{"id":10214,"date":"2022-02-11T02:33:35","date_gmt":"2022-02-11T02:33:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/TheNextWeb=1380176"},"modified":"2022-02-11T02:33:35","modified_gmt":"2022-02-11T02:33:35","slug":"the-worst-thought-experiments-imaginable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/?p=10214","title":{"rendered":"The worst thought experiments imaginable"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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While the rest of us are doing good, honest work like podcasting and influencer-ing<\/em>, there\u2019s a group of \u201cthinkers\u201d out there conducting horrific experiments. They\u2019re conjuring pedantic monsters, murdering innumerable cats, and putting humans inside of computers.<\/p>\n

Sure, these \u201cthought experiments\u201d are all in their heads. But that\u2019s how it starts. First you don\u2019t know whether the cat\u2019s dead or alive and then a demon opens the box and we\u2019re all in the Matrix.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, there are only two ways to fight science and philosophy:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. With more science and philosophy<\/li>\n
  2. With criticism<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Thus, we\u2019ll arm ourselves with the collective knowledge of those who\u2019ve gone before us (ahem, Google Scholar) and critique so snarky it could tank a Netflix Original. And we\u2019ll decide once-and-for-all whose big, bright ideas are the worst.<\/p>\n

    The worst scientific thought experiment of all time<\/h2>\n

    What if I told you there was a box that gave away a free lunch every time it was opened?<\/span> Some of you are reading this and thinking \u201cis Neural suggesting we eat dead cats?\u201d<\/i> <\/span><\/p>\n

    No. I\u2019m talking about a different box from a different thought experiment. Erwin Schrodinger\u2019s cat<\/a> actually came along some 68 years after James Clerk Maxwell\u2019s Demon<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

    In Maxwell\u2019s Demon, we have a box with a gate in the middle separating its contents (a bunch of particles) into two sides. Outside the box, there\u2019s what Maxwell calls a <\/span>finite being<\/i> (who other scientists later inexplicably decided was a demon) who acts as the gatekeeper.<\/span><\/p>\n

    So this \u201cdemon being\u201d controls which particles go from one side of the box to the other. And, because particle behavior varies at different temperatures, this means the demon\u2019s able to exploit physics to harness energy from the universe\u2019s tendency towards entropy<\/p>\n

    This particular thought experiment is awful. As in: it\u2019s awfully good at being awesome!<\/em> <\/span><\/p>\n

    Maxwell\u2019s Demon has managed to stand the test of time and, a century-and-a-half later, it\u2019s at the heart of the quantum computing industry<\/a>. It might be the best scientific thought experiment ever.<\/span><\/p>\n

    The <\/span>worst<\/i> is actually Szilard\u2019s Engine<\/a>. But you have to go through Maxwell\u2019s Demon to get there. Because in Szilard\u2019s box, rather than Maxwell\u2019s Demon exploiting the tendencies of the universe, the universe exploits Maxwell\u2019s Demon. <\/span><\/p>\n

    Szilard\u2019s work imagines a single-molecule engine inside of the box that results in a system where entropy works differently than it does in Maxwell\u2019s experiment. <\/span><\/p>\n

    This difference in opinion over the efficacy of entropy caused a kerfuffle.
    <\/span><\/p>\n

    It all started when scientists came up with the second law of thermodynamics which basically just says that if you drop an ice cube in a pot of boiling water, it won\u2019t make the water hotter.<\/p>\n

    Well, Maxwell\u2019s Demon essentially says \u201csure, but what if we\u2019re talking about really tiny things experiencing somewhat quantum<\/a> interactions?\u201d This made a lot of sense and has led to numerous breakthroughs in the field of quantum physics.<\/p>\n

    But then Szilard comes along and says \u201cOh yeah, what if the system only had one molecule and, like, the demon was really bored?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

    Those probably aren\u2019t their exact words. I\u2019m, admittedly, guessing.<\/span> The point is that Szilard\u2019s Engine was tough to swallow back when he wrote it in 1929 and it\u2019s only garnered more scrutiny since.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Don\u2019t just take my word for it. It\u2019s so awful that John D. Norton, a scientist from the department of history and philosophy of science at the University of Pittsburgh, once wrote an entire research paper<\/a> describing it as \u201cthe worst thought experiment.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

    In their criticism, Norton wrote:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n

    In its capacity to engender mischief and confusion, Szilard\u2019s thought experiment is unmatched. It is the worst thought experiment I know in science. Let me count the ways it has misled us.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    That\u2019s borderline hate-poetry and I love it. The only criticism I have to add is that it\u2019s preposterous Szilard didn\u2019t reimagine the whole thing as \u201cSzilard\u2019s Lizard.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

    The missed opportunity alone gets it our stamp for \u201cworst scientific thought experiment.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

    The worst philosophical thought experiment of all time <\/span><\/h2>\n

    Honestly, I\u2019d say Ren\u00e9 Descartes\u2019s \u201c<\/span>cogito, ergo sum<\/a>\u201d<\/i> is the worst thought experiment of all time. But there\u2019s not much to discuss. <\/span><\/p>\n

    You ever meet someone who, if they started a sentence with \u201cI think,\u201d you\u2019d want to interrupt them to disagree? Imagine that, but at the multiverse level. <\/span><\/p>\n

    Accepting Descartes\u2019s premise requires two leaps of faith in just three words and I\u2019m not prepared to give anyone that much credit.<\/span><\/p>\n

    But, admittedly, that\u2019s low hanging fruit. So let\u2019s throw another twist in this article and discuss <\/span>my favorite paper of all time<\/i><\/a> because it\u2019s also the worst philosophical thought experiment ever<\/em>. <\/span><\/p>\n

    Nick Bostrom\u2019s \u201cSimulation Argument\u201d lies at the intersection of lazy physics and brilliant philosophy. It\u2019s like the Han Solo of thought experiments: you love it because<\/em> it\u2019s so simple, not in spite of it.<\/span><\/p>\n

    It goes like this: Uh, what if, like, we live inside a computer?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

    For the sake of fairness, this is how Bostrom puts it:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n

    This paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a \u201cposthuman\u201d stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    Think about it for a second. <\/span><\/p>\n

    Done? Good. It doesn\u2019t go any deeper. It really is just, what if all of this is just a dream? <\/em>But instead of a dream, we\u2019re digital entities in a computer simulation.<\/span><\/p>\n

    It\u2019s uh, kinda dumb right?<\/span><\/p>\n

    But that doesn\u2019t mean Bostrom\u2019s paper isn\u2019t important. I think it\u2019s the most influential thought experiment since Descartes\u2019s off-putting insistence upon his own existence (self involved much D?<\/em>)<\/span><\/p>\n

    Bostrom\u2019s a master philosopher because he understands that the core of explanation lies not in burdening a reader with unessential thought, but in stripping it away. He understands perfection as Antoine de Saint Exup\u00e9ry did when he declared it was attained \u201c<\/span>not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to remove.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

    Bostrom whittled Simulation Argument down with Occam\u2019s Razor until it became a paper capable of pre-empting your biggest \u201cyeah but, what about\u2026.\u201d queries before you could think them.<\/p>\n

    The actual worst thought experiment(s) of all time<\/span><\/h2>\n

    There\u2019s no official name for this one, so we\u2019ll just call it \u201cThat time the people building the A-bomb had to spend a few hours wondering if they were about to set the atmosphere on fire before deciding the math looked good and everything was going to be fine.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

    A close runner-up for this prize is \u201cThat time the Nazis\u2019 most famous quantum physicist was asked if it was possible that Germany\u2019s weapons could blow up the Earth by setting all the oceans aflame and he was all like: lol, maybe<\/em><\/a>.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

    If I can channel our pal John D. Norton from above: these thought experiments are the worst. Allow me to list the ways I hate them.<\/span><\/p>\n

    The Axis and Allies weren\u2019t far apart in their respective endeavors to create a weapon of mass destruction during World War II. <\/span><\/p>\n

    Of course we know how things played out: the Germans never got there and the US managed to avoid lighting the planet on fire when it dropped atomic bombs on the civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. <\/span><\/p>\n

    In reality, Albert Einstein and company on the Allies\u2019 side and Warner Heisenberg and his crew on the Axis\u2019 were never concerned with setting off a globally-catastrophic chain reaction by detonating an atomic bomb. Both sides had done the math and determined it wasn\u2019t really a problem.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Unfortunately, the reason we\u2019re aware of this is because both sides were also keen to talk to outsiders<\/a>. Heisenberg famously joked about it to a German politician and Arthur Compton, who\u2019d worked with Einstein and others on The Manhattan Project<\/a>, gave a now infamous interview wherein he made it seem like the possibility of such a tragic event was far greater than it actually was. <\/span><\/p>\n

    This is our selection for the absolute worst thought experiment(s) of all time because it\u2019s clear that both the Axis and the Allies were pretty far along in the process of actually building atomic bombs before anyone stopped and thought \u201chey guys, are we going to blow up the planet if we do this?\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

    That\u2019s Day One stuff right there. That\u2019s a question you should have to answer during orientation. You don\u2019t start building a literal atom bomb and <\/span>then<\/i> hold an all-hands meeting to dig into the whole <\/span>killing all life<\/i> thing. <\/span><\/p>\n

    We can do better<\/span><\/h2>\n

    Those are all great examples of terrible thought experiments. For scientists and philosophers anyway. But everyone knows the worst ideas<\/em><\/span> come from journalists.<\/p>\n

    I think I can come up with a terrible thought experiment that\u2019ll trump each of the above. All I have to do is reverse-engineer someone else\u2019s work and restate it with added nonsense (hey, it worked for Szilard right?). <\/span><\/p>\n

    So let\u2019s do this. The most important part of any thought experiment is its title. We need to combine the name of an important<\/em> scientist with a science-y creature if we want to be taken seriously like \u201cMaxwell\u201d and his \u201cDemon\u201d or \u201cSchrodinger\u201d and his \u201cCat.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

    And, while substance isn\u2019t really what we\u2019re going for here, we still need a real problem that remains unsolved, can be addressed with a vapid premise, and is accessible to intellects of any level.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Thus, without further ado, I present: \u201cOgre\u2019s Ogre,\u201d <\/em>a thought experiment that uses all the best ideas from the dumb ones mentioned above but contains none of their weaknesses (such as math and the scientific method). <\/span><\/p>\n

    Unlike those theories, Ogre\u2019s Ogre doesn\u2019t require you to understand or know anything. It\u2019s just quietly cajoling you into a natural state of curiosity.<\/p>\n

    In short, Ogre\u2019s Ogre isn\u2019t some overeager overachiever like those others. Where Maxwell\u2019s Demon demonizes particles by maximizing the tendency toward entropy, and Szilar\u2019s Engine engages in entropy in only isolated incidents, Ogre\u2019s Ogre egregiously accepts all eventualities. <\/span><\/p>\n

    It goes like this: \u201cWhat if C-A-T really spelled dog?<\/em>\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

    \n

    Still though, you don\u2019t have to be the head of Oxford\u2019s philosophy department to wonder if life is but a dream<\/a>.  <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n