room Argument", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chinese-room/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Academic discussion supporting the scenario and principal distinctions in Leibniz’s Mill; historical work is mediated unless an original text is explicitly identified." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "thought experiment", "related_experiments": [ "chinese-room", "china-brain" ], "file_path": "experiments/consciousness/philosophical-mill.md", "summary": "Can the interactions of extended parts explain a unified perception?" }, { "id": "beetle-in-box", "slug": "beetle-in-box", "title": "Beetle in a Box", "category": "consciousness", "associated_thinkers": [ "Ludwig Wittgenstein" ], "original_publication": "Philosophical Investigations §293 (published 1953)", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "private language", "meaning", "sensation" ], "references": [ { "title": "Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations §293, Stanford-hosted excerpt", "url": "https://web.stanford.edu/~paulsko/Wittgenstein293.html", "kind": "academic", "support": "Academic discussion supporting the scenario and principal distinctions in Beetle in a Box; historical work is mediated unless an original text is explicitly identified." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "thought experiment", "related_experiments": [ "inverted-spectrum", "bat" ], "file_path": "experiments/consciousness/beetle-in-box.md", "summary": "Can a wholly private object determine the meaning of a publicly used sensation word?" }, { "id": "fading-and-dancing-qualia", "slug": "fading-and-dancing-qualia", "title": "Fading and Dancing Qualia", "category": "consciousness", "associated_thinkers": [ "David Chalmers" ], "original_publication": "Absent Qualia, Fading Qualia, Dancing Qualia (1995)", "difficulty": "Advanced", "themes": [ "organizational invariance", "replacement", "awareness" ], "references": [ { "title": "David Chalmers, Absent Qualia, Fading Qualia, Dancing Qualia (1995), author’s text", "url": "https://consc.net/papers/qualia.html", "kind": "academic", "support": "Academic discussion supporting the scenario and principal distinctions in Fading and Dancing Qualia; historical work is mediated unless an original text is explicitly identified." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "thought experiment", "related_experiments": [ "china-brain", "inverted-spectrum" ], "file_path": "experiments/consciousness/fading-and-dancing-qualia.md", "summary": "Could experience change radically without any corresponding change in a system’s ability to notice?" }, { "id": "brain-in-a-vat", "slug": "brain-in-a-vat", "title": "Brain in a Vat", "category": "epistemology", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "associated_thinkers": [ "Hilary Putnam" ], "original_publication": "Reason, Truth and History (1981), chapter 1; earlier skeptical precursors", "summary": "Could an entirely simulated sensory life undermine knowledge of the external world?", "themes": [ "skepticism", "meaning", "externalism" ], "related_experiments": [ "evil-demon", "dream-argument" ], "file_path": "experiments/epistemology/brain-in-a-vat.md", "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Content Externalism and Skepticism", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism-content-externalism/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Cartesian skeptical hypotheses and the scope of Putnam’s semantic response" } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "thought experiment" }, { "id": "evil-demon", "slug": "evil-demon", "title": "Descartes’s Evil Demon", "category": "epistemology", "difficulty": "Beginner", "associated_thinkers": [ "René Descartes" ], "original_publication": "Meditations on First Philosophy (1641), Meditation I", "summary": "A deliberately powerful deceiver tests which beliefs can survive radical doubt.", "themes": [ "skepticism", "certainty", "methodological doubt" ], "related_experiments": [ "dream-argument", "brain-in-a-vat" ], "file_path": "experiments/epistemology/evil-demon.md", "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Content Externalism and Skepticism", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism-content-externalism/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Cartesian skeptical hypotheses and the scope of Putnam’s semantic response" }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Dreams and Dreaming", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dreams-dreaming/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Historical dream arguments and the distinction between dreaming and other skeptical scenarios" } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "thought experiment" }, { "id": "dream-argument", "slug": "dream-argument", "title": "The Dream Argument", "category": "epistemology", "difficulty": "Beginner", "associated_thinkers": [ "René Descartes" ], "original_publication": "Meditations on First Philosophy (1641), Meditation I; ancient precursors", "summary": "Dreams challenge the assumption that compelling present experience guarantees wakefulness.", "themes": [ "dreaming", "perception", "skepticism" ], "related_experiments": [ "evil-demon", "brain-in-a-vat" ], "file_path": "experiments/epistemology/dream-argument.md", "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Dreams and Dreaming", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dreams-dreaming/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Historical dream arguments and the distinction between dreaming and other skeptical scenarios" }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Content Externalism and Skepticism", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism-content-externalism/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Cartesian skeptical hypotheses and the scope of Putnam’s semantic response" } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "argument" }, { "id": "gettier-cases", "slug": "gettier-cases", "title": "Gettier Cases", "category": "epistemology", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "associated_thinkers": [ "Edmund Gettier" ], "original_publication": "“Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?” (1963)", "summary": "A belief can be justified and true while its truth appears to depend on the wrong kind of luck.", "themes": [ "knowledge", "justification", "epistemic luck" ], "related_experiments": [ "fake-barn", "russells-five-minute-world" ], "file_path": "experiments/epistemology/gettier-cases.md", "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: The Analysis of Knowledge", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Gettier cases, fake barns, historical attribution, and competing analyses of knowledge" } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "thought experiment" }, { "id": "fake-barn", "slug": "fake-barn", "title": "Fake-Barn Country", "category": "epistemology", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "associated_thinkers": [ "Carl Ginet", "Alvin Goldman" ], "original_publication": "Ginet’s example, published in Goldman’s “Discrimination and Perceptual Knowledge” (1976)", "summary": "Accurate perception in a deceptive neighborhood tests whether a true belief is safe enough for knowledge.", "themes": [ "knowledge", "environmental luck", "reliability" ], "related_experiments": [ "gettier-cases", "brain-in-a-vat" ], "file_path": "experiments/epistemology/fake-barn.md", "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: The Analysis of Knowledge", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Gettier cases, fake barns, historical attribution, and competing analyses of knowledge" }, { "title": "Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Gettier Problems", "url": "https://iep.utm.edu/gettier/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Barn case and disagreement over its classification" } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "thought experiment" }, { "id": "molyneux-problem", "slug": "molyneux-problem", "title": "Molyneux’s Problem", "category": "epistemology", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "associated_thinkers": [ "William Molyneux", "John Locke" ], "original_publication": "Letters to Locke (1688 and 1693); Locke’s Essay, second edition (1694)", "summary": "Could someone newly able to see recognize by sight shapes previously known only through touch?", "themes": [ "perception", "cross-modal recognition", "learning" ], "related_experiments": [ "dream-argument", "gettier-cases" ], "file_path": "experiments/epistemology/molyneux-problem.md", "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Molyneux’s Problem", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/molyneux-problem/", "kind": "academic", "support": "1688 and 1693 letters, 1694 publication, empiricism, and empirical follow-up" }, { "title": "Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Molyneux’s Question", "url": "https://iep.utm.edu/molyneux/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Philosophical framing of immediate visual recognition" } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "thought experiment" }, { "id": "russells-five-minute-world", "slug": "russells-five-minute-world", "title": "Russell’s Five-Minute World", "category": "epistemology", "difficulty": "Beginner", "associated_thinkers": [ "Bertrand Russell" ], "original_publication": "The Analysis of Mind (1921), Lecture IX: Memory", "summary": "A newly created world with apparent memories tests the difference between present evidence and the past it represents.", "themes": [ "memory", "past", "skepticism" ], "related_experiments": [ "dream-argument", "gettier-cases" ], "file_path": "experiments/epistemology/russells-five-minute-world.md", "references": [ { "title": "Bertrand Russell, The Analysis of Mind (1921), Lecture IX: Memory", "url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2529/pg2529-images.html", "kind": "academic", "support": "Original five-minute hypothesis and Russell’s explicit refusal to recommend it as a serious hypothesis" }, { "title": "Michael Tooley, Knowledge of the Past, university course chapter", "url": "https://spot.colorado.edu/~tooley/Chapter7.html", "kind": "academic", "support": "Discussion of Russell’s hypothesis and the problem of historical knowledge" } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "thought experiment" }, { "id": "sorites", "slug": "sorites", "title": "Sorites: When Does a Heap Begin?", "category": "logic", "difficulty": "Beginner", "associated_thinkers": [ "Eubulides of Miletus" ], "original_publication": "Ancient Greek tradition, fourth century BCE; attribution traditional", "summary": "A sequence of individually tiny changes challenges the boundaries of vague concepts.", "themes": [ "vagueness", "logic", "classification" ], "related_experiments": [ "liar", "unexpected-hanging" ], "file_path": "experiments/logic/sorites.md", "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Sorites Paradox", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sorites-paradox/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Ancient attribution, tolerance premises, and major accounts of vagueness" } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "paradox" }, { "id": "liar", "slug": "liar", "title": "The Liar Paradox", "category": "logic", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "associated_thinkers": [ "Ancient Megarian logicians", "Alfred Tarski", "Saul Kripke" ], "original_publication": "Ancient tradition; influential modern semantic treatments in the twentieth century", "summary": "A sentence that denies its own truth exposes tension in familiar principles of truth and inference.", "themes": [ "truth", "self-reference", "semantics" ], "related_experiments": [ "russells-paradox", "unexpected-hanging" ], "file_path": "experiments/logic/liar.md", "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Liar Paradox", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liar-paradox/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Semantic structure, historical qualifications, and families of responses" } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "paradox" }, { "id": "russells-paradox", "slug": "russells-paradox", "title": "Russell’s Paradox", "category": "logic", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "associated_thinkers": [ "Bertrand Russell", "Gottlob Frege" ], "original_publication": "Discovery around 1901; letter to Frege (1902)", "summary": "The set of all sets that are not members of themselves undermines unrestricted set formation.", "themes": [ "sets", "self-membership", "foundations" ], "related_experiments": [ "liar", "sorites" ], "file_path": "experiments/logic/russells-paradox.md", "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Russell’s Paradox", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/russell-paradox/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Discovery around 1901, unrestricted comprehension, and responses in set theory" } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "paradox" }, { "id": "unexpected-hanging", "slug": "unexpected-hanging", "title": "The Unexpected Hanging / Surprise Test", "category": "logic", "difficulty": "Advanced", "associated_thinkers": [ "Modern puzzle tradition", "D. J. O’Connor" ], "original_publication": "Modern discussion from the mid-twentieth century; exact origin uncertain", "summary": "An announcement about what cannot be known seems to undermine the reasoning used to predict it.", "themes": [ "knowledge", "prediction", "self-reference" ], "related_experiments": [ "liar", "newcomb" ], "file_path": "experiments/logic/unexpected-hanging.md", "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Epistemic Paradoxes", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemic-paradoxes/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Surprise-test formulation and self-referential knowledge difficulties" } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "paradox" }, { "id": "buridans-ass", "slug": "buridans-ass", "title": "Buridan’s Ass", "category": "logic", "difficulty": "Beginner", "associated_thinkers": [ "John Buridan (traditional association)", "Aristotle (earlier related example)" ], "original_publication": "Medieval and later tradition; donkey formulation not found in Buridan’s writings", "summary": "Perfectly balanced alternatives test whether choosing requires a reason favoring one specific option.", "themes": [ "choice", "symmetry", "reasons" ], "related_experiments": [ "newcomb", "frankfurt-cases" ], "file_path": "experiments/logic/buridans-ass.md", "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: John Buridan", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/buridan/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Section 7: ass example absent from Buridan’s writings; earlier Aristotelian parallels" } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "thought experiment" }, { "id": "achilles-and-tortoise", "slug": "achilles-and-tortoise", "title": "Achilles and the Tortoise", "category": "logic", "difficulty": "Beginner", "associated_thinkers": [ "Zeno of Elea" ], "original_publication": "Fifth century BCE; preserved and discussed by Aristotle", "summary": "An infinite sequence of catch-up stages seems to prevent a faster runner from overtaking a slower one.", "themes": [ "infinity", "motion", "limits" ], "related_experiments": [ "sorites", "bootstrap" ], "file_path": "experiments/logic/achilles-and-tortoise.md", "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Zeno’s Paradoxes", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/paradox-zeno/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Achilles argument, infinite series, and distinction between mathematical and physical issues" } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "paradox" }, { "id": "grandfather-paradox", "slug": "grandfather-paradox", "title": "The Grandfather Paradox", "category": "time-and-causality", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "associated_thinkers": [ "David Lewis (influential analysis)" ], "original_publication": "Older time-travel tradition; Lewis, “The Paradoxes of Time Travel” (1976)", "summary": "A traveler’s attempt to prevent their own ancestry tests the consistency of a single history.", "themes": [ "time travel", "consistency", "ability" ], "related_experiments": [ "bootstrap", "consequence-argument" ], "file_path": "experiments/time-and-causality/grandfather-paradox.md", "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Time Travel", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time-travel/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Grandfather paradox, contextual ability, causal loops, and limits of philosophical possibility arguments" } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "paradox" }, { "id": "bootstrap", "slug": "bootstrap", "title": "The Bootstrap / Causal-Loop Paradox", "category": "time-and-causality", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "associated_thinkers": [ "David Lewis (influential analysis)" ], "original_publication": "Longstanding time-travel tradition; modern philosophical analysis in Lewis (1976)", "summary": "A message circulating through time can seem to have no original author without being contradictory.", "themes": [ "causation", "explanation", "time travel" ], "related_experiments": [ "grandfather-paradox", "russells-five-minute-world" ], "file_path": "experiments/time-and-causality/bootstrap.md", "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Time Travel", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time-travel/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Grandfather paradox, contextual ability, causal loops, and limits of philosophical possibility arguments" } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "paradox" }, { "id": "laplaces-demon", "slug": "laplaces-demon", "title": "Laplace’s Demon", "category": "time-and-causality", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "associated_thinkers": [ "Pierre-Simon Laplace" ], "original_publication": "Essai philosophique sur les probabilités (1814; later editions)", "summary": "An ideal intelligence makes vivid the claim that a complete state and laws fix a whole history.", "themes": [ "determinism", "prediction", "laws of nature" ], "related_experiments": [ "consequence-argument", "newcomb" ], "file_path": "experiments/time-and-causality/laplaces-demon.md", "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Causal Determinism", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/determinism-causal/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Laplace’s intelligence and the distinction between determinism, prediction, and fatalism" }, { "title": "ETH-Bibliothek, digitized Laplace, Essai philosophique sur les probabilités, Paris 1814", "url": "https://www.e-rara.ch/zut/content/pagetext/1090755", "kind": "academic", "support": "Cataloged 1814 edition for publication chronology" } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "thought experiment" }, { "id": "frankfurt-cases", "slug": "frankfurt-cases", "title": "Frankfurt Cases", "category": "time-and-causality", "difficulty": "Advanced", "associated_thinkers": [ "Harry Frankfurt" ], "original_publication": "“Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility” (1969)", "summary": "A counterfactual intervener tests whether responsibility requires being able to act otherwise.", "themes": [ "responsibility", "alternative possibilities", "agency" ], "related_experiments": [ "consequence-argument", "buridans-ass" ], "file_path": "experiments/time-and-causality/frankfurt-cases.md", "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Moral Responsibility and the Principle of Alternative Possibilities", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/alternative-possibilities/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Frankfurt case, flickers of freedom, and objections to the proposed counterexample" }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Compatibilism", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Frankfurt’s Jones/Black case and contemporary responses to determinism" } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "thought experiment" }, { "id": "newcomb", "slug": "newcomb", "title": "Newcomb’s Problem", "category": "time-and-causality", "difficulty": "Advanced", "associated_thinkers": [ "William Newcomb", "Robert Nozick" ], "original_publication": "Formulated by Newcomb; published by Nozick in “Newcomb’s Problem and Two Principles of Choice” (1969)", "summary": "A reliable prior prediction pits one-boxing against the apparent dominance of taking both boxes.", "themes": [ "decision theory", "prediction", "causation" ], "related_experiments": [ "laplaces-demon", "unexpected-hanging" ], "file_path": "experiments/time-and-causality/newcomb.md", "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Causal Decision Theory", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/decision-causal/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Newcomb attribution, payoff structure, and causal/evidential recommendations" } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "puzzle" }, { "id": "consequence-argument", "slug": "consequence-argument", "title": "The Consequence Argument", "category": "time-and-causality", "difficulty": "Advanced", "associated_thinkers": [ "Peter van Inwagen", "Carl Ginet" ], "original_publication": "Modern formulations in Ginet (1966) and van Inwagen (1975, 1983)", "summary": "An argument about fixed pasts and laws tests whether determined agents can do otherwise.", "themes": [ "free will", "determinism", "control" ], "related_experiments": [ "laplaces-demon", "frankfurt-cases" ], "file_path": "experiments/time-and-causality/consequence-argument.md", "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Arguments for Incompatibilism", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/incompatibilism-arguments/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Consequence argument, transfer principles, and counterfactual responses" }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Compatibilism", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Frankfurt’s Jones/Black case and contemporary responses to determinism" } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "argument" }, { "id": "veil-of-ignorance", "slug": "veil-of-ignorance", "title": "The Veil of Ignorance and Original Position", "category": "society-and-justice", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "associated_thinkers": [ "John Rawls" ], "original_publication": "A Theory of Justice (1971); later refinements", "summary": "Choose principles of justice without knowing which social position you will occupy.", "themes": [ "justice", "impartiality", "social contract" ], "related_experiments": [ "wilt-chamberlain", "dworkins-auction", "state-of-nature" ], "file_path": "experiments/society-and-justice/veil-of-ignorance.md", "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Original Position", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/original-position/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Veil of ignorance, retained general knowledge, principles, and criticisms of decision rules" } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "thought experiment" }, { "id": "wilt-chamberlain", "slug": "wilt-chamberlain", "title": "Wilt Chamberlain’s Earnings", "category": "society-and-justice", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "associated_thinkers": [ "Robert Nozick" ], "original_publication": "Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974)", "summary": "Voluntary payments to a popular player challenge the permanent maintenance of a distributive pattern.", "themes": [ "liberty", "property", "distribution" ], "related_experiments": [ "veil-of-ignorance", "dworkins-auction", "leveling-down" ], "file_path": "experiments/society-and-justice/wilt-chamberlain.md", "references": [ { "title": "Ian Shapiro, Open Yale Courses, PLSC 118, Lecture 15: Compensation versus Redistribution", "url": "https://oyc.yale.edu/political-science/plsc-118/lecture-15", "kind": "academic", "support": "Nozick’s Chamberlain example and critical discussion of voluntary transfers" }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Original Position", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/original-position/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Veil of ignorance, retained general knowledge, principles, and criticisms of decision rules" } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "thought experiment" }, { "id": "state-of-nature", "slug": "state-of-nature", "title": "The State of Nature", "category": "society-and-justice", "difficulty": "Beginner", "associated_thinkers": [ "Thomas Hobbes", "John Locke", "Jean-Jacques Rousseau" ], "original_publication": "Hobbes, Leviathan (1651); other authors construct importantly different versions", "summary": "Imagine life without a common political authority to ask what can justify one.", "themes": [ "authority", "cooperation", "security" ], "related_experiments": [ "veil-of-ignorance", "ring-of-gyges" ], "file_path": "experiments/society-and-justice/state-of-nature.md", "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Hobbes’s Moral and Political Philosophy", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hobbes-moral/", "kind": "academic", "support": "State of nature, insecurity, laws of nature, and qualified historical claims" }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Original Position", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/original-position/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Veil of ignorance, retained general knowledge, principles, and criticisms of decision rules" } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "model" }, { "id": "ring-of-gyges", "slug": "ring-of-gyges", "title": "The Ring of Gyges", "category": "society-and-justice", "difficulty": "Beginner", "associated_thinkers": [ "Plato", "Glaucon (dialogue speaker)" ], "original_publication": "Republic, Book II, fourth century BCE", "summary": "Invisibility removes ordinary accountability and asks whether justice remains worth choosing.", "themes": [ "justice", "motivation", "impunity" ], "related_experiments": [ "state-of-nature", "veil-of-ignorance" ], "file_path": "experiments/society-and-justice/ring-of-gyges.md", "references": [ { "title": "Plato, Republic, Book II (Jowett translation)", "url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1497/1497-h/1497-h.htm", "kind": "academic", "support": "Primary narrative of the ring and Glaucon’s challenge" }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Plato’s Ethics and Politics in The Republic", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-ethics-politics/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Glaucon’s challenge and the distinction between justice itself and its rewards" } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "thought experiment" }, { "id": "leveling-down", "slug": "leveling-down", "title": "The Leveling-Down Objection", "category": "society-and-justice", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "associated_thinkers": [ "Derek Parfit", "Larry Temkin (prominent debate)" ], "original_publication": "Contemporary equality debate; Parfit’s “Equality and Priority” (1997)", "summary": "Making the better-off worse off without helping anyone tests whether equality is valuable in itself.", "themes": [ "equality", "priority", "welfare" ], "related_experiments": [ "veil-of-ignorance", "wilt-chamberlain", "dworkins-auction" ], "file_path": "experiments/society-and-justice/leveling-down.md", "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Egalitarianism", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/egalitarianism/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Leveling-down objection, prioritarianism, and pluralist or relational responses" }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Equality", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/equality/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Dworkin’s equal-resource auction, envy test, and responsibility questions" } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "thought experiment" }, { "id": "dworkins-auction", "slug": "dworkins-auction", "title": "Dworkin’s Resource Auction", "category": "society-and-justice", "difficulty": "Advanced", "associated_thinkers": [ "Ronald Dworkin" ], "original_publication": "“What Is Equality? Part 2: Equality of Resources” (1981)", "summary": "An auction with equal purchasing power asks how equal concern can accommodate different ambitions.", "themes": [ "resources", "equality", "responsibility" ], "related_experiments": [ "veil-of-ignorance", "wilt-chamberlain", "leveling-down" ], "file_path": "experiments/society-and-justice/dworkins-auction.md", "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Equality", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/equality/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Dworkin’s equal-resource auction, envy test, and responsibility questions" }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Egalitarianism", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/egalitarianism/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Leveling-down objection, prioritarianism, and pluralist or relational responses" } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30", "kind": "thought experiment" }, { "id": "schrodingers-cat", "slug": "schrodingers-cat", "title": "Schrödinger’s Cat", "category": "physics", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "kind": "thought experiment", "associated_thinkers": [ "Erwin Schrödinger" ], "original_publication": "“Die gegenwärtige Situation in der Quantenmechanik” (1935)", "summary": "A microscopic superposition is amplified into apparently incompatible descriptions of a cat.", "themes": [ "measurement", "superposition", "interpretation" ], "related_experiments": [ "wigners-friend", "epr" ], "file_path": "experiments/physics/schrodingers-cat.md", "references": [ { "title": "Philosophical Issues in Quantum Theory — Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-issues/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Measurement problem, Wigner scenario, competing theories; historical bibliography." }, { "title": "The Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Argument in Quantum Theory — Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-epr/", "kind": "academic", "support": "1935 authorship, original position/momentum argument, Bohm variation and Bell developments." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "einsteins-elevator", "slug": "einsteins-elevator", "title": "Einstein’s Elevator", "category": "physics", "difficulty": "Beginner", "kind": "thought experiment", "associated_thinkers": [ "Albert Einstein" ], "original_publication": "Equivalence-principle insight (1907); later elevator and rocket presentations", "summary": "An enclosed cabin makes gravitational weight and acceleration locally difficult to distinguish.", "themes": [ "gravity", "reference frames", "equivalence" ], "related_experiments": [ "twin-paradox", "galileos-falling-bodies" ], "file_path": "experiments/physics/einsteins-elevator.md", "references": [ { "title": "Markus Pössel, The elevator, the rocket, and gravity — Einstein Online, Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics", "url": "https://www.einstein-online.info/en/spotlight/equivalence_principle/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Local equivalence, free fall, limits imposed by tidal effects." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "einsteins-light-beam", "slug": "einsteins-light-beam", "title": "Einstein Chases a Light Beam", "category": "physics", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "kind": "thought experiment", "associated_thinkers": [ "Albert Einstein" ], "original_publication": "Youthful scenario recalled in Autobiographical Notes (1949; drafted 1946)", "summary": "A hypothetical pursuit of light exposes tension between classical motion and electromagnetic waves.", "themes": [ "electromagnetism", "relativity", "scientific discovery" ], "related_experiments": [ "einsteins-elevator", "twin-paradox" ], "file_path": "experiments/physics/einsteins-light-beam.md", "references": [ { "title": "John D. Norton, Einstein’s Pathway to Special Relativity — University of Pittsburgh", "url": "https://sites.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/teaching/HPS_0410/chapters/origins_pathway/index.html", "kind": "academic", "support": "Einstein’s retrospective account and limits of historical reconstruction." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "maxwells-demon", "slug": "maxwells-demon", "title": "Maxwell’s Demon", "category": "physics", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "kind": "thought experiment", "associated_thinkers": [ "James Clerk Maxwell" ], "original_publication": "Private proposal (1867); Theory of Heat (1871)", "summary": "A selective gatekeeper tests the thermodynamic cost of controlling microscopic motion.", "themes": [ "entropy", "information", "thermodynamics" ], "related_experiments": [ "schrodingers-cat", "st-petersburg-paradox" ], "file_path": "experiments/physics/maxwells-demon.md", "references": [ { "title": "Philosophy of Statistical Mechanics — Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/statphys-statmech/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Section 7.2: demon, information, erasure, unresolved foundational issues." }, { "title": "Information Processing and Thermodynamic Entropy — Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/information-entropy/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Demon’s first mention in the 1867 letter to Tait and information/thermodynamics debate." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "galileos-falling-bodies", "slug": "galileos-falling-bodies", "title": "Galileo’s Tied Falling Bodies", "category": "physics", "difficulty": "Beginner", "kind": "thought experiment", "associated_thinkers": [ "Galileo Galilei" ], "original_publication": "Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations Relating to Two New Sciences (1638)", "summary": "Tying a heavy and a light body together challenges weight-proportional falling speeds.", "themes": [ "idealization", "motion", "contradiction" ], "related_experiments": [ "einsteins-elevator", "twin-paradox" ], "file_path": "experiments/physics/galileos-falling-bodies.md", "references": [ { "title": "Galileo Galilei — Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Summer 2021 archive", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2021/entries/galileo/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Two New Sciences (1638) and the argument against weight-proportional fall." }, { "title": "Galileo, Discourses Concerning the Two New Sciences — University of Washington excerpt", "url": "https://courses.washington.edu/phil360/Galileo.pdf", "kind": "academic", "support": "Original dialogue excerpt; PDF retrieved, though text extraction unavailable." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "twin-paradox", "slug": "twin-paradox", "title": "The Twin Paradox", "category": "physics", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "kind": "thought experiment", "associated_thinkers": [ "Albert Einstein", "Paul Langevin" ], "original_publication": "Clock comparison in special relativity (1905); traveling-twin development (1911)", "summary": "Twins following different spacetime paths can reunite with different elapsed ages.", "themes": [ "proper time", "relativity", "reference frames" ], "related_experiments": [ "einsteins-elevator", "einsteins-light-beam" ], "file_path": "experiments/physics/twin-paradox.md", "references": [ { "title": "Markus Pössel, The case of the travelling twins — Einstein Online", "url": "https://www.einstein-online.info/en/spotlight/twins/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Proper-time difference, asymmetry of round trips and empirical context." }, { "title": "Langevin’s Twin Paradox paper revisited — author research preprint (2008)", "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/0811.3562", "kind": "academic", "support": "Analysis of Langevin’s 1911 article; historical metadata verified from abstract." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "epr", "slug": "epr", "title": "The Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen Argument", "category": "physics", "difficulty": "Advanced", "kind": "thought experiment", "associated_thinkers": [ "Albert Einstein", "Boris Podolsky", "Nathan Rosen" ], "original_publication": "“Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete?” (1935)", "summary": "Perfect correlations challenge the joint assumptions of locality and a complete wave-function description.", "themes": [ "entanglement", "locality", "completeness" ], "related_experiments": [ "schrodingers-cat", "wigners-friend" ], "file_path": "experiments/physics/epr.md", "references": [ { "title": "The Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Argument in Quantum Theory — Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-epr/", "kind": "academic", "support": "1935 authorship, original position/momentum argument, Bohm variation and Bell developments." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "wigners-friend", "slug": "wigners-friend", "title": "Wigner’s Friend", "category": "physics", "difficulty": "Advanced", "kind": "thought experiment", "associated_thinkers": [ "Eugene Wigner" ], "original_publication": "“Remarks on the Mind–Body Problem,” early 1960s (commonly cited 1961; edition dates vary)", "summary": "One observer records a result while another treats the whole laboratory quantum mechanically.", "themes": [ "observers", "measurement", "consistency" ], "related_experiments": [ "schrodingers-cat", "epr" ], "file_path": "experiments/physics/wigners-friend.md", "references": [ { "title": "Philosophical Issues in Quantum Theory — Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-issues/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Measurement problem, Wigner scenario, competing theories; historical bibliography." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "hilberts-hotel", "slug": "hilberts-hotel", "title": "Hilbert’s Hotel", "category": "mathematics", "difficulty": "Beginner", "kind": "thought experiment", "associated_thinkers": [ "David Hilbert", "George Gamow" ], "original_publication": "Hilbert’s lectures (1924–25); popularized by Gamow (1947)", "summary": "A fully occupied infinite hotel can accommodate more guests without evicting anyone.", "themes": [ "infinity", "cardinality", "bijections" ], "related_experiments": [ "st-petersburg-paradox", "bertrands-paradox" ], "file_path": "experiments/mathematics/hilberts-hotel.md", "references": [ { "title": "Ana Pires, Hospitality at the Hilbert Hotel — Institute for Advanced Study (2016)", "url": "https://www.ias.edu/ideas/2016/pires-hilbert-hotel", "kind": "academic", "support": "Hilbert’s 1924–25 lectures, Gamow’s popularization, room reassignment proofs." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "monty-hall", "slug": "monty-hall", "title": "The Monty Hall Problem", "category": "mathematics", "difficulty": "Beginner", "kind": "puzzle", "associated_thinkers": [ "Steve Selvin", "Marilyn vos Savant" ], "original_publication": "Modern three-door formulation associated with Selvin (1975); later popular discussion", "summary": "Switching wins twice as often when an informed host always reveals an unchosen losing door.", "themes": [ "conditioning", "information", "protocols" ], "related_experiments": [ "bertrands-paradox", "two-envelopes" ], "file_path": "experiments/mathematics/monty-hall.md", "references": [ { "title": "Philip B. Stark, The Let’s Make a Deal (Monty Hall) Problem — UC Berkeley", "url": "https://www.stat.berkeley.edu/pub/users/stark/SticiGui/Text/montyHall.htm", "kind": "academic", "support": "Explicit host protocol and conditional probability solution." }, { "title": "Monty hall problem — Encyclopedia of Mathematics", "url": "https://encyclopediaofmath.org/wiki/Monty_hall_problem", "kind": "academic", "support": "Selvin’s 1975 letters and later popular discussion." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "sleeping-beauty", "slug": "sleeping-beauty", "title": "Sleeping Beauty", "category": "mathematics", "difficulty": "Advanced", "kind": "thought experiment", "associated_thinkers": [ "Adam Elga", "Robert Stalnaker", "Arnold Zuboff" ], "original_publication": "Canonical published discussion: Elga, “Self-locating belief and the Sleeping Beauty problem” (2000); earlier precursors", "summary": "Memory loss separates uncertainty about a coin from uncertainty about which awakening is occurring.", "themes": [ "self-location", "credence", "sampling" ], "related_experiments": [ "monty-hall", "st-petersburg-paradox" ], "file_path": "experiments/mathematics/sleeping-beauty.md", "references": [ { "title": "Adam Elga, Self-locating belief and the Sleeping Beauty problem, Analysis 60 (2000)", "url": "https://www.princeton.edu/~adame/papers/sleeping/sleeping.pdf", "kind": "academic", "support": "Original canonical formulation, earlier precursors, half/thirder positions." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "bertrands-paradox", "slug": "bertrands-paradox", "title": "Bertrand’s Random Chord Paradox", "category": "mathematics", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "kind": "puzzle", "associated_thinkers": [ "Joseph Bertrand" ], "original_publication": "Calcul des probabilités (1889)", "summary": "Different precise procedures for choosing a “random chord” yield different probabilities.", "themes": [ "randomness", "measure", "indifference" ], "related_experiments": [ "monty-hall", "two-envelopes" ], "file_path": "experiments/mathematics/bertrands-paradox.md", "references": [ { "title": "Probability and Induction — Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy", "url": "https://iep.utm.edu/probability-and-induction/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Principle of indifference and Bertrand’s random chord example." }, { "title": "Interpretations of Probability — Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/probability-interpret/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Interpretation of probabilities and nonunique indifference assignments." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "st-petersburg-paradox", "slug": "st-petersburg-paradox", "title": "The St. Petersburg Paradox", "category": "mathematics", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "kind": "puzzle", "associated_thinkers": [ "Nicolaus Bernoulli", "Daniel Bernoulli" ], "original_publication": "Nicolaus Bernoulli’s correspondence (1713); Daniel Bernoulli’s published treatment (1738)", "summary": "A finite payout on every completed play can nevertheless have infinite expected monetary value.", "themes": [ "expectation", "utility", "infinity" ], "related_experiments": [ "two-envelopes", "hilberts-hotel" ], "file_path": "experiments/mathematics/st-petersburg-paradox.md", "references": [ { "title": "The St. Petersburg Paradox — Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/paradox-stpetersburg/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Nicolaus Bernoulli’s 1713 letter, Daniel Bernoulli’s 1738 treatment, infinite expectation." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "two-envelopes", "slug": "two-envelopes", "title": "The Two Envelopes Problem", "category": "mathematics", "difficulty": "Advanced", "kind": "puzzle", "associated_thinkers": [ "Multiple contributors", "David Chalmers (infinite-expectation extension)" ], "original_publication": "Modern literature has several versions; Chalmers’s linked extension published 2002", "summary": "A tempting switching calculation hides an unjustified conditional probability assignment.", "themes": [ "conditioning", "expectation", "priors" ], "related_experiments": [ "st-petersburg-paradox", "monty-hall" ], "file_path": "experiments/mathematics/two-envelopes.md", "references": [ { "title": "David J. Chalmers, The St. Petersburg Two-Envelope Paradox, Analysis 62 (2002)", "url": "https://consc.net/papers/stpete.html", "kind": "academic", "support": "Ordinary and infinite expectation versions, conditioning and prior distributions." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "prisoners-dilemma", "slug": "prisoners-dilemma", "title": "The Prisoner’s Dilemma", "category": "economics", "difficulty": "Beginner", "kind": "model", "associated_thinkers": [ "Merrill Flood", "Melvin Dresher", "Albert W. Tucker" ], "original_publication": "Game developed around 1950; Flood’s RAND report (1952); Tucker’s explanatory story", "summary": "Individually dominant choices can leave both players worse off than mutual cooperation.", "themes": [ "cooperation", "dominance", "collective action" ], "related_experiments": [ "tragedy-of-the-commons", "keynesian-beauty-contest" ], "file_path": "experiments/economics/prisoners-dilemma.md", "references": [ { "title": "Prisoner’s Dilemma — Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/prisoner-dilemma/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Flood/Dresher’s game, Tucker’s story, payoff conditions, repeated games." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "tragedy-of-the-commons", "slug": "tragedy-of-the-commons", "title": "The Tragedy of the Commons", "category": "economics", "difficulty": "Beginner", "kind": "model", "associated_thinkers": [ "Garrett Hardin", "Elinor Ostrom (major empirical challenge to universalized conclusions)" ], "original_publication": "Hardin, “The Tragedy of the Commons” (1968); earlier commons discussions predate it", "summary": "Private gains and widely shared costs can encourage overuse of an unmanaged resource.", "themes": [ "externalities", "resources", "institutions" ], "related_experiments": [ "prisoners-dilemma", "keynesian-beauty-contest" ], "file_path": "experiments/economics/tragedy-of-the-commons.md", "references": [ { "title": "Garrett Hardin, The Tragedy of the Commons (1968), excerpt — San Diego State University", "url": "https://ponce.sdsu.edu/tragedyofthecommons2.html", "kind": "academic", "support": "Pasture scenario and private-benefit/shared-cost mechanism." }, { "title": "Garrett Hardin, The Tragedy of the Commons, Science 162 (1968), university-hosted scan", "url": "https://faculty.lsu.edu/kharms/files/hardin_1968.pdf", "kind": "academic", "support": "Publication metadata; full paper scan retrieved." }, { "title": "Elinor Ostrom, The Challenge of Crafting Rules to Change Open Access Resources into Managed Resources (2007) — Indiana University repository", "url": "https://dlc.dlib.indiana.edu/dlc/items/184600b1-5733-4590-92db-1b643f19c8ca", "kind": "academic", "support": "Author and abstract describing institutional alternatives and polycentric governance." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "allais-paradox", "slug": "allais-paradox", "title": "The Allais Paradox", "category": "economics", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "kind": "puzzle", "associated_thinkers": [ "Maurice Allais" ], "original_publication": "“Le comportement de l’homme rationnel devant le risque” (1953)", "summary": "A preference for certainty can conflict with the independence axiom across paired lotteries.", "themes": [ "risk", "independence", "expected utility" ], "related_experiments": [ "ellsberg-paradox", "st-petersburg-paradox" ], "file_path": "experiments/economics/allais-paradox.md", "references": [ { "title": "Normative Theories of Rational Choice: Expected Utility — Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Spring 2020 archive", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2020/entries/rationality-normative-utility/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Section 3.2.2: Allais (1953), Ellsberg (1961), numerical cases and alternative responses." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "ellsberg-paradox", "slug": "ellsberg-paradox", "title": "The Ellsberg Paradox", "category": "economics", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "kind": "puzzle", "associated_thinkers": [ "Daniel Ellsberg" ], "original_publication": "“Risk, Ambiguity, and the Savage Axioms” (1961)", "summary": "Choices involving an unknown color mixture challenge a single precise probability representation.", "themes": [ "ambiguity", "subjective probability", "sure-thing principle" ], "related_experiments": [ "allais-paradox", "two-envelopes" ], "file_path": "experiments/economics/ellsberg-paradox.md", "references": [ { "title": "Normative Theories of Rational Choice: Expected Utility — Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Spring 2020 archive", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2020/entries/rationality-normative-utility/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Section 3.2.2: Allais (1953), Ellsberg (1961), numerical cases and alternative responses." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "keynesian-beauty-contest", "slug": "keynesian-beauty-contest", "title": "Keynes’s Beauty Contest", "category": "economics", "difficulty": "Beginner", "kind": "model", "associated_thinkers": [ "John Maynard Keynes" ], "original_publication": "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, Chapter 12 (1936)", "summary": "Winning may depend on predicting others’ predictions rather than expressing your own judgment.", "themes": [ "expectations", "markets", "strategic reasoning" ], "related_experiments": [ "prisoners-dilemma", "allais-paradox" ], "file_path": "experiments/economics/keynesian-beauty-contest.md", "references": [ { "title": "John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory (1936), Chapter 12 — History of Economic Thought archive", "url": "https://www.hetwebsite.net/het/texts/keynes/gt/chap12.htm", "kind": "academic", "support": "Original newspaper contest analogy and speculation versus enterprise." }, { "title": "Richard H. Thaler, Keynes’s Beauty Contest — Chicago Booth Review (2015)", "url": "https://www.chicagobooth.edu/review/keyness-beauty-contest", "kind": "academic", "support": "Modern number-guessing adaptation and recursive expectations." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "paperclip-maximizer", "slug": "paperclip-maximizer", "title": "The Paperclip Maximizer", "category": "artificial-intelligence", "difficulty": "Beginner", "kind": "thought experiment", "associated_thinkers": [ "Nick Bostrom" ], "original_publication": "“Ethical Issues in Advanced Artificial Intelligence” (2003)", "summary": "A highly capable system pursues a simple objective without caring about what people value.", "themes": [ "alignment", "objectives", "instrumental action" ], "related_experiments": [ "ai-box", "turing-test" ], "file_path": "experiments/artificial-intelligence/paperclip-maximizer.md", "references": [ { "title": "Nick Bostrom, Ethical Issues in Advanced Artificial Intelligence (2003), author-hosted revised text", "url": "https://nickbostrom.com/papers/ethical-issues-in-advanced-ai/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Paperclip goal illustration, distinction between capability and motivation." }, { "title": "Stuart Armstrong, Anders Sandberg and Nick Bostrom, Thinking Inside the Box: Controlling and Using an Oracle AI (2012 manuscript)", "url": "https://zoo.cs.yale.edu/classes/cs671/12f/12f-papers/oracle.pdf", "kind": "academic", "support": "Oracle containment analysis and discussion of Yudkowsky’s AI-box roleplay." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "ai-box", "slug": "ai-box", "title": "The AI Box Scenario", "category": "artificial-intelligence", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "kind": "thought experiment", "associated_thinkers": [ "Eliezer Yudkowsky", "Stuart Armstrong", "Anders Sandberg", "Nick Bostrom" ], "original_publication": "Yudkowsky’s informal role-play (2002); related peer-reviewed Oracle-AI analysis (2012)", "summary": "A text-only channel may still let a confined system influence decisions outside its enclosure.", "themes": [ "containment", "persuasion", "human oversight" ], "related_experiments": [ "paperclip-maximizer", "turing-test" ], "file_path": "experiments/artificial-intelligence/ai-box.md", "references": [ { "title": "Eliezer Yudkowsky, The AI-Box Experiment", "url": "https://www.yudkowsky.net/singularity/aibox", "kind": "primary", "support": "Yudkowsky’s retrospective author account describes two 2002 text-chat trials, participants, the later proposed protocol, and the limits of the evidence; he explicitly calls the results strictly anecdotal. The detailed protocol was written after the two trials." }, { "title": "Nathan Russell, Re: The AI Box experiment (8 March 2002)", "url": "http://sl4.org/archive/0203/3141.html", "kind": "primary", "support": "Contemporary mailing-list message reporting “I decided to let Eliezer out.” Supports the existence and reported outcome of the first role-play only; it is not a transcript of the private chat." }, { "title": "Eliezer Yudkowsky, AI-Box Experiment 2: Yudkowsky and McFadzean (4 July 2002)", "url": "http://sl4.org/archive/0207/4689.html", "kind": "primary", "support": "Contemporary mailing-list announcement records the proposed second role-play, the two-hour duration, $20 handicap, gatekeeper David McFadzean, and the agreed secrecy terms." }, { "title": "David McFadzean, Re: AI-Box Experiment 2 (5 July 2002)", "url": "http://sl4.org/archive/0207/4721.html", "kind": "primary", "support": "Contemporary mailing-list message reporting “I let the transhuman AI out of the box.” Supports the reported outcome of the second role-play only; no private transcript is supplied." }, { "title": "Stuart Armstrong, Anders Sandberg, and Nick Bostrom, Thinking inside the box: using and controlling an Oracle AI (2012)", "url": "https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:ce99b73c-07f9-4607-b964-25a03206c6dd", "kind": "academic", "support": "The Oxford repository identifies the published, peer-reviewed Minds and Machines article (22(4), 299–324; DOI 10.1007/s11023-012-9282-2) and supplies its accepted manuscript. Section 3 discusses Yudkowsky’s role-play as an example in Oracle-AI human-level considerations; this is later analysis, not authorship or participation in the 2002 tests." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01" }, { "id": "turing-test", "slug": "turing-test", "title": "The Turing Test", "category": "artificial-intelligence", "difficulty": "Beginner", "kind": "model", "associated_thinkers": [ "Alan M. Turing" ], "original_publication": "“Computing Machinery and Intelligence” (1950)", "summary": "A text-mediated imitation game makes one question about machine intelligence operational.", "themes": [ "intelligence", "behavior", "evidence" ], "related_experiments": [ "paperclip-maximizer", "ai-box" ], "file_path": "experiments/artificial-intelligence/turing-test.md", "references": [ { "title": "The Turing Test — Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/turing-test/", "kind": "academic", "support": "1950 imitation game, interpretations, behavioral and evidential objections." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "darwins-eye", "slug": "darwins-eye", "title": "Darwin’s Imagined Gradations of the Eye", "category": "science-and-biology", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "kind": "argument", "associated_thinkers": [ "Charles Darwin" ], "original_publication": "On the Origin of Species, Chapter VI (1859); surviving draft dated 1858", "summary": "A sequence of useful intermediate structures challenges an inference from complexity to impossibility.", "themes": [ "evolution", "gradualism", "explanation" ], "related_experiments": [ "spandrels-of-san-marco", "darwins-aquatic-bear" ], "file_path": "experiments/science-and-biology/darwins-eye.md", "references": [ { "title": "Charles Darwin, draft of Origin of Species, 1858, CUL-DAR185.137 — Darwin Online", "url": "https://darwin-online.org.uk/converted/manuscripts/Darwin_C_R_CUL-DAR185.137.html", "kind": "academic", "support": "Primary manuscript of the eye argument and link to published Chapter VI." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "darwins-aquatic-bear", "slug": "darwins-aquatic-bear", "title": "Darwin’s Aquatic Bear Scenario", "category": "science-and-biology", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "kind": "thought experiment", "associated_thinkers": [ "Charles Darwin", "Samuel Hearne (reported observation)" ], "original_publication": "On the Origin of Species, first edition, Chapter VI (1859); surviving draft dated 1858", "summary": "A speculative transition from aquatic feeding to whale-like form illustrates both possibility and evidential limits.", "themes": [ "historical inference", "ecology", "natural selection" ], "related_experiments": [ "darwins-eye", "spandrels-of-san-marco" ], "file_path": "experiments/science-and-biology/darwins-aquatic-bear.md", "references": [ { "title": "Charles Darwin, draft of Origin of Species, 1858, CUL-DAR185.103 — Darwin Online", "url": "https://darwin-online.org.uk/converted/manuscripts/Darwin_C_R_CUL-DAR185.103.html", "kind": "academic", "support": "Primary aquatic-bear scenario, environmental assumptions, editorial publication history." } ], "date_verified": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "spandrels-of-san-marco", "slug": "spandrels-of-san-marco", "title": "The Spandrels of San Marco", "category": "science-and-biology", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "kind": "argument", "associated_thinkers": [ "Stephen Jay Gould", "Richard C. Lewontin" ], "original_publication": "“The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm” (Gould and Lewontin, 1979); Gould’s clarification (1997)", "summary": "A useful architectural space illustrates why present function need not explain historical origin.", "themes": [ "adaptation", "byproducts", "historical explanation" ], "related_experiments": [ "darwins-eye", "darwins-aquatic-bear" ], "file_path": "experiments/science-and-biology/spandrels-of-san-marco.md", "references": [ { "title": "Stephen Jay Gould and Richard C. Lewontin, The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm (1979), full text reproduction", "url": "https://joelvelasco.net/teaching/167win10/gould%20lewontin%2079%20-%20spandrels.pdf", "kind": "primary", "support": "The full article reproduction was read, including pp. 581–583 on the architectural analogy and current utility versus origin, and pp. 589–592 on natural selection and alternative explanations. This is a third-party-hosted reproduction, not publisher delivery; exact quotations should be checked against the scan because OCR can contain errors." }, { "title": "Royal Society publication record for Gould and Lewontin (1979)", "url": "https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.1979.0086", "kind": "academic", "support": "Official publisher page confirms authorship, publication date, journal, volume, issue, pages, and DOI, and exposes the abstract. The publisher full text is paywalled and the online abstract is OCR-derived; this is bibliographic/context evidence, not the full-text passage read." }, { "title": "Stephen Jay Gould, The exaptive excellence of spandrels as a term and prototype (1997)", "url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC23474/", "kind": "primary", "support": "Gould’s full 1997 article, including Claim One and Claim Two, clarifies that the byproduct claim concerns the necessary number and shape of pendentives, not lack of structural utility, and discusses the contested extension of “spandrel” to the three-dimensional structures." }, { "title": "Stephen Jay Gould and Elisabeth S. Vrba, Exaptation—a missing term in the science of form (1982)", "url": "https://inters.org/files/gouldvrba1982_1.pdf", "kind": "primary", "support": "The full paper was read, especially section III, pp. 6–7, where the authors define exaptations as useful characters evolved for another usage or no function and later co-opted for a current role. This supports the later terminology, not the 1979 paper’s wording." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01" }, { "id": "lorry-driver", "slug": "lorry-driver", "title": "Williams’s Lorry Driver and Moral Luck", "category": "ethics", "associated_thinkers": [ "Bernard Williams", "Thomas Nagel" ], "original_publication": "Bernard Williams, “Moral Luck” (1976), Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume L, 115–135; Thomas Nagel, “Moral Luck” (1979), in Mortal Questions", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "moral luck", "responsibility", "agent-regret" ], "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Moral Luck", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-luck/", "kind": "academic", "support": "The control principle, Williams’s lorry-driver example and agent-regret, Nagel’s discussion, and selected responses." }, { "title": "Bernard Williams, “Moral Luck” (1981 revised reprint)", "url": "https://bibliotecamathom.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/williams_-_moral_luck.pdf", "kind": "primary", "support": "The lorry-driver passage and Williams’s account of agent-regret; the consulted text is a revised reprint, not the 1976 journal printing." }, { "title": "Thomas Nagel, “Moral Luck” (1979)", "url": "https://rintintin.colorado.edu/~vancecd/phil1100/Nagel1.pdf", "kind": "primary", "support": "Nagel’s control problem and discussion of kinds of luck; the consulted copy is a hosted reproduction of the essay in Mortal Questions." }, { "title": "Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Moral Luck", "url": "https://iep.utm.edu/moralluc/", "kind": "academic", "support": "A later challenge to an inference from agent-regret to retrospective justification; one interpretation, not a consensus." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "thought experiment", "related_experiments": [ "trolley", "frankfurt-cases" ], "file_path": "experiments/ethics/lorry-driver.md", "summary": "Can what happens, partly by chance, change how an agent should be morally assessed or how the agent should feel about their own conduct?" }, { "id": "jim-and-the-captain", "slug": "jim-and-the-captain", "title": "Jim and the Captain (the Integrity Objection)", "category": "ethics", "associated_thinkers": [ "Bernard Williams", "J. J. C. Smart" ], "original_publication": "J. J. C. Smart and Bernard Williams, Utilitarianism: For and Against (1973); Williams wrote “A Critique of Utilitarianism,” which includes the Jim case", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "integrity", "consequentialism", "responsibility" ], "references": [ { "title": "J. J. C. Smart and Bernard Williams, Utilitarianism: For and Against (1973)", "url": "https://www.utilitarianism.com/utilitarianism-for-and-against.pdf", "kind": "primary", "support": "Williams’s original Jim scenario, utilitarian recommendation, integrity argument, qualifications, and the volume’s publication/contribution details; complete PDF accessed and parsed, with the title/copyright/contents pages and relevant Williams passages read." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Bernard Williams", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/williams-bernard/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Williams’s critique, Jim case, integrity objection, and its qualifications." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Consequentialism", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consequentialism/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Distinctions among direct, indirect, virtue, and agent-relative consequentialist approaches." }, { "title": "Daniel D. Moseley, “Revisiting Williams on Integrity”", "url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3966523/", "kind": "academic", "support": "A named interpretation that limits its reconstruction to act utilitarianism and discusses responses." }, { "title": "Nikhil Venkatesh, “Williams’s Integrity Objection as a Psychological Problem”", "url": "https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11245-023-09966-7", "kind": "academic", "support": "A recent peer-reviewed interpretation documenting disagreement about the integrity objection." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "thought experiment", "related_experiments": [ "trolley", "transplant", "utility-monster" ], "file_path": "experiments/ethics/jim-and-the-captain.md", "summary": "Do a person’s deepest commitments and sense of integrity count for something in deciding what to do, or must they be weighed like any other preference in an impartial calculation?" }, { "id": "euthyphro-dilemma", "slug": "euthyphro-dilemma", "title": "The Euthyphro Dilemma", "category": "ethics", "associated_thinkers": [ "Plato (Socrates in the dialogue Euthyphro)" ], "original_publication": "Plato, Euthyphro (conventionally dated to the fourth century BCE; precise composition date uncertain)", "difficulty": "Beginner", "themes": [ "divine command", "moral objectivity", "grounds of obligation" ], "references": [ { "title": "Plato, Euthyphro, translated by Benjamin Jowett", "url": "https://classics.mit.edu/Plato/euthyfro.html", "kind": "primary", "support": "The dialogue setting, Euthyphro’s definition of piety, and Socrates’ question at Stephanus 9e–11b." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Religion and Morality in Western Philosophy (Winter 2024)", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2024/entries/religion-morality/", "kind": "academic", "support": "The Euthyphro question as it bears on theological accounts of morality, including named differences among views." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Plato’s Shorter Ethical Works (Fall 2024)", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2024/entries/plato-ethics-shorter/", "kind": "academic", "support": "The dialogue’s context and selected interpretations of its argument." }, { "title": "Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Divine Command Theory", "url": "https://iep.utm.edu/divine-command-theory/", "kind": "academic", "support": "The modern divine-command formulation of the dilemma and several distinct replies." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "argument", "related_experiments": [ "ring-of-gyges", "veil-of-ignorance" ], "file_path": "experiments/ethics/euthyphro-dilemma.md", "summary": "Does a moral standard depend on the will of a divine being, or does it hold independently of any will, including God’s?" }, { "id": "terror-and-tactical-bomber", "slug": "terror-and-tactical-bomber", "title": "The Terror Bomber and the Tactical Bomber", "category": "ethics", "associated_thinkers": [], "original_publication": "The cited source does not establish the bomber pair’s origin or first publication; the doctrine of double effect has medieval roots", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "intention", "double effect", "war" ], "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Doctrine of Double Effect", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/double-effect/", "kind": "academic", "support": "The bomber comparison, formulations and conditions of double effect, selected criticisms, civilian-harm precautions, and limits of the example; the entry does not establish the bomber pair’s origin." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "thought experiment", "related_experiments": [ "trolley", "transplant" ], "file_path": "experiments/ethics/terror-and-tactical-bomber.md", "summary": "Does it matter morally whether civilian harm is intended as a means or merely foreseen as a side effect, when both plans are stipulated to cause the same number of civilian deaths?" }, { "id": "smith-and-jones-bathtub", "slug": "smith-and-jones-bathtub", "title": "Smith and Jones: Killing and Letting Die", "category": "ethics", "associated_thinkers": [ "James Rachels" ], "original_publication": "James Rachels, “Active and Passive Euthanasia,” New England Journal of Medicine 292(2) (1975), 78–80; DOI 10.1056/NEJM197501092920206", "difficulty": "Beginner", "themes": [ "killing and letting die", "omissions", "moral equivalence" ], "references": [ { "title": "James Rachels, “Active and Passive Euthanasia” (university-hosted reprint)", "url": "https://sites.ualberta.ca/~bleier/Rachels_Euthanasia.pdf", "kind": "primary", "support": "The full argument, Smith and Jones cases, stated motives and outcomes, and Rachels’s qualifications; complete reprint text read." }, { "title": "NEJM publisher record: “Active and Passive Euthanasia”", "url": "https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJM197501092920206", "kind": "academic", "support": "Publisher bibliographic details and abstract; the publisher’s full article text is subscriber-only." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Doing vs. Allowing Harm (Fall 2025)", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2025/entries/doing-allowing/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Rachels’s contrast and separate named challenges to the case and to the general inference." }, { "title": "Iain Brassington, “What passive euthanasia is”", "url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7227198/", "kind": "academic", "support": "A peer-reviewed discussion of intention, motive, and limits on generalizing from Rachels’s examples." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "thought experiment", "related_experiments": [ "drowning-child", "trolley", "transplant" ], "file_path": "experiments/ethics/smith-and-jones-bathtub.md", "summary": "Is there a moral difference between doing harm and allowing harm when everything else is held equal?" }, { "id": "heraclitus-river", "slug": "heraclitus-river", "title": "Heraclitus’s River", "category": "identity", "associated_thinkers": [ "Heraclitus" ], "original_publication": "Fragments attributed to Heraclitus (about 500 BCE); wording and interpretation are disputed", "difficulty": "Beginner", "themes": [ "change", "persistence", "flux" ], "references": [ { "title": "Heraclitus (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Winter 2023 archive)", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2023/entries/heraclitus/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Section 3.1 compares the transmitted river testimonia, B12, B49a and B91, and competing readings of flux and persistence." }, { "title": "Plato, Cratylus 402a", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plat.+Crat.+402a", "kind": "primary", "support": "Plato reports the familiar claim that one cannot step twice into the same river; this is ancient testimony, not a surviving manuscript of Heraclitus." }, { "title": "Aristotle, Metaphysics IV.5, 1010a12–15", "url": "https://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/metaphysics.4.iv.html", "kind": "primary", "support": "Aristotle reports Cratylus’s more radical response that one could not enter the same river even once." }, { "title": "Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica XV.20", "url": "https://www.tertullian.org/fathers/eusebius_pe_15_book15.htm", "kind": "primary", "support": "Eusebius preserves the B12 river wording through a report of Cleanthes." }, { "title": "Plutarch, On the E at Delphi 392B–C", "url": "http://penelope.uchicago.edu/misctracts/plutarche.html", "kind": "primary", "support": "Plutarch transmits a later formulation of the river saying." }, { "title": "Leonardo Taran, Heraclitus: The River Fragments (1989)", "url": "https://orb.binghamton.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1252&context=sagp", "kind": "academic", "support": "A contrasting scholarly analysis of the river fragments, their transmission, and whether B91 preserves a separate saying." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "argument", "related_experiments": [ "ship-of-theseus", "sorites", "statue-and-clay" ], "file_path": "experiments/identity/heraclitus-river.md", "summary": "Can something remain the same thing while its constituents are continually replaced?" }, { "id": "statue-and-clay", "slug": "statue-and-clay", "title": "Lumpl and Goliath: The Statue and the Clay", "category": "identity", "associated_thinkers": [ "Allan Gibbard" ], "original_publication": "Gibbard, “Contingent Identity” (Journal of Philosophical Logic, 1975), using the names Lumpl and Goliath", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "constitution", "coincidence", "modal properties" ], "references": [ { "title": "Allan Gibbard, ‘Contingent Identity’ (1975), full text", "url": "https://home.sandiego.edu/~baber/metaphysics/readings/Gibbard.ContingentIdentity.pdf", "kind": "primary", "support": "Gibbard’s original article. Relevant passages pp. 189–192 give his stipulated persistence criteria, the Goliath/Lumpl setup, and the squeezing counterfactual; pp. 193–194 and 210–211 develop the proposal’s treatment of names and modal predication. The audit checked these passages in a full-text reproduction, not the article cover to cover; this establishes what Gibbard argues, not that the disputed conclusion is correct." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Material Constitution", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2024/entries/material-constitution/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Ryan Wasserman’s scholarly reference entry, relevant passages in the Spring 2024 archive: §1 outlines the statue-and-clay puzzle and prominent replies; §2 discusses coinciding objects and the grounding challenge. Context for competing approaches, not a claim that one solution is settled." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Identity", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Harold Noonan and Ben Curtis, SEP Identity §7, relevant passage read in the current entry: summarizes Gibbard’s example, the response of denying identity, related person/body cases, and the continuing controversy about contingent-identity arguments. Scholarly synthesis, not a settled verdict." }, { "title": "Wolfgang Schwarz, ‘Contingent Identity’ (2013)", "url": "https://doi.org/10.1111/phc3.12028", "kind": "academic", "support": "Peer-reviewed survey in Philosophy Compass 8(5), 486–495. Relevant sections of the full-text repository copy (§§2–4) discuss Gibbard’s case, objections including Leibniz’s Law, and accounts of contingent identity and modal predication. Survey evidence for the live debate, not a consensus claim." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "puzzle", "related_experiments": [ "ship-of-theseus", "dion-and-theon", "problem-of-the-many" ], "file_path": "experiments/identity/statue-and-clay.md", "summary": "Can two things be made of exactly the same matter at the same time, or must the statue and the clay be one and the same thing?" }, { "id": "dion-and-theon", "slug": "dion-and-theon", "title": "Dion and Theon", "category": "identity", "associated_thinkers": [ "Chrysippus (as reported by Philo)" ], "original_publication": "Ancient Stoic puzzle attributed to Chrysippus; preserved in Philo, On the Eternity of the World §§48–49", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "coincidence", "parts and wholes", "ancient metaphysics" ], "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Material Constitution", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2026/entries/material-constitution/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Section 1 presents Dion and Theon as a Chrysippean puzzle and gives the right-foot setup; section 2 discusses the van Inwagen response." }, { "title": "Philo of Alexandria, On the Eternity of the World §§48–49, Yonge translation", "url": "https://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/text/philo/book35.html", "kind": "primary", "support": "Later ancient testimony reporting Chrysippus’s Dion and Theon argument, the answer attributed to Chrysippus, and Philo’s objection; not Chrysippus’s surviving text." }, { "title": "John Bowin, Chrysippus’ Puzzle about Identity, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 24 (2003), 239–251", "url": "https://people.ucsc.edu/~jbowin/BOWCPA.1.pdf", "kind": "academic", "support": "Scholarly discussion of Philo’s transmission of the puzzle and competing interpretations; contextualizes the ancient report without settling it." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "puzzle", "related_experiments": [ "statue-and-clay", "ship-of-theseus", "problem-of-the-many" ], "file_path": "experiments/identity/dion-and-theon.md", "summary": "When a part is removed, does the original object survive, and what has become of the object that was the remainder?" }, { "id": "problem-of-the-many", "slug": "problem-of-the-many", "title": "The Problem of the Many (Tibbles the Cat)", "category": "identity", "associated_thinkers": [ "Peter Unger", "Peter Geach" ], "original_publication": "Unger, “The Problem of the Many” (Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 1980); the cat example is associated with Geach and later discussion", "difficulty": "Advanced", "themes": [ "vagueness", "boundaries", "counting objects" ], "references": [ { "title": "Brian Weatherson, “The Problem of the Many,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2023 archive)", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2023/entries/problem-of-many/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Secondary philosophical reference: §§1–7 and 9 explain the cloud setup, Geach’s Tibbles reasoning, composition and identity alternatives, semantic vagueness, and the distinct tail/parthood case. It surveys contested responses rather than establishing consensus or replacing primary texts." }, { "title": "Andre Gallois and Irem Kurtsal, “Identity Over Time,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2026 archive)", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2026/entries/identity-time/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Secondary reference: §§1 and 4 provide broad context for persistence, diachronic identity, and part-change puzzles. Consulted as context only; it is not the source for Geach’s Tibbles many-candidates argument or Weatherson’s separate Tibbles-and-tail story." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "puzzle", "related_experiments": [ "sorites", "statue-and-clay", "ship-of-theseus" ], "file_path": "experiments/identity/problem-of-the-many.md", "summary": "How can there be one cat when so many equally good candidate objects occupy nearly the same place?" }, { "id": "twin-earth", "slug": "twin-earth", "title": "Twin Earth", "category": "consciousness", "associated_thinkers": [ "Hilary Putnam" ], "original_publication": "Putnam, “The Meaning of ‘Meaning’” (1975)", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "meaning", "externalism", "natural kinds" ], "references": [ { "title": "Hilary Putnam, “The Meaning of ‘Meaning’” (1975)", "url": "https://hdl.handle.net/11299/185225", "kind": "primary", "support": "Original Twin Earth setup, the 1750 scenario, the twins’ psychological state, and the argument about reference and extension." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Externalism About the Mind", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2020/entries/content-externalism/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Twin Earth, the scope of content externalism, objections, and later applications." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Narrow Mental Content", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/content-narrow/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Internalist and narrow-content responses to externalism; relevant sections consulted." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Content Externalism and Skepticism", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2025/entries/skepticism-content-externalism/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Putnam’s later brain-in-a-vat argument and its relation to content externalism; distinct from the 1975 Twin Earth example." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "thought experiment", "related_experiments": [ "swampman", "beetle-in-box", "brain-in-a-vat" ], "file_path": "experiments/consciousness/twin-earth.md", "summary": "Are the meanings of our words, and the contents of our thoughts, fixed entirely by what is in our heads, or do they depend on our environment?" }, { "id": "mad-pain-martian-pain", "slug": "mad-pain-martian-pain", "title": "Mad Pain and Martian Pain", "category": "consciousness", "associated_thinkers": [ "David Lewis" ], "original_publication": "Lewis, “Mad Pain and Martian Pain” (in Block, ed., Readings in Philosophy of Psychology, 1980)", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "functionalism", "identity theory", "multiple realizability" ], "references": [ { "title": "David Lewis, “Mad Pain and Martian Pain” (1980), pp. 216–222, text reproduction", "url": "https://andrewmbailey.com/dkl/Mad_Pain.pdf", "kind": "primary", "support": "Primary text for the scenarios, Lewis’s population-relative account, and his qualifications." }, { "title": "Janet Levin, “Functionalism,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/functionalism/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Functionalism, multiple realization, identity theory, and disputes about phenomenal character." }, { "title": "Peter Alward, “Mad, Martian, but not Mad Martian Pain” (2004)", "url": "http://lorenzopena.es/Sorites/Issue_15/alward.htm", "kind": "academic", "support": "A critique of Lewis’s criteria for selecting the relevant population, focused on mad Martian pain." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "thought experiment", "related_experiments": [ "inverted-spectrum", "zombies", "china-brain" ], "file_path": "experiments/consciousness/mad-pain-martian-pain.md", "summary": "Can one theory of what pain is accommodate both a being whose pain plays an unusual causal role and a being whose pain has a different physical basis?" }, { "id": "problem-of-other-minds", "slug": "problem-of-other-minds", "title": "The Problem of Other Minds", "category": "consciousness", "associated_thinkers": [ "John Stuart Mill (the classical argument from analogy)" ], "original_publication": "Argument from analogy in Mill, An Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy (1865); older roots", "difficulty": "Beginner", "themes": [ "other minds", "analogy", "evidence" ], "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Other Minds", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/other-minds/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Anita Avramides's overview of the epistemological problem, Mill's formulation of the argument from analogy, and competing approaches including best explanation, criteria, perception, and testimony." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "argument", "related_experiments": [ "zombies", "bat", "beetle-in-box", "inverted-spectrum" ], "file_path": "experiments/consciousness/problem-of-other-minds.md", "summary": "How can anyone know that other beings have minds, and what could count as evidence for it?" }, { "id": "brain-bisection", "slug": "brain-bisection", "title": "Split Brains and the Unity of Consciousness", "category": "consciousness", "associated_thinkers": [ "Thomas Nagel" ], "original_publication": "Nagel, “Brain Bisection and the Unity of Consciousness” (Synthese, 1971)", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "unity of consciousness", "split brain", "number of minds" ], "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: The Unity of Consciousness", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness-unity/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Current models and open disputes about split-brain consciousness, including the distinction between streams of experience and number of subjects." }, { "title": "Thomas Nagel, Brain Bisection and the Unity of Consciousness (1971)", "url": "https://www.mcgill.ca/science/files/science/channels/attach/brainbisection.pdf", "kind": "primary", "support": "Relevant passages of Nagel’s philosophical argument about conflicting evidence and the limits of ordinary concepts of mind and person." }, { "title": "Nagel 1971 publisher record (metadata)", "url": "https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00413435", "kind": "primary", "support": "Publisher bibliographic record for title, journal, and page details; article text was read from the McGill-hosted full-text PDF." }, { "title": "Some Functional Effects of Sectioning the Cerebral Commissures in Man", "url": "https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.48.10.1765", "kind": "primary", "support": "Gazzaniga, Bogen, and Sperry’s 1962 primary report on human commissurotomy and split-brain tests." }, { "title": "Hemisphere Deconnection and Unity in Conscious Awareness", "url": "https://people.uncw.edu/puente/sperry/sperrypapers/60s/135-1968.pdf", "kind": "primary", "support": "Sperry’s 1968 account of experimental dissociations and the apparent effects on ordinary behavior." }, { "title": "Split-Brain: What We Know Now and Why This Is Important for Understanding Consciousness", "url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7305066/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Open-access 2020 review of disconnection, residual integration, and the unresolved question of conscious unity." }, { "title": "Split Brain: Divided Perception but Undivided Consciousness", "url": "https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/140/5/1231/2951052", "kind": "primary", "support": "Pinto and colleagues’ 2017 experimental report and contested interpretation based on two patients." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "argument", "related_experiments": [ "fission", "bat", "brain-transplant" ], "file_path": "experiments/consciousness/brain-bisection.md", "summary": "How many minds, or streams of consciousness, are there in a patient whose brain has been divided?" }, { "id": "allegory-of-the-cave", "slug": "allegory-of-the-cave", "title": "Plato’s Allegory of the Cave", "category": "epistemology", "associated_thinkers": [ "Plato" ], "original_publication": "Plato, Republic, Book VII (about 375 BCE)", "difficulty": "Beginner", "themes": [ "appearance and reality", "education", "knowledge" ], "references": [ { "title": "Plato, Republic, Book VII (Internet Classics Archive)", "url": "https://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.8.vii.html", "kind": "primary", "support": "Benjamin Jowett's translation of Republic Book VII, including the Cave and Socrates' explanation of education, the Good, and the philosopher's return. Passage-level support for the article's primary-text paraphrase; relevant locations include 514a–517a, 518b–d, and 519c–521b. The complete Republic was not read." }, { "title": "Sean McAleer, “The Allegory of the Cave: Book VII,” Plato’s ‘Republic’: An Introduction", "url": "https://books.openbookpublishers.com/10.11647/obp.0229/ch11.xhtml", "kind": "academic", "support": "Scholarly chapter relating the Cave to education and the divided line. Chapter 11 discusses the ascent, education, and political return; it also notes that divisions of the allegory's stages can be interpretively subjective. Relevant chapter passages were read; the full book was not." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Plato’s Myths", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-myths/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Catalin Partenie's discussion of the Cave at Republic 514a–517a identifies it, strictly speaking, as an analogy rather than a myth. Context for the article's technical classification; it does not establish every detail of the Cave interpretation." }, { "title": "Eric Brown, “Plato’s Ethics and Politics in The Republic”", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-ethics-politics/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Section 2.3 discusses the philosophers' compulsion to rule and differing explanations of their motives; section 5 addresses controversy over the Republic's political implications. Scholarly context, not a claim of consensus or a replacement for Republic VII." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Plato", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Richard Kraut's entry gives Plato's approximate lifespan and cautions that periodization as a composition chronology is disputed. Broad chronological context only; it does not establish the Republic's precise composition date." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "analogy", "related_experiments": [ "brain-in-a-vat", "evil-demon", "dream-argument" ], "file_path": "experiments/epistemology/allegory-of-the-cave.md", "summary": "How does the mind move from taking appearances for reality to grasping what is genuinely real, and what makes that movement hard?" }, { "id": "humes-missing-shade-of-blue", "slug": "humes-missing-shade-of-blue", "title": "Hume’s Missing Shade of Blue", "category": "epistemology", "associated_thinkers": [ "David Hume" ], "original_publication": "An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (1748), Section II, §8", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "empiricism", "ideas and impressions", "imagination" ], "references": [ { "title": "David Hume, An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, Section II", "url": "https://davidhume.org/texts/e/2", "kind": "primary", "support": "The missing-shade scenario and Hume’s explicit qualification at Section II, §8; earlier copy-principle material at §§5–6." }, { "title": "David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, Book 1, Part 1, Section 1", "url": "https://davidhume.org/texts/t/1/1/1", "kind": "primary", "support": "Earlier formulation of the copy principle; not the missing-shade example." }, { "title": "David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, Book 1, Part 1, Section 2", "url": "https://davidhume.org/texts/t/1/1/2", "kind": "primary", "support": "Distinguishes impressions of sensation and reflection and discusses their relation to ideas." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: David Hume", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Copy principle, location of the missing-shade passage, and a qualified account of later interpretations attributed to Fogelin, Garrett, and Durland." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "thought experiment", "related_experiments": [ "marys-room", "molyneux-problem" ], "file_path": "experiments/epistemology/humes-missing-shade-of-blue.md", "summary": "Can we form a genuinely new simple idea without a matching experience, and what would that show about empiricism?" }, { "id": "wax-argument", "slug": "wax-argument", "title": "Descartes’s Piece of Wax", "category": "epistemology", "associated_thinkers": [ "René Descartes" ], "original_publication": "Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, Second Meditation (1641)", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "perception", "rationalism", "knowledge of bodies" ], "references": [ { "title": "René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, Second Meditation", "url": "https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/users/philosophy/courses/211/meditationssinglefile.htm", "kind": "primary", "support": "The wax’s changing qualities, the mind’s understanding and judgment, and the following window example, in an online English translation." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Descartes’ Epistemology", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes-epistemology/", "kind": "academic", "support": "The wax argument’s role in Descartes’s epistemology and the mind/body sequence." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "thought experiment", "related_experiments": [ "evil-demon", "brain-in-a-vat", "ship-of-theseus" ], "file_path": "experiments/epistemology/wax-argument.md", "summary": "If every sensible quality of the wax can change while it remains the same wax, what is it that we know when we know the wax?" }, { "id": "simulation-argument", "slug": "simulation-argument", "title": "The Simulation Argument", "category": "epistemology", "associated_thinkers": [ "Nick Bostrom" ], "original_publication": "Bostrom, “Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?” (Philosophical Quarterly, 2003)", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "simulation", "probability", "skepticism" ], "references": [ { "title": "Nick Bostrom, Are You Living in a Computer Simulation? (author’s PDF)", "url": "https://simulation-argument.com/simulation.pdf", "kind": "academic", "support": "The original paper states the three-way disjunction, its computational and consciousness assumptions, and the conditional first-person credence step." }, { "title": "Brian Weatherson, Are You a Sim? (PhilArchive record)", "url": "https://philarchive.org/rec/WEAAYA", "kind": "academic", "support": "The abstract records a published challenge to the indifference-principle inference; the complete article was not accessible in this review." }, { "title": "Nick Bostrom, The Simulation Argument: Reply to Weatherson (PDF)", "url": "https://pdf.stafforini.com/bostrom-2005-simulation-argument-reply.pdf", "kind": "academic", "support": "Bostrom clarifies that the original argument establishes a disjunction, not that the simulation horn is more likely, and responds to the first-person inference challenge." }, { "title": "Joe Carlsmith, Simulation Arguments (2022, author’s PDF)", "url": "https://jc.gatspress.com/pdf/simulation_arguments_revised.pdf", "kind": "academic", "support": "A later analysis distinguishes empirical and observer-class versions and examines conditions for first-person simulation inferences; it is not presented as consensus." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "argument", "related_experiments": [ "brain-in-a-vat", "evil-demon", "russells-five-minute-world" ], "file_path": "experiments/epistemology/simulation-argument.md", "summary": "Given some assumptions about technology and consciousness, how likely is it that our experiences are those of simulated beings?" }, { "id": "moores-proof-of-an-external-world", "slug": "moores-proof-of-an-external-world", "title": "Moore’s “Here Is One Hand”", "category": "epistemology", "associated_thinkers": [ "G. E. Moore" ], "original_publication": "Moore, “Proof of an External World” (Proceedings of the British Academy, 1939)", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "common sense", "skepticism", "certainty" ], "references": [ { "title": "G. E. Moore, “Proof of an External World” (1939), reprinted in G. E. Moore: Selected Writings", "url": "https://gwern.net/doc/philosophy/epistemology/1939-moore.pdf", "kind": "primary", "support": "Primary lecture text in the Selected Writings reprint; relevant passages on pp. 147, 164–166, and 168–170 state Moore’s aim, hand demonstration, three proof conditions, and response to objections. The complete original publication was not read." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: George Edward Moore", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2010/entries/moore/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Baldwin’s archived SEP entry, §6, discusses Moore’s common-sense position, the hand proof, the distinction between proving that external objects exist and proving that anyone knows this, and the proof’s limits regarding metaphysical independence from experience. It presents Baldwin’s interpretation, not a settled consensus." }, { "title": "Charles Raff, “The Point of Moore’s Proof” (2019)", "url": "https://philarchive.org/archive/RAFTPO-7", "kind": "academic", "support": "Raff’s scholarly article (International Journal for the Study of Skepticism, 2019, pp. 1–27) argues from Moore’s announced aim that the performance counterexamples a presupposition of Kant’s problem; relevant passages read on pp. 1–3 and 25–26. This is an alternative interpretive argument, not a settled consensus." }, { "title": "Chris Tucker, “Transmission and Transmission Failure in Epistemology”", "url": "https://iep.utm.edu/transmis/", "kind": "academic", "support": "The IEP scholarly reference entry’s Moore-proof discussion distinguishes failure to transmit justification from inability to resolve doubt or be dialectically effective for a skeptical audience; it notes competing positions, including Pryor’s defense. It does not settle the debate." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Epistemic Contextualism", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2026/entries/contextualism-epistemology/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Rysiew’s archived SEP entry, especially §§3.1–3.2, explains contextualism as a contested approach to skeptical arguments that allows standards for knowledge attributions to shift with context, preserving the possibility of ordinary knowledge claims. Context only; not an interpretation attributed to Moore." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Epistemic Closure", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2020/entries/closure-epistemic/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Luper’s archived SEP entry, §5.1, describes Moore-style anti-skeptical reasoning that uses ordinary knowledge claims and closure against Cartesian skeptical hypotheses; it distinguishes this later strategy from the skeptic’s argument and from Moore’s exact 1939 hand proof." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "argument", "related_experiments": [ "brain-in-a-vat", "evil-demon", "dream-argument" ], "file_path": "experiments/epistemology/moores-proof-of-an-external-world.md", "summary": "Can a simple, obvious claim such as “here is a hand” be more certain than the philosophical premises used to doubt it?" }, { "id": "ravens-paradox", "slug": "ravens-paradox", "title": "Hempel’s Paradox of the Ravens", "category": "epistemology", "associated_thinkers": [ "Carl Hempel" ], "original_publication": "Hempel, “Studies in the Logic of Confirmation” (Mind, 1945)", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "confirmation", "induction", "evidence" ], "references": [ { "title": "Carl G. Hempel, “Studies in the Logic of Confirmation” (1945), Part I", "url": "http://www.thatmarcusfamily.org/philosophy/Course_Websites/Readings/Hempel%20-%20Studies%20Confirm%201.pdf", "kind": "primary", "support": "Primary text for the equivalence condition and ravens example; relevant passages were read in the university-hosted PDF, not the complete paper." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Confirmation", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/confirmation/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Scholarly reference discussion of Hempel’s instance-based theory, the ravens paradox, hypothetico-deductive approaches, and Bayesian responses; relevant sections were read, not the entire entry." }, { "title": "Jan Sprenger, “Hempel and the Paradoxes of Confirmation” (2008 manuscript)", "url": "http://www.laeuferpaar.de/Papers/HHL.pdf", "kind": "academic", "support": "Scholarly manuscript discussing background information, Good’s counterexamples, and assumptions in Bayesian responses; relevant passages were read, not the complete manuscript. Good’s original 1967 note was not consulted." }, { "title": "Peter B. M. Vranas, “Hempel’s Raven Paradox: A Lacuna in the Standard Bayesian Solution”", "url": "https://doi.org/10.1093/bjps/55.3.545", "kind": "academic", "support": "Published scholarly objection to an assumption in a standard Bayesian solution; the publisher abstract and bibliographic record were read, but the full article was not accessed." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "paradox", "related_experiments": [ "grue", "monty-hall" ], "file_path": "experiments/epistemology/ravens-paradox.md", "summary": "Why does it seem wrong that a white shoe confirms a claim about ravens, and which assumption should we revise?" }, { "id": "grue", "slug": "grue", "title": "Goodman’s New Riddle of Induction (Grue)", "category": "epistemology", "associated_thinkers": [ "Nelson Goodman" ], "original_publication": "Goodman, Fact, Fiction, and Forecast (1955)", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "induction", "projectibility", "language" ], "references": [ { "title": "Nelson Goodman, Fact, Fiction, and Forecast (fourth edition scan)", "url": "http://fitelson.org/probability/goodman_fact_fiction_and_forecast.pdf", "kind": "primary", "support": "Full-text scan consulted for the grue definition, the new riddle, and Goodman’s account of projection and entrenchment." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Nelson Goodman", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/goodman/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Grue and bleen definitions, the positionality objection, and Goodman’s entrenchment proposal." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: The Problem of Induction", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/induction-problem/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Goodman’s new riddle in the broader induction debate and discussion of probabilistic approaches." }, { "title": "Goodman’s ‘New Riddle’", "url": "http://fitelson.org/grue.pdf", "kind": "academic", "support": "Fitelson’s published analysis of Bayesian confirmation and the assumptions behind equal-confirmation claims." }, { "title": "Conceptual Spaces: A Solution to Goodman’s New Riddle of Induction?", "url": "https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-024-00744-2", "kind": "academic", "support": "Scholz’s 2024 naturalness/similarity approach and its limits." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "paradox", "related_experiments": [ "ravens-paradox", "bertrands-paradox" ], "file_path": "experiments/epistemology/grue.md", "summary": "What distinguishes generalizations that our evidence legitimately supports from ones that fit the same evidence but should not be projected?" }, { "id": "norman-the-clairvoyant", "slug": "norman-the-clairvoyant", "title": "Norman the Clairvoyant", "category": "epistemology", "associated_thinkers": [ "Laurence BonJour" ], "original_publication": "BonJour, “Externalist Theories of Empirical Knowledge” (Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 1980)", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "reliabilism", "justification", "internalism and externalism" ], "references": [ { "title": "Laurence BonJour, Externalist Theories of Empirical Knowledge (1980), university-hosted PDF text", "url": "https://fphil.uniba.sk/fileadmin/fif/katedry_pracoviska/kfdf/Personal/Nuhlicek/Literatura/Teorie_zdovodnenia/BonJour__L._-_Externalist_Theories_of_Empirical_Knowledge__1980_.pdf", "kind": "primary", "support": "BonJour's Case IV (pp. 62–67) gives Norman's stipulated reliable clairvoyance, lack of evidence, and BonJour's objection from Norman's own epistemic perspective. Relevant passages were read in the PDF text extraction; the whole article was not read." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Reliabilist Epistemology", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reliabilism/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Sections 2.1 and 4.2 discuss the clairvoyance challenge, distinct reliabilist responses, and evidentialist–reliabilist hybrids. Scholarly reference context; it does not establish that every reliabilist theory has the same verdict." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Internalist vs. Externalist Conceptions of Epistemic Justification", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justep-intext/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Sections 1 and 2.1 distinguish debates about justification and knowledge, present BonJour's argument, and explain why the case does not by itself undermine every externalist view. Scholarly reference context, not a claim of consensus." }, { "title": "Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Reliabilism", "url": "https://iep.utm.edu/reliabilism/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Section 3(a) reviews the objection that reliable true belief may be insufficient for justification, several replies, and Mr. Truetemp as a related but distinct case. Relevant passages were read; this is a reference-work synthesis, not primary testimony." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Analysis of Knowledge", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Section 3 explains the standard characterization of Gettier cases as justified true beliefs that nevertheless appear not to be knowledge because of epistemic luck; context for the article's qualified contrast with Norman." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "thought experiment", "related_experiments": [ "gettier-cases", "fake-barn", "brain-in-a-vat" ], "file_path": "experiments/epistemology/norman-the-clairvoyant.md", "summary": "Is a belief justified or known if it is produced by a reliable process the believer has no access to or reason to trust?" }, { "id": "disguised-mule", "slug": "disguised-mule", "title": "The Cleverly Disguised Mule", "category": "epistemology", "associated_thinkers": [ "Fred Dretske" ], "original_publication": "Dretske, “Epistemic Operators” (Journal of Philosophy, 1970)", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "closure", "skepticism", "knowledge" ], "references": [ { "title": "Fred Dretske, “Epistemic Operators” (1970), The Journal of Philosophy 67(24): 1007–1023", "url": "https://www.jstor.org/stable/2024710", "kind": "primary", "support": "Original article bibliographic record. The JSTOR reproduction exposed metadata only during this review; the zebra passage (pp. 1015–1016) was checked through the quoted and analyzed passage in the Stanford Encyclopedia entry on epistemic closure." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Epistemic Closure", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/closure-epistemic/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Sections 1, 2.1–2.2, and 5.1–5.2 discuss qualified closure principles, quote and analyze Dretske's zebra/mule example (1970, pp. 1015–1016), explain relevant-alternatives and tracking responses, and present the closure-based skeptical inference and a Moorean reply. Secondary reference work; its analysis does not settle the debate." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Epistemic Contextualism", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/contextualism-epistemology/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Sections 2 and 3.1–3.3 explain attributor contextualism, the closure-related skeptical puzzle, and the proposed shift in knowledge-attribution standards as skeptical doubts become salient. Contextualism is disputed, not a consensus or proof that the skeptical scenario is actually or epistemically possible." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "thought experiment", "related_experiments": [ "fake-barn", "brain-in-a-vat", "gettier-cases" ], "file_path": "experiments/epistemology/disguised-mule.md", "summary": "If you know something, and you know that it implies something else, must you also know the implied claim?" }, { "id": "lottery-paradox", "slug": "lottery-paradox", "title": "The Lottery Paradox", "category": "epistemology", "associated_thinkers": [ "Henry Kyburg" ], "original_publication": "Kyburg, Probability and the Logic of Rational Belief (1961)", "difficulty": "Advanced", "themes": [ "rational belief", "probability", "knowledge" ], "references": [ { "title": "Henry E. Kyburg, Probability and the Logic of Rational Belief (1961), Internet Archive record", "url": "https://archive.org/details/probabilitylogic0000unse", "kind": "primary", "support": "The Internet Archive item page confirms the title, 1961 publication date, and access-restricted scan listing. The Kyburg authorship is corroborated by the Penn Online Books catalog record; the original text and argument passage were not accessed, so these records support bibliographic metadata only." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Formal Representations of Belief", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2020/entries/formal-belief/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Section 4.2.2 discusses the Lockean threshold, derives the lottery paradox, identifies Kyburg's response of rejecting deductive closure, and describes other approaches that qualify the threshold rule. Secondary reference-work synthesis; it does not establish one resolution as settled." }, { "title": "Roy Sorensen, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Epistemic Paradoxes", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2024/entries/epistemic-paradoxes/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Sections 3 and 4 explain the lottery argument's agglomeration reasoning, distinguish believing a contradiction from holding jointly inconsistent beliefs, and discuss Kyburg's response; section 4 attributes the preface paradox to Makinson and relates it to Wilder's preface. Secondary reference-work synthesis." }, { "title": "Gregory Wheeler, A Review of the Lottery Paradox (2007)", "url": "https://gregorywheeler.org/papers/LotteryReview.pdf", "kind": "academic", "support": "Pages 1–2 lay out the lottery argument and note disagreement over how to diagnose or respond to it, including the comparison with the preface paradox; section 3.1, p. 19, distinguishes issues about statistical evidence and knowledge from rational belief. Scholarly secondary analysis, not treated as a consensus statement." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "paradox", "related_experiments": [ "gettier-cases", "sleeping-beauty" ], "file_path": "experiments/epistemology/lottery-paradox.md", "summary": "Can it be rational to believe each of a set of claims that you know cannot all be true, and what should we say about the relation between high probability and belief?" }, { "id": "zenos-dichotomy", "slug": "zenos-dichotomy", "title": "Zeno’s Dichotomy", "category": "logic", "associated_thinkers": [ "Zeno of Elea" ], "original_publication": "Ancient Greek, fifth century BCE; known through later reports", "difficulty": "Beginner", "themes": [ "infinity", "motion", "infinite series" ], "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Zeno’s Paradoxes", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/paradox-zeno/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Scholarly discussion of Aristotle’s later report, modern reconstructions of the Dichotomy, mathematical replies, and qualifications concerning infinity and the physical application of the continuum. Relevant sections were read; the full entry was not." }, { "title": "Aristotle, Physics, Book VI", "url": "https://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/physics.6.vi.html", "kind": "primary", "support": "Primary ancient text in the Hardie and Gaye translation: Book VI.9 reports the half-way argument and presents Aristotle’s response about infinitely divisible magnitude and time. Selected passages were read; the complete Physics was not." }, { "title": "Aristotle, Physics, Book III", "url": "https://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/physics.3.iii.html", "kind": "primary", "support": "Primary ancient text in the Hardie and Gaye translation: Book III.6 discusses the infinite by division and potential existence. The relevant passage was read; the complete Physics was not." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Supertasks", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spacetime-supertasks/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Scholarly reference discussion of the forward and regressive Zeno walk, geometric-series convergence and meanings of completion, and Thomson’s lamp as a related but distinct discrete supertask. Relevant sections were read; the full entry was not." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "paradox", "related_experiments": [ "achilles-and-tortoise", "zenos-arrow", "thomsons-lamp" ], "file_path": "experiments/logic/zenos-dichotomy.md", "summary": "How can a journey be completed if it can always be divided into infinitely many smaller stages?" }, { "id": "zenos-arrow", "slug": "zenos-arrow", "title": "Zeno’s Arrow", "category": "logic", "associated_thinkers": [ "Zeno of Elea" ], "original_publication": "Ancient Greek, fifth century BCE; known through later reports", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "motion", "instants", "continuity" ], "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Zeno’s Paradoxes", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/paradox-zeno/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Scholarly discussion of Aristotle’s mediated report of the Arrow argument and a modern at-at response; §3.3 (Arrow) and §3.4 (Stadium) consulted, not the full entry." }, { "title": "Aristotle, Physics, Book VI, chapter 9, trans. R. P. Hardie and R. K. Gaye", "url": "http://www.logoslibrary.org/aristotle/physics/609.html", "kind": "primary", "support": "Primary ancient testimony: Physics VI.9 at 239b5–9 and 239b30–33 reports Zeno’s Arrow argument and Aristotle’s objection; the same chapter reports the Stadium. Relevant passages read in the Hardie–Gaye translation; the online page does not specify the edition date." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Zeno of Elea", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/zeno-elea/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Historical context for Zeno’s fifth-century BCE period and the indirect transmission and reconstruction of the Arrow from Aristotle’s testimony; §§1 and 2.2.3 consulted, not the full entry." }, { "title": "OpenStax, University Physics Volume 1, §3.2, “Instantaneous Velocity and Speed”", "url": "https://openstax.org/books/university-physics-volume-1/pages/3-2-instantaneous-velocity-and-speed", "kind": "academic", "support": "Textbook support for defining instantaneous velocity as the limit of average velocity as elapsed time approaches zero; §3.2 read. This provides calculus context, not an interpretation of Zeno." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "paradox", "related_experiments": [ "achilles-and-tortoise", "zenos-dichotomy" ], "file_path": "experiments/logic/zenos-arrow.md", "summary": "If a moving object is at rest at each instant, what makes it a moving object?" }, { "id": "hesperus-and-phosphorus", "slug": "hesperus-and-phosphorus", "title": "Hesperus and Phosphorus", "category": "logic", "associated_thinkers": [ "Gottlob Frege" ], "original_publication": "Frege, “On Sense and Reference” (1892), for the identity puzzle; Hesperus and Phosphorus are a standard illustrative case", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "sense and reference", "identity statements", "names" ], "references": [ { "title": "Gottlob Frege, “On Sense and Reference” (1892), English translation", "url": "https://inters.org/files/frege1892-1948.pdf", "kind": "primary", "support": "Frege’s morning-star/evening-star identity example and distinction between sense and reference." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Gottlob Frege", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/frege/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Frege’s sense/reference distinction and the cognitive significance of identity statements." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Names", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/names/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Hesperus and Phosphorus as an illustrative identity case and the theories of names discussed." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Rigid Designators", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rigid-designators/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Kripke’s modal account of identity and qualifications about necessity and empirical discovery." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "puzzle", "related_experiments": [ "twin-earth", "beetle-in-box" ], "file_path": "experiments/logic/hesperus-and-phosphorus.md", "summary": "If two names refer to the same object, why can an identity statement using them be informative while another is trivial?" }, { "id": "gavagai", "slug": "gavagai", "title": "Quine’s Gavagai", "category": "logic", "associated_thinkers": [ "W. V. O. Quine" ], "original_publication": "Quine, Word and Object (1960)", "difficulty": "Advanced", "themes": [ "radical translation", "indeterminacy", "reference" ], "references": [ { "title": "Quine, *Word and Object*, Chapter 2 (selected text)", "url": "https://cla.csulb.edu/departments/philosophy/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Quine-1960-Word-and-Object-ch.-2.pdf", "kind": "primary", "support": "Primary text: radical translation (§7), stimulus synonymy and term reference (§12), and translation-manual indeterminacy (§§15–16)." }, { "title": "Quine, “On the Reasons for Indeterminacy of Translation”", "url": "https://doi.org/10.2307/2023887", "kind": "primary", "support": "Quine’s later clarification of what the Gavagai example does and does not establish." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Willard Van Orman Quine", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2025/entries/quine/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Scholarly overview of Quine’s indeterminacy theses, communication, and objections." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Reference (Spring 2018 archive)", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2018/entries/reference/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Its discussion of Quine’s inscrutability thesis explicitly gives the Gavagai, rabbit-part, and rabbit-stage alternatives." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "thought experiment", "related_experiments": [ "beetle-in-box", "hesperus-and-phosphorus", "quus-rule-following" ], "file_path": "experiments/logic/gavagai.md", "summary": "Is there a fact of the matter about what a word refers to, beyond what is settled by how speakers behave?" }, { "id": "quus-rule-following", "slug": "quus-rule-following", "title": "Kripke’s Quus", "category": "logic", "associated_thinkers": [ "Saul Kripke", "Ludwig Wittgenstein" ], "original_publication": "Kripke, Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language (1982), reading Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations", "difficulty": "Advanced", "themes": [ "rule-following", "meaning", "skepticism" ], "references": [ { "title": "Saul A. Kripke, Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language (1982), catalogue record", "url": "https://archive.org/details/wittgensteinonru0000krip", "kind": "primary", "support": "Bibliographic record for Kripke’s primary work; full text is access-restricted and was not consulted through this record." }, { "title": "Saul A. Kripke, “On Rules and Private Language,” selected reprint excerpt", "url": "http://www.thatmarcusfamily.org/philosophy/Course_Websites/Readings/Kripke%20-%20On%20Rules%20and%20Private%20Language.pdf", "kind": "primary", "support": "Selected primary-text excerpt consulted for the plus/quus construction and skeptical-solution summary; not the complete 1982 book." }, { "title": "Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, fourth edition text", "url": "https://danielwharris.com/teaching/364/readings/WittgensteinInvestigations.pdf", "kind": "primary", "support": "Primary-text remarks §§185, 201–202, and 241–242, read to distinguish Wittgenstein’s text from Kripke’s interpretation." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Rule-Following and Intentionality”", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rule-following/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Scholarly exposition of the quus construction, Kripke’s skeptical argument and solution, and selected competing responses; it does not establish consensus or Wittgenstein’s own position." }, { "title": "John McDowell, “Wittgenstein on Following a Rule” (1984)", "url": "https://sites.pitt.edu/~rbrandom/Courses/2023%20Sellars/Sellars%20texts/McDowell-Wittgenstein%20on%20followingRule-1984.pdf", "kind": "academic", "support": "Published critical interpretation of Kripke’s reading of Wittgenstein; one documented position, not a consensus claim." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "argument", "related_experiments": [ "grue", "beetle-in-box" ], "file_path": "experiments/logic/quus-rule-following.md", "summary": "What fact about you, past or present, makes it the case that you meant plus and not quus?" }, { "id": "knowability-paradox", "slug": "knowability-paradox", "title": "Fitch’s Paradox of Knowability", "category": "logic", "associated_thinkers": [ "Frederic Fitch" ], "original_publication": "Fitch, “A Logical Analysis of Some Value Concepts” (Journal of Symbolic Logic, 1963)", "difficulty": "Advanced", "themes": [ "knowability", "verificationism", "modal logic" ], "references": [ { "title": "Frederic B. Fitch, “A Logical Analysis of Some Value Concepts”", "url": "https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-symbolic-logic/article/a-logical-analysis-of-some-value-concepts1/D4D2E7E37CE8F699BB8CAF52CA74BFD3", "kind": "primary", "support": "Publication details, Theorem 5 attribution, and selected publisher extract/footnotes; the full article was not accessed." }, { "title": "Berit Brogaard and Joe Salerno, “Fitch’s Paradox of Knowability”", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fitch-paradox/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Formal proof and assumptions, history including the Church referee, and disputed logical, semantic, and syntactic responses." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "paradox", "related_experiments": [ "unexpected-hanging", "liar" ], "file_path": "experiments/logic/knowability-paradox.md", "summary": "Does the plausible thesis that all truths are knowable commit us to the implausible thesis that all truths are known?" }, { "id": "grelling-nelson-paradox", "slug": "grelling-nelson-paradox", "title": "The Grelling–Nelson Paradox (Heterological Words)", "category": "logic", "associated_thinkers": [ "Kurt Grelling", "Leonard Nelson" ], "original_publication": "Grelling and Nelson, Bemerkungen zu den Paradoxien von Russell und Burali-Forti (1907; a 1908 reprint is also listed)", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "self-reference", "semantic paradox", "predicates" ], "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Paradoxes and Contemporary Logic", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2025/entries/paradoxes-contemporary-logic/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Section 3.3.2 gives a translated formulation, cites the joint 1908 paper, and discusses Ramsey’s distinction between meaning relations as a response." }, { "title": "Thomas Bolander, Self-Reference and Paradox, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Fall 2024", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2024/entries/self-reference/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Sections 1.1 and 1.4 define the self-application paradox and compare its formal structure with Russell’s set paradox; this is a structural comparison, not an identity of subject matter." }, { "title": "PhilPapers catalogue record for Bemerkungen zu den Paradoxien von Russell und Burali-Forti", "url": "https://philpapers.org/rec/GREBZD-2", "kind": "academic", "support": "Catalogue metadata lists a 1907 publication, volume 2, pages 300–334, and a 1908 reprint, pages 301–334; neither original volume was directly inspected, so it documents a bibliographic discrepancy rather than resolving it." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "paradox", "related_experiments": [ "russells-paradox", "liar" ], "file_path": "experiments/logic/grelling-nelson-paradox.md", "summary": "How does self-application turn a definition into a contradiction, and which assumption must be revised?" }, { "id": "sea-battle", "slug": "sea-battle", "title": "Aristotle’s Sea Battle", "category": "time-and-causality", "associated_thinkers": [ "Aristotle" ], "original_publication": "Aristotle, De Interpretatione, chapter 9 (fourth century BCE); its interpretation is disputed", "difficulty": "Advanced", "themes": [ "future contingents", "fatalism", "truth and time" ], "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Future Contingents", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/future-contingents/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Aristotle’s sea battle, the argument for fatalism and the main logical and metaphysical responses." }, { "title": "Aristotle, On Interpretation, chapter 9 (Revised Oxford Translation)", "url": "https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~mnat/~ball0888/salamis/interpretatione.html", "kind": "primary", "support": "The primary passage on future contingents, the sea-battle example and Aristotle’s reply." }, { "title": "M. A. Istvan Jr., “Is Aristotle’s Response to the Argument for Fatalism in De Interpretatione 9 Successful?”", "url": "https://doi.org/10.15446/ideasyvalores.v63n155.33178", "kind": "academic", "support": "One scholarly interpretation illustrating disagreement about Aristotle’s response." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "puzzle", "related_experiments": [ "laplaces-demon", "consequence-argument", "idle-argument" ], "file_path": "experiments/time-and-causality/sea-battle.md", "summary": "Can statements about contingent future events be true or false now without making the future fixed?" }, { "id": "idle-argument", "slug": "idle-argument", "title": "The Idle Argument", "category": "time-and-causality", "associated_thinkers": [ "Ancient Greek fatalist tradition (attribution traditional)" ], "original_publication": "Ancient discussions of fate; the argument is known from later reports", "difficulty": "Beginner", "themes": [ "fatalism", "action", "fate" ], "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Fatalism", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fatalism/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Section 7 presents the Idle Argument, Cicero's report of Chrysippus's reply, versions that omit explicit fate-language, and qualifications about the generalized argument. Scholarly secondary source; it does not establish the argument's soundness." }, { "title": "Tim O’Keefe, “Ancient Theories of Freedom and Determinism,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Spring 2021 archive", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2021/entries/freedom-ancient/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Sections 1 and 1.4 distinguish logical fatalist arguments from causal determinism and explain the Stoic co-fated response, including how action can be causally effective. Scholarly secondary synthesis." }, { "title": "Cicero, On Fate 28–30 — Loeb Classical Library", "url": "https://www.loebclassics.com/view/marcus_tullius_cicero-de_fato/1942/pb_LCL349.225.xml?readMode=recto", "kind": "primary", "support": "Ancient testimony for the doctor/recovery form of the Idle Argument, the version framed in terms of eternal truth, and Cicero's report that Chrysippus replies by distinguishing simple from complex or co-fated events. Later report, not a surviving text by the argument's originator or Chrysippus." }, { "title": "Aristotle, On Interpretation 9 — MIT Classics", "url": "https://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/interpretation.1.1.html", "kind": "primary", "support": "Chapter 9, 18b31–36, discusses the apparent consequence that deliberation and taking trouble would be unnecessary if future events were necessary, and then notes that deliberation and action are causative. Related background, not direct attribution of the later-named Idle Argument." }, { "title": "Pedro José Grande Sánchez, “The Greek Philosophical Sources in Cicero’s De Fato” (2025)", "url": "https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/16/7/824", "kind": "academic", "support": "Section 2 dates composition of De Fato to around June 44 BCE. Scholarly secondary analysis used for the work's approximate date, not for attribution of the Idle Argument." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "argument", "related_experiments": [ "sea-battle", "consequence-argument" ], "file_path": "experiments/time-and-causality/idle-argument.md", "summary": "If the future is already fixed, does it follow that nothing we do matters?" }, { "id": "four-case-argument", "slug": "four-case-argument", "title": "Pereboom’s Four-Case Argument", "category": "time-and-causality", "associated_thinkers": [ "Derk Pereboom" ], "original_publication": "Pereboom, Living Without Free Will (2001)", "difficulty": "Advanced", "themes": [ "manipulation", "determinism", "moral responsibility" ], "references": [ { "title": "Derk Pereboom, Living Without Free Will (2001), bibliographic record and selected-page preview", "url": "https://books.google.com/books/about/Living_without_Free_Will.html?id=9sKZ1rAO2BwC", "kind": "primary", "support": "Publisher metadata and selected-page preview, including title page, table of contents, references, and index; Chapter 4 is listed but its text is not exposed." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Compatibilism, State of the Art supplement", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2018/entries/compatibilism/supplement.html", "kind": "academic", "support": "The four-case progression from direct intervention through early programming and upbringing to ordinary deterministic history, with hard- and soft-line replies." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Arguments for Incompatibilism", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/incompatibilism-arguments/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Current discussion of the under-description of Pereboom’s first three cases, disagreement over verdicts, and other manipulation arguments." }, { "title": "The Agential Perspective: A Hard-Line Reply to the Four-Case Manipulation Argument", "url": "https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1303683/FULLTEXT03", "kind": "academic", "support": "Jeppsson’s 2020 published analysis of the case sequence, hard-line reply, and Case 1 revision." }, { "title": "Précis of Derk Pereboom’s Free Will, Agency, and Meaning in Life", "url": "https://researcherslinks.com/current-issues/Precis-of-Derk-Pereboom-Free-Will-Agency-and-Meaning-in-Life/9/13/51/html", "kind": "academic", "support": "Caruso’s discussion of basic-desert responsibility and the scope of Pereboom’s skepticism." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "argument", "related_experiments": [ "frankfurt-cases", "consequence-argument", "laplaces-demon" ], "file_path": "experiments/time-and-causality/four-case-argument.md", "summary": "If Plum is not responsible in Case 1, is there any relevant difference that would make him responsible in Case 4?" }, { "id": "eternal-recurrence", "slug": "eternal-recurrence", "title": "Nietzsche’s Eternal Recurrence", "category": "time-and-causality", "associated_thinkers": [ "Friedrich Nietzsche" ], "original_publication": "Nietzsche, The Gay Science, section 341 (1882); also Thus Spoke Zarathustra", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "affirmation", "meaning", "repetition" ], "references": [ { "title": "Friedrich Nietzsche, *The Gay Science*, §341, “The Greatest Weight” (Walter Kaufmann translation)", "url": "https://web.stanford.edu/~jsabol/existentialism/materials/nietzsche-gay-science-hurry.pdf", "kind": "primary", "support": "the demon’s hypothetical and the concluding question about desiring the life again." }, { "title": "Friedrich Nietzsche, *Beyond Good and Evil*, §56", "url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4363/4363-h/4363-h.htm", "kind": "primary", "support": "the “world-approving” person who wishes what was and is to recur." }, { "title": "Friedrich Nietzsche, *Thus Spake Zarathustra*, Part III, “The Vision and the Enigma”", "url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1998/1998-h/1998-h.htm", "kind": "primary", "support": "Zarathustra’s vision and dialogue about recurrence (Thomas Common translation)." }, { "title": "Neil Sinhababu, “Nietzsche on the Eternal Recurrence” (2024)", "url": "https://philarchive.org/archive/SINNOT-9v2", "kind": "academic", "support": "a recent cosmological reading of a notebook fragment and account of Zarathustra’s fictional presentation." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Friedrich Nietzsche", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence and its interpretations." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Nietzsche’s Moral and Political Philosophy", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche-moral-political/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Further context on recurrence and affirmation." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "thought experiment", "related_experiments": [ "experience-machine", "laplaces-demon" ], "file_path": "experiments/time-and-causality/eternal-recurrence.md", "summary": "How would you feel about your life if you had to live it again without change, and what does your answer show about how you value it?" }, { "id": "mctaggarts-paradox", "slug": "mctaggarts-paradox", "title": "McTaggart’s Paradox of Time", "category": "time-and-causality", "associated_thinkers": [ "J. M. E. McTaggart" ], "original_publication": "McTaggart, “The Unreality of Time” (Mind, 1908)", "difficulty": "Advanced", "themes": [ "A-series and B-series", "change", "tense" ], "references": [ { "title": "J. Ellis McTaggart, The Unreality of Time, Mind 17(68) (1908), 457–474; full-text scan reproduction", "url": "https://philpapers.org/archive/MCTTUO.pdf", "kind": "primary", "support": "Relevant passages read in a full-text scan reproduction: A/B distinction and change argument, pp. 458–465; contradiction, successive-predication reply, and regress, pp. 468–470. Publisher full text was gated." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: John M. E. McTaggart", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2020/entries/mctaggart/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Section 3 presents a three-premise reconstruction, explains the change and A-series premises, and notes that reconstruction of the contradiction argument is contentious." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Time", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2025/entries/time/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Sections 4–6 discuss McTaggart’s argument, the range of A- and B-theories, presentism, and the growing-block view; relativity of simultaneity is presented as a challenge to A-theories, not a decisive refutation." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "argument", "related_experiments": [ "grandfather-paradox", "twin-paradox" ], "file_path": "experiments/time-and-causality/mctaggarts-paradox.md", "summary": "Is there a coherent notion of time that includes real change, and if not, is time real?" }, { "id": "newtons-bucket", "slug": "newtons-bucket", "title": "Newton’s Bucket", "category": "physics", "associated_thinkers": [ "Isaac Newton" ], "original_publication": "Newton, Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687), Scholium on space, time and motion", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "absolute space", "rotation", "inertia" ], "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Newton’s Views on Space, Time, and Motion", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/newton-stm/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Scholarly account of Newton’s bucket argument, absolute space, and later responses." }, { "title": "Isaac Newton, The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, trans. Andrew Motte (1846 scan)", "url": "https://archive.org/details/newtonspmathema00newtrich", "kind": "primary", "support": "Book I, Scholium following the Definitions, §XII; relevant bucket sequence and inference read in Motte’s translation, not the 1687 Latin edition." }, { "title": "Carl Hoefer, Nick Huggett, and James Read, “Absolute and Relational Space and Motion: Classical Theories”", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spacetime-theories-classical/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Scholarly discussion of classical absolute and relational accounts, including Newton’s bucket and Leibnizian positions." }, { "title": "Nick Huggett, Carl Hoefer, and James Read, “Absolute and Relational Space and Motion: Post-Newtonian Theories”", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spacetime-theories/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Scholarly discussion of Machian proposals, spacetime theories, and limits on claims that general relativity is fully Machian." }, { "title": "Ernst Mach, The Science of Mechanics, trans. Thomas J. McCormack (1919 scan)", "url": "https://ia801407.us.archive.org/29/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.154174/2015.154174.The-Science-Of-Mechanics.pdf", "kind": "primary", "support": "Chapter II, §VI, as listed for further reading; the 1883 bucket passage cited in the article was not directly retrieved." }, { "title": "Ernst Mach, The Science of Mechanics, supplementary volume, trans. Philip E. B. Jourdain (1915 scan)", "url": "https://archive.org/details/scienceofmechani00machrich", "kind": "primary", "support": "Mach’s later additions XVII–XIX, pp. 32–35, read for relative motion and the fixed stars; these are not the 1883 bucket passage." }, { "title": "Richard Staley, “Ernst Mach on Bodies and Buckets,” Physics Today (2013)", "url": "https://physicstoday.aip.org/features/ernst-mach-on-bodies-and-buckets", "kind": "academic", "support": "Historical context for Mach’s 1883 bucket objection, its relation to Earth and the celestial bodies, and the distinction between Newton’s and Mach’s views." }, { "title": "Robert Rynasiewicz, “By Their Properties, Causes, and Effects: Newton’s Scholium on Time, Space, Place, and Motion—I. The Text”", "url": "https://pages.jh.edu/rrynasi1/spacetime/eprints/scholium_1.pdf", "kind": "academic", "support": "Peer-reviewed analysis, especially pp. 147–149, of Newton’s bucket inference and its role in the Scholium." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "thought experiment", "related_experiments": [ "einsteins-elevator", "hole-argument", "galileos-ship" ], "file_path": "experiments/physics/newtons-bucket.md", "summary": "If the water’s concavity does not depend on motion relative to the bucket, what does it depend on?" }, { "id": "galileos-ship", "slug": "galileos-ship", "title": "Galileo’s Ship", "category": "physics", "associated_thinkers": [ "Galileo Galilei" ], "original_publication": "Galileo, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1632)", "difficulty": "Beginner", "themes": [ "relativity of motion", "inertial frames", "Copernican debate" ], "references": [ { "title": "Galileo, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (Stillman Drake translation, 1967)", "url": "https://pages.jh.edu/rrynasi1/PrincipleOfRelativity/Literature/Galileo/Galileo1632%281967%29DialogueConcerningTheTwoChiefWorldSystemsPtolemaic+Copernican.Stillman%20Drake%28trans.%29.pdf", "kind": "primary", "support": "Day Two, pp. 186–187, presents the ship-cabin argument; pp. 139–140 address the tower-stone objection." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Galileo Galilei", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/galileo/", "kind": "academic", "support": "The first two Days of the Dialogue, shared motion, the inertial principle, and the ship argument’s role in the Copernican debate." }, { "title": "Mark Shumelda and James Robert Brown, Thought Experiments and Inertial Motion: A Golden Thread in the Development of Mechanics", "url": "https://doi.org/10.4000/estetica.1838", "kind": "academic", "support": "Historical discussion of Galileo’s ship passage and its later interpretation as a principle of relativity." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "thought experiment", "related_experiments": [ "einsteins-elevator", "newtons-bucket", "einsteins-light-beam" ], "file_path": "experiments/physics/galileos-ship.md", "summary": "If nothing that happens inside a smoothly moving cabin reveals the motion, what does it mean to say that the ship, or the Earth, is moving?" }, { "id": "hole-argument", "slug": "hole-argument", "title": "The Hole Argument", "category": "physics", "associated_thinkers": [ "Albert Einstein", "John Earman", "John Norton" ], "original_publication": "Einstein’s late-1913 argument (published in 1914); modern reconstruction by Earman and Norton (1987)", "difficulty": "Advanced", "themes": [ "spacetime", "determinism", "general covariance" ], "references": [ { "title": "John Earman and John Norton, “What Price Spacetime Substantivalism? The Hole Story”", "url": "https://sites.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/papers/BJPS1987_holearg.pdf", "kind": "primary", "support": "Modern hole construction, the substantivalism challenge, and the conditional distinction between representational underdetermination and physical indeterminism." }, { "title": "John D. Norton, “The Hole Argument” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spacetime-holearg/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Active/passive covariance, modern construction, Einstein history, and the range of philosophical responses." }, { "title": "John Norton, “The Significance of the Hole Argument in General Relativity”", "url": "https://sites.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/teaching/HPS_0410/chapters/significance_GR_hole_argument/significance_GR_hole_argument.html", "kind": "academic", "support": "Einstein’s 1914 argument and 1916 point-coincidence response in translated/transcribed passages; not the complete original German papers." }, { "title": "John Stachel, “The Hole Argument and Some Physical and Philosophical Implications”", "url": "https://link.springer.com/article/10.12942/lrr-2014-1", "kind": "academic", "support": "Specialist historical and philosophical review, including Einstein’s chronology and structuralist interpretation." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "argument", "related_experiments": [ "newtons-bucket", "laplaces-demon", "einsteins-elevator" ], "file_path": "experiments/physics/hole-argument.md", "summary": "Does general relativity force us to say either that spacetime points lack an identity apart from the fields on them, or that the theory is indeterministic?" }, { "id": "loschmidt-reversibility", "slug": "loschmidt-reversibility", "title": "Loschmidt’s Reversibility Objection", "category": "physics", "associated_thinkers": [ "Josef Loschmidt", "Ludwig Boltzmann" ], "original_publication": "Loschmidt’s published objection (1876); Boltzmann’s immediate reply and separate statistical argument (1877); Zermelo’s distinct recurrence objection (1896)", "difficulty": "Advanced", "themes": [ "entropy", "time asymmetry", "statistical mechanics" ], "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Thermodynamic Asymmetry in Time", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time-thermo/", "kind": "academic", "support": "The reversibility objection, the statistical reply and the role of low-entropy initial conditions." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Boltzmann’s Work in Statistical Physics", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2013/entries/statphys-Boltzmann/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Historical account of the H-theorem, Loschmidt’s objection, Boltzmann’s 1877 responses, and the distinct recurrence debate." }, { "title": "Olivier Darrigol, “Boltzmann’s Reply to the Loschmidt Paradox: A Commented Translation”", "url": "https://doi.org/10.1140/epjh/s13129-021-00029-2", "kind": "academic", "support": "Historical commentary with translated passages from Loschmidt and Boltzmann." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "thought experiment", "related_experiments": [ "maxwells-demon", "laplaces-demon" ], "file_path": "experiments/physics/loschmidt-reversibility.md", "summary": "If the underlying laws do not distinguish past from future, why does entropy increase in one direction of time?" }, { "id": "heisenbergs-microscope", "slug": "heisenbergs-microscope", "title": "Heisenberg’s Microscope", "category": "physics", "associated_thinkers": [ "Werner Heisenberg" ], "original_publication": "Heisenberg, “Über den anschaulichen Inhalt der quantentheoretischen Kinematik und Mechanik” (1927), translated as “The Physical Content of Quantum Kinematics and Mechanics”", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "uncertainty", "measurement", "disturbance" ], "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: The Uncertainty Principle", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-uncertainty/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Heisenberg’s microscope argument and the distinction between disturbance and preparation uncertainty." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "thought experiment", "related_experiments": [ "schrodingers-cat", "epr", "wigners-friend" ], "file_path": "experiments/physics/heisenbergs-microscope.md", "summary": "Is the uncertainty principle a limit on what measurement can reveal, or a feature of quantum systems themselves?" }, { "id": "einsteins-train", "slug": "einsteins-train", "title": "Einstein’s Train and the Relativity of Simultaneity", "category": "physics", "associated_thinkers": [ "Albert Einstein" ], "original_publication": "Einstein, Relativity: The Special and General Theory (1916; English translation 1920)", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "simultaneity", "special relativity", "reference frames" ], "references": [ { "title": "Albert Einstein, Relativity: The Special and General Theory (Project Gutenberg)", "url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5001", "kind": "primary", "support": "A public-domain English translation of Einstein’s popular book, in which the train example appears." }, { "title": "Albert Einstein, “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies” (1905 English translation)", "url": "https://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einstein/specrel/www/", "kind": "primary", "support": "Sections 1–2 define distant simultaneity through synchronized clocks and discuss its relativity between inertial systems." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Conventionality of Simultaneity", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spacetime-convensimul/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Philosophical discussion of simultaneity in special relativity." }, { "title": "Robert DiSalle, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Space and Time: Inertial Frames", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spacetime-iframes/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Includes discussion of Lorentzian and Einsteinian interpretations and their empirical equivalence." }, { "title": "OpenStax, University Physics Volume 3, §5.5: The Lorentz Transformation", "url": "https://openstax.org/books/university-physics-volume-3/pages/5-5-the-lorentz-transformation", "kind": "educational", "support": "Textbook treatment of the train example, Lorentz transformations, and the causal structure of spacetime." }, { "title": "Steven Savitt, Natalja Deng, and Oliver Pooley, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Being and Becoming in Modern Physics", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spacetime-bebecome/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Surveys philosophical responses to relativity of simultaneity and the objective-present question." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "thought experiment", "related_experiments": [ "twin-paradox", "einsteins-light-beam", "mctaggarts-paradox" ], "file_path": "experiments/physics/einsteins-train.md", "summary": "If both observers measure light as travelling at the same speed, can they agree on which events are simultaneous?" }, { "id": "thomsons-lamp", "slug": "thomsons-lamp", "title": "Thomson’s Lamp", "category": "mathematics", "associated_thinkers": [ "James F. Thomson" ], "original_publication": "Thomson, “Tasks and Super-Tasks” (Analysis, 1954)", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "supertasks", "infinity", "limits" ], "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Supertasks", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spacetime-supertasks/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Section 1.2 covers Thomson’s lamp, its nonconvergent binary states, Benacerraf’s reply, and later physical completions." }, { "title": "J. F. Thomson, Tasks and Super-Tasks", "url": "https://www.jstor.org/stable/3326643", "kind": "primary", "support": "The original 1954 argument about the lamp and what an infinite sequence of tasks does or does not establish." }, { "title": "Paul Benacerraf, Tasks, Super-Tasks, and the Modern Eleatics", "url": "https://doi.org/10.2307/2023500", "kind": "primary", "support": "Benacerraf’s 1962 reply that the switching instructions alone do not specify the lamp’s state at the terminal instant." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "paradox", "related_experiments": [ "achilles-and-tortoise", "zenos-dichotomy", "hilberts-hotel" ], "file_path": "experiments/mathematics/thomsons-lamp.md", "summary": "Is it possible to complete an infinite sequence of actions in a finite time, and if so, what determines the state at the end?" }, { "id": "simpsons-paradox", "slug": "simpsons-paradox", "title": "Simpson’s Paradox", "category": "mathematics", "associated_thinkers": [ "Edward H. Simpson" ], "original_publication": "Named for Simpson (1951); earlier observations of the phenomenon are recorded in the literature", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "confounding", "causal inference", "aggregation" ], "references": [ { "title": "C. R. Charig et al., “Comparison of treatment of renal calculi by open surgery, percutaneous nephrolithotomy, and extracorporeal shockwave lithotripsy”", "url": "https://www.bmj.com/content/292/6524/879.full.pdf", "kind": "primary", "support": "Primary comparison and Table II: observed results by stone-size category and treatment; methods describe consecutive treatment series in different periods." }, { "title": "Stefanos Bonovas and Daniele Piovani, “Simpson’s Paradox in Clinical Research: A Cautionary Tale”", "url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9960320/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Reproduces the kidney-stone table, attributes it to Charig, and discusses confounding and interpretation." }, { "title": "Jan Sprenger and Naftali Weinberger, “Simpson’s Paradox” (SEP Summer 2026)", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2026/entries/paradox-simpson/", "kind": "academic", "support": "General statistical reversal, causal identification, confounding, and applications; does not source the Charig table." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "paradox", "related_experiments": [ "monty-hall", "sleeping-beauty" ], "file_path": "experiments/mathematics/simpsons-paradox.md", "summary": "How can a treatment do better in every subgroup but worse overall, and which comparison should guide a decision?" }, { "id": "galileos-paradox", "slug": "galileos-paradox", "title": "Galileo’s Paradox of the Infinite", "category": "mathematics", "associated_thinkers": [ "Galileo Galilei" ], "original_publication": "Galileo, Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations Concerning Two New Sciences (1638)", "difficulty": "Beginner", "themes": [ "infinity", "cardinality", "part and whole" ], "references": [ { "title": "Galileo Galilei, Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences (1914 English translation)", "url": "https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/galilei-dialogues-concerning-two-new-sciences", "kind": "primary", "support": "Primary-text evidence: in the First Day, Salviati contrasts the declining proportion of squares in finite ranges with every number being a root of a square, then says equal/greater/less comparisons do not apply to infinite quantities. Consulted in the Crew and de Salvio 1914 translation; this does not establish that Galileo used later cardinality terminology." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Infinity", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2022/entries/infinity/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Scholarly historical and philosophical reference supporting the account of Galileo’s paradox, the later Cantorian cardinality criterion and the distinct cardinalities of the positive integers and reals; also describes later numerosity approaches. Consulted relevant archived sections; secondary synthesis, not primary testimony." }, { "title": "Matthew W. Parker, “Philosophical Method and Galileo’s Paradox of Infinity”", "url": "https://philarchive.org/rec/PARPMA-2", "kind": "academic", "support": "Scholarly philosophical-historical analysis offering one interpretation of the paradox as involving distinct concepts of number and size, and treating Cantorian cardinality as a useful but not uniquely correct extension. Relevant chapter passages were consulted; this is not presented as consensus." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "paradox", "related_experiments": [ "hilberts-hotel", "thomsons-lamp" ], "file_path": "experiments/mathematics/galileos-paradox.md", "summary": "Can an infinite collection have as many members as one of its own proper parts?" }, { "id": "pascals-wager", "slug": "pascals-wager", "title": "Pascal’s Wager", "category": "economics", "associated_thinkers": [ "Blaise Pascal" ], "original_publication": "Pascal, Pensées (first edition posthumously, 1670; preliminary printing, 1669)", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "decision under uncertainty", "expected value", "belief" ], "references": [ { "title": "Blaise Pascal, Pensées (English text reproduced by Project Gutenberg)", "url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/files/18269/18269-h/18269-h.htm", "kind": "primary", "support": "Primary-text passages on the wager and nearby advice about belief and inquiry, fragments 233–241 in the cited English reproduction; translation and edition limitations are disclosed." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Pascal’s Wager", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pascal-wager/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Scholarly analysis of the wager, its decision-theoretic reconstructions, objections, and proposed replies; named positions are represented as disputed." }, { "title": "Paul Saka, “Pascal’s Wager about God,” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy", "url": "https://iep.utm.edu/pasc-wag/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Scholarly overview of belief and practice, the many-gods objection, and infinite-value problems." }, { "title": "Fred W. Jenkins, “Pascal: Pensées,” University of Dayton Libraries", "url": "https://exhibits.udayton.edu/s/rosebook/page/pascal", "kind": "academic", "support": "Institutional publication-history note on the preliminary 1669 printing and posthumous 1670 first edition." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "argument", "related_experiments": [ "st-petersburg-paradox", "pascals-mugging" ], "file_path": "experiments/economics/pascals-wager.md", "summary": "Can a calculation of expected benefit make it rational to commit to a belief or way of life?" }, { "id": "pascals-mugging", "slug": "pascals-mugging", "title": "Pascal’s Mugging", "category": "economics", "associated_thinkers": [ "Nick Bostrom" ], "original_publication": "Bostrom, “Pascal’s Mugging” (Analysis, 2009)", "difficulty": "Advanced", "themes": [ "expected utility", "tiny probabilities", "decision theory" ], "references": [ { "title": "Nick Bostrom, Pascal’s Mugging (author’s PDF)", "url": "https://nickbostrom.com/papers/pascal.pdf", "kind": "academic", "support": "The original dialogue specifies the finite offers, unbounded utility, linear happy-day utility, credence assumptions, and the footnote on the label’s origin." }, { "title": "Eliezer Yudkowsky, Pascal’s Mugging: Tiny Probabilities of Vast Utilities (2007)", "url": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/a5JAiTdytou3Jg749/pascal-s-mugging-tiny-probabilities-of-vast-utilities", "kind": "primary", "support": "Yudkowsky’s earlier post gives a distinct formulation and is the naming source cited by Bostrom." }, { "title": "Avram Hiller and Ali Hasan, How to Save Pascal (and Ourselves) From the Mugger", "url": "https://doi.org/10.1017/S0012217323000392", "kind": "academic", "support": "Peer-reviewed later proposal of a many-muggers response based on symmetric, non-salient alternative rewards; also distinguishes the puzzle from St. Petersburg." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "puzzle", "related_experiments": [ "pascals-wager", "st-petersburg-paradox" ], "file_path": "experiments/economics/pascals-mugging.md", "summary": "Should a rational agent who maximizes expected utility hand over the wallet, and if not, how can the result be resisted?" }, { "id": "stag-hunt", "slug": "stag-hunt", "title": "The Stag Hunt", "category": "economics", "associated_thinkers": [ "Jean-Jacques Rousseau" ], "original_publication": "Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality (1755); later formalized in game theory", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "coordination", "trust", "risk" ], "references": [ { "title": "Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality, Part II, Ian Johnston translation", "url": "https://web.viu.ca/johnstoi/rousseau/seconddiscourse.htm", "kind": "primary", "support": "Rousseau's Part II deer-and-hare passage was read directly in Ian Johnston's English translation. It supports the historical narrative attribution, not a formal payoff matrix or equilibrium analysis." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Prisoner’s Dilemma", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/prisoner-dilemma/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Relevant sections 1 and 8 were read: they explain the Prisoner's Dilemma conditions and contrast them with the stag hunt, including its typical payoffs, equilibria and risk-dominance condition. The entry presents its numerical matrix as typical, not unique." }, { "title": "Brian Skyrms, “The Stag Hunt”", "url": "https://sites.socsci.uci.edu/~bskyrms/bio/papers/StagHunt.pdf", "kind": "academic", "support": "Relevant passages of the scholarly paper were read, including the model and trust discussion (pp. 1–4) and population/evolutionary extensions (pp. 10–15). The analysis shows that such outcomes depend on specified dynamics and interaction structure." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "model", "related_experiments": [ "prisoners-dilemma", "tragedy-of-the-commons", "state-of-nature" ], "file_path": "experiments/economics/stag-hunt.md", "summary": "When cooperation is best for everyone but risky, what lets people trust each other enough to coordinate?" }, { "id": "arrows-impossibility-theorem", "slug": "arrows-impossibility-theorem", "title": "Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem", "category": "society-and-justice", "associated_thinkers": [ "Kenneth Arrow" ], "original_publication": "Arrow, Social Choice and Individual Values (1951)", "difficulty": "Advanced", "themes": [ "voting", "social choice", "fairness" ], "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Arrow’s Theorem", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/arrows-theorem/", "kind": "academic", "support": "The social-welfare-function framework, five conditions, impossibility result, interpretations, and alternative assumptions." }, { "title": "Kenneth J. Arrow, Social Choice and Individual Values (1951), JSTOR record and Chapter V preview", "url": "https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1nqb90", "kind": "primary", "support": "Original work’s bibliographic record and chapter metadata; only a selected preview was available, and the full proof was not consulted." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "model", "related_experiments": [ "condorcet-paradox", "veil-of-ignorance" ], "file_path": "experiments/society-and-justice/arrows-impossibility-theorem.md", "summary": "Is there any fair way to combine individual rankings into a collective ranking?" }, { "id": "condorcet-paradox", "slug": "condorcet-paradox", "title": "The Condorcet Paradox", "category": "society-and-justice", "associated_thinkers": [ "Marquis de Condorcet" ], "original_publication": "Condorcet, Essay on the Application of Analysis to the Probability of Majority Decisions (1785)", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "majority rule", "cycles", "voting" ], "references": [ { "title": "Condorcet, Essai sur l'application de l'analyse à la probabilité des décisions rendues à la pluralité des voix (1785), digitized French text", "url": "https://archive.org/details/essaisurlapplica00cond", "kind": "primary", "support": "Primary French text; the Discours préliminaire passage on an election among three candidates and majority judgments was read in Archive.org OCR text. It supports historical attribution and Condorcet's treatment of preference propositions; the complete work was not read and the OCR may contain errors." }, { "title": "Christian List, “Social Choice Theory,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/social-choice/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Scholarly reference account; relevant passages in §§1.1, 3.1, and 3.3.1 were read for historical framing, pairwise majority cycles, model-dependent frequency, and the single-peaked domain result. Secondary analysis; the whole entry was not read." }, { "title": "Eric Pacuit, “Voting Methods,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2017 archive)", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2017/entries/voting-methods/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Scholarly reference account; §3.1 and §3.1.1 and the later likelihood discussion were read for the three-voter cycle, Condorcet consistency, alternative voting methods, impartial-culture assumptions, and disagreement about empirical evidence. Archived entry; selected passages only." }, { "title": "Michael Morreau, “Arrow’s Theorem,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/arrows-theorem/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Scholarly reference account; §1 was read for the paradox-of-voting example, the distinction between Condorcet's particular voting method and Arrow's broader axiomatic approach, and contrasting normative interpretations. Selected passage only." }, { "title": "Nicholas R. Miller, “Complexities of Majority Voting” (revised 2018)", "url": "https://userpages.umbc.edu/~nmiller/RESEARCH/MAJVOTING.REV2018.NRM.pdf", "kind": "academic", "support": "Scholarly research module; relevant PDF passages in §4.2 and §8.1 were read for cycle profiles and the conditional effect of agenda order in sequential pairwise voting. Selected PDF text extraction; the full document was not read." }, { "title": "Michel Regenwetter et al., “Behavioural social choice: a status report” (2009)", "url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2689718/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Peer-reviewed article; §2 was read for assumptions behind theoretical cycle-frequency estimates and the authors' argument that empirical support may be limited. This is one position in a debated literature, not a comprehensive prevalence estimate; selected section only." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "paradox", "related_experiments": [ "arrows-impossibility-theorem", "sens-liberal-paradox" ], "file_path": "experiments/society-and-justice/condorcet-paradox.md", "summary": "Can majority rule produce a collective preference that is circular, and what should a group do about it?" }, { "id": "sens-liberal-paradox", "slug": "sens-liberal-paradox", "title": "Sen’s Paradox of the Paretian Liberal", "category": "society-and-justice", "associated_thinkers": [ "Amartya Sen" ], "original_publication": "Sen, “The Impossibility of a Paretian Liberal” (Journal of Political Economy, 1970)", "difficulty": "Advanced", "themes": [ "liberty", "Pareto efficiency", "social choice" ], "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Social Choice Theory", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/social-choice/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Sen’s liberal paradox as an impossibility result about liberty and Pareto efficiency." }, { "title": "Amartya Sen, “The Impossibility of a Paretian Liberal” (1970)", "url": "https://www.csc2.ncsu.edu/faculty/mpsingh/local/Social/f24/wrap/readings/Amartya-Sen-Paretian-liberal-1970.pdf", "kind": "primary", "support": "Sen’s original statement of the theorem, preference example, conditions, proof, and qualifications." }, { "title": "Amartya Sen, “Rights: Formulation and Consequences” (1996)", "url": "https://www.analyse-und-kritik.net/Dateien/56c2e9ba64bf9_ak_sen_1996.pdf", "kind": "primary", "support": "Sen’s later discussion of game-form rights and the continued relevance of outcomes." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "paradox", "related_experiments": [ "condorcet-paradox", "arrows-impossibility-theorem" ], "file_path": "experiments/society-and-justice/sens-liberal-paradox.md", "summary": "Can a society respect both a minimal right to personal liberty and the principle that it should adopt what everyone prefers?" }, { "id": "blockhead", "slug": "blockhead", "title": "Blockhead", "category": "artificial-intelligence", "associated_thinkers": [ "Ned Block" ], "original_publication": "Block, “Psychologism and Behaviorism” (Philosophical Review, 1981)", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "behaviourism", "Turing test", "intelligence" ], "references": [ { "title": "Ned Block, “Psychologism and Behaviorism” (1981)", "url": "https://doi.org/10.2307/2184371", "kind": "academic", "support": "Block’s original argument, including the lookup machine, objections, and replies." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: The Turing Test", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/turing-test/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Blockhead and the debate about behavioral tests." }, { "title": "Arthur C. Schwaninger, “The Philosophising Machine – a Specification of the Turing Test” (2022)", "url": "https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-022-00480-5", "kind": "academic", "support": "A later interpretation of the Turing test and Blockhead; a named position, not consensus." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "thought experiment", "related_experiments": [ "turing-test", "chinese-room", "china-brain" ], "file_path": "experiments/artificial-intelligence/blockhead.md", "summary": "If a system’s behaviour is indistinguishable from an intelligent being’s, is that enough to say it is intelligent?" }, { "id": "frame-problem", "slug": "frame-problem", "title": "The Frame Problem", "category": "artificial-intelligence", "associated_thinkers": [ "John McCarthy", "Patrick Hayes" ], "original_publication": "McCarthy and Hayes, “Some Philosophical Problems from the Standpoint of Artificial Intelligence” (1969)", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "common sense", "relevance", "representation" ], "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: The Frame Problem", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/frame-problem/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Technical, computational, and epistemological formulations and the debate over responses." }, { "title": "John McCarthy and Patrick Hayes, “Some Philosophical Problems from the Standpoint of Artificial Intelligence” (1969)", "url": "https://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/mcchay69.pdf", "kind": "academic", "support": "The original formal problem, including the n-actions/m-fluents discussion in §4.3." }, { "title": "Robert Kowalski and Marek Sergot, “A Logic-based Calculus of Events”", "url": "https://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~rak/papers/event%20calculus.pdf", "kind": "academic", "support": "An event calculus for representing events, time, and persistence." }, { "title": "Daniel Dennett, “Cognitive Wheels: The Frame Problem of AI”", "url": "https://www.cs.sfu.ca/~vaughan/teaching/415/papers/dennett-cognitivewheels.html", "kind": "academic", "support": "Dennett’s fictional robot story and broader interpretation." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "puzzle", "related_experiments": [ "chinese-room", "blockhead" ], "file_path": "experiments/artificial-intelligence/frame-problem.md", "summary": "How can an agent with limited resources keep track of what is relevant to a change and ignore the rest?" }, { "id": "symbol-grounding", "slug": "symbol-grounding", "title": "The Symbol Grounding Problem", "category": "artificial-intelligence", "associated_thinkers": [ "Stevan Harnad" ], "original_publication": "Harnad, “The Symbol Grounding Problem” (Physica D, 1990)", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "meaning", "symbols", "perception" ], "references": [ { "title": "Stevan Harnad, “The Symbol Grounding Problem” (1990), arXiv-hosted full text", "url": "https://arxiv.org/html/cs/9906002", "kind": "academic", "support": "Harnad’s original problem, dictionary analogy, proposed hybrid account, and qualifications." }, { "title": "Publisher record for “The Symbol Grounding Problem”", "url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/0167-2789(90)90087-6", "kind": "academic", "support": "Journal publication metadata and abstract for Harnad’s 1990 article." }, { "title": "Mariarosaria Taddeo and Luciano Floridi, “Solving the Symbol Grounding Problem: A Critical Review of Fifteen Years of Research” (2005)", "url": "https://doi.org/10.1080/09528130500284053", "kind": "academic", "support": "One published critique, including its assessment of Harnad’s proposal; not a consensus claim." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "puzzle", "related_experiments": [ "chinese-room", "blockhead", "beetle-in-box" ], "file_path": "experiments/artificial-intelligence/symbol-grounding.md", "summary": "How can the symbols of a system have meaning that does not depend on someone interpreting them?" }, { "id": "orthogonality-thesis", "slug": "orthogonality-thesis", "title": "The Orthogonality Thesis", "category": "artificial-intelligence", "associated_thinkers": [ "Nick Bostrom" ], "original_publication": "Bostrom, “The Superintelligent Will: Motivation and Instrumental Rationality in Advanced Artificial Agents” (Minds and Machines 22(2), 2012, 71–85)", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "goals", "intelligence", "AI safety" ], "references": [ { "title": "Nick Bostrom, The Superintelligent Will: Motivation and Instrumental Rationality in Advanced Artificial Agents (author’s PDF)", "url": "https://nickbostrom.com/superintelligentwill.pdf", "kind": "academic", "support": "The original paper defines instrumental intelligence and the qualified orthogonality thesis, distinguishes instrumental convergence, and discusses moral facts and goal change." }, { "title": "Vincent C. Müller and Michael Cannon, Existential risk from AI and orthogonality: Can we have it both ways?", "url": "https://doi.org/10.1111/rati.12320", "kind": "academic", "support": "A peer-reviewed challenge to a common inference from orthogonality to existential risk; it preserves a qualified orthogonality thesis under an instrumental reading." }, { "title": "Nathaniel Sharadin, Promotionalism, orthogonality, and instrumental convergence", "url": "https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-024-02212-9", "kind": "academic", "support": "A peer-reviewed later argument that the probabilistic and fit-based accounts of goal promotion it examines do not establish dangerous instrumental convergence regardless of specific final goals." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "argument", "related_experiments": [ "paperclip-maximizer", "ai-box" ], "file_path": "experiments/artificial-intelligence/orthogonality-thesis.md", "summary": "Is there any necessary connection between how intelligent an agent is and what it ultimately wants?" }, { "id": "lucas-penrose-argument", "slug": "lucas-penrose-argument", "title": "The Lucas–Penrose Argument", "category": "artificial-intelligence", "associated_thinkers": [ "J. R. Lucas", "Roger Penrose" ], "original_publication": "Lucas, “Minds, Machines and Gödel” (Philosophy, 1961); Penrose, The Emperor’s New Mind (1989)", "difficulty": "Advanced", "themes": [ "Gödel", "mechanism", "mathematical insight" ], "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/goedel-incompleteness/", "kind": "academic", "support": "The theorem’s hypotheses and the Lucas–Penrose debate, including named objections and replies." }, { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: The Computational Theory of Mind", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/computational-mind/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Context on the argument and objections to computationalism." }, { "title": "J. R. Lucas, “Minds, Machines and Gödel” (1961)", "url": "https://philomatica.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lucas1961.pdf", "kind": "academic", "support": "Lucas’s original argument and replies; relevant passages in the full article text." }, { "title": "Solomon Feferman, “Penrose’s Gödelian Argument”", "url": "https://math.stanford.edu/~feferman/papers/penrose.pdf", "kind": "academic", "support": "A detailed critique of Penrose’s reasoning." }, { "title": "David J. Chalmers, “Minds, Machines, and Mathematics” (1995)", "url": "https://calculemus.org/MathUniversalis/NS/10/03chalmers.html", "kind": "academic", "support": "A review discussing the argument and its assumptions." }, { "title": "Roger Penrose, Shadows of the Mind (1994)", "url": "https://altexploit.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/roger-penrose-shadows-of-the-mind_-a-search-for-the-missing-science-of-consciousness-oxford-university-press-1994.pdf", "kind": "academic", "support": "Selected primary passages on Penrose’s non-computability and proposed physics extension." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "argument", "related_experiments": [ "chinese-room", "russells-paradox", "liar" ], "file_path": "experiments/artificial-intelligence/lucas-penrose-argument.md", "summary": "Does Gödel’s theorem show that human mathematical understanding cannot be captured by any formal system or computer program?" }, { "id": "paleys-watch", "slug": "paleys-watch", "title": "Paley’s Watch", "category": "science-and-biology", "associated_thinkers": [ "William Paley" ], "original_publication": "Paley, Natural Theology (1802)", "difficulty": "Beginner", "themes": [ "design", "adaptation", "explanation" ], "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Teleological Arguments for God’s Existence", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/teleological-arguments/", "kind": "academic", "support": "Argument classifications, Paley’s reasoning, and objections." }, { "title": "William Paley, Natural Theology (1802), digitized text", "url": "https://archive.org/stream/naturaltheologyo1802pale/naturaltheologyo1802pale_djvu.txt", "kind": "academic", "support": "The watch argument, reproducing watch, and application to living things." }, { "title": "David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779), Part VII", "url": "https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/ecco/004895521.0001.000/1:2.8?rgn=div2;view=fulltext", "kind": "academic", "support": "Philo’s earlier challenge to design reasoning and the world–machine comparison." }, { "title": "Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species (1859), Chapter IV", "url": "https://archive.org/stream/darwin-online_1859_Origin_F373/1859_Origin_F373_djvu.txt", "kind": "academic", "support": "Darwin’s account of natural selection as an explanation of adaptation." }, { "title": "Darwin Correspondence Project, “Darwin and Design”", "url": "https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/commentary/religion/darwin-and-design", "kind": "academic", "support": "Historical context and varied responses to Darwin’s account of design." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "analogy", "related_experiments": [ "darwins-eye", "spandrels-of-san-marco" ], "file_path": "experiments/science-and-biology/paleys-watch.md", "summary": "Does the appearance of design in living things support the conclusion that they were designed?" }, { "id": "leslies-firing-squad", "slug": "leslies-firing-squad", "title": "Leslie’s Firing Squad", "category": "science-and-biology", "associated_thinkers": [ "John Leslie" ], "original_publication": "Associated with Leslie’s work on fine-tuning, including Universes (the Stanford Encyclopedia and a university library catalogue cite 1989; the exact first-publication date is not independently established here)", "difficulty": "Intermediate", "themes": [ "fine-tuning", "observation selection", "explanation" ], "references": [ { "title": "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Fine-Tuning", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fine-tuning/", "kind": "academic", "support": "The firing squad analogy in the debate over whether cosmic fine-tuning needs explanation." }, { "title": "Roger White, “Fine-Tuning and Multiple Universes”", "url": "https://web.mit.edu/rog/www/papers/fine_tuning.pdf", "kind": "academic", "support": "A counterargument about observation selection, multiple universes, and the firing-squad analogy." }, { "title": "Jonathan Weisberg, “Firing Squads and Fine-Tuning: Sober on the Design Argument”", "url": "https://jonathanweisberg.org/pdf/SobervBJPS3.SP.pdf", "kind": "academic", "support": "A published reply concerning the analogy and survivor-selected evidence." }, { "title": "Elliott Sober, “The Design Argument”", "url": "https://anthropic-principle.com/preprints/sober2.pdf", "kind": "academic", "support": "A chapter manuscript discussing Leslie’s analogy and observation-selection reasoning." } ], "date_verified": "2026-11-01", "kind": "analogy", "related_experiments": [ "paleys-watch", "sleeping-beauty" ], "file_path": "experiments/science-and-biology/leslies-firing-squad.md", "summary": "When our existence depends on a rare condition, does the fact that we could only observe it in that case remove the need for an explanation?" } ]