ANSWERS TO THE LONG VISUAL

CONNECT FOLLOW THE

QUESTION SLIDES
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Set 5
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Fin
ANSWERS
THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS
 1
Davidson’s Swamp man (identity) –
Suppose Davidson goes hiking in the swamp and is
struck and killed by a lightning bolt. At the same
time, nearby in the swamp another lightning bolt
spontaneously rearranges a bunch of molecules such
that, entirely by coincidence, they take on exactly the
same form that Davidson's body had at the moment of
his untimely death.

This being, whom Davidson terms 'Swampman', has,

of course, a brain which is structurally identical to
that which Davidson had, and will thus, presumably,
behave exactly as Davidson would have. He will
walk out of the swamp, return to Davidson's office at
Berkeley, and write the same essays he would have
written; he will interact like an amicable person with
all of Davidson's friends and family, and so forth.
2
What Mary didn’t know
(mind) –
Imagine a scientist who
knows everything there is to
know about the science of
color, but has never
experienced color. The
interesting question is: Once
she experiences color, does
she learn anything new?
 3

The plank of Cerneades (self defense)–

there are two shipwrecked sailors, 1 and 2. They both see a
plank that can only support one of them and both of them
swim towards it. 1 gets to the plank first. 2 is going to drown
so 2 pushes 1 away from the plank and, thus, ultimately, leads
to 1 drowning. 2 gets on the plank and is later saved by a
rescue team. 2 cannot be tried for murder because if 2 had to
kill 1 in order to live, then it would be in self-defense.
 4

The Violinist (ethics) –

(1) Alfred hates his wife and wants her dead. He puts cleaning fluid in her
coffee, thereby killing her.
and that
(2) Bert hates his wife and wants her dead. He puts cleaning fluid in her
coffee (being muddled, thinking it’s cream). Bert happens to have the
antidote to cleaning fluid, but he does not give it to her; he lets her die.
 5

The trolley problem (ethics) –

A trolley is running out of control down a track. In its path are 5
people who have been tied to the track by a mad philosopher.
Fortunately, you can flip a switch which will lead the trolley down
a different track to safety. Unfortunately, there is a single person
tied to that track. Should you flip the switch?
 6

The ladder paradox (special relativity) –

Suppose we have a ladder that is longer than the length of the garage, but it
is traveling at a fast enough speed that, from the frame of reference of the
garage, its length is contracted to less than the length of the garage. Then
from the frame of reference of the garage, there is a moment in time when
the ladder can fit completely inside the garage, and during that moment one
can close and open both front and back doors of the garage, without
affecting the ladder.
 7

The ship of Theseus (identity) –

whether the ship would remain the same if it were entirely
replaced, piece by piece.
 8
God’s Debris (religion) –
an omnipotent God annihilated himself in
the Big Bang, because an omniscient God
would already know everything possible
except his own lack of existence, and exists
now as the smallest units of matter and the
law of probability, or "God's debris"
 9

Gabriel’s horn (infinity) –

Infinite surface area but finite volume
 10

Twin Earth experiment (meaning and reference) –

when an earthling, say Oscar, and his twin on Twin Earth say
'water' do they mean the same thing?
 11

Maxwell’s Demon (thermodynamics) –

imagines two containers, A and B. The containers are filled with the same gas at equal
temperatures and placed next to each other. Observing the molecules on both sides, a
little "demon" guards a trapdoor between the two containers. When a faster-than-
average molecule from A flies towards the trapdoor, the demon opens it, and the
molecule will fly from A to B. The average speed of the molecules in B will have
increased while in A they will have slowed down on average. Since average
molecular speed corresponds to temperature, the temperature decreases in A and
increases in B, contrary to the second law of thermodynamics.
 12

Brownian Ratchet aka Feynman’s perpetual motion machine

(thermodynamics) –
It is impossible for any device that operates on a cycle to receive
heat from a single reservoir and produce a net amount of work.
 13

Brain in a vat (knowledge) –

Since you cannot know whether you are a brain in a vat, then you
cannot know whether most of your beliefs might be completely
false. Since, in principle, it is impossible to rule out your being a
brain in a vat, you cannot have good grounds for believing any of
the things you believe; you certainly cannot know them.
 14

The twin paradox (special relativity) –

a person who makes a journey into space in a high-speed
rocket will return home to find he or she has aged less than
an identical twin who stayed on Earth.
 15

Galileo’s leaning tower of Pisa (rebuttal of Aristotlean gravity) –

Drop two objects of different mass from the top of the Leaning
Tower of Pisa. Objects of different masses will fall at the same
speed
 16

Zeno’s paradox (infinity) –

In a race, the quickest runner can never overtake the slowest,
since the pursuer must first reach the point whence the pursued
started, so that the slower must always hold a lead.
 17

Newton’s Cannonball (dynamics) –

If there were no force of gravitation the cannonball should follow a straight
line away from Earth.
So long as there is a gravitational force acting on the cannon ball, it will
follow different paths depending on its initial velocity.
 19

Infinite monkey theorem (probability, infinity)

 20

Schrodinger’s Cat (quantum mechanics)