Thought experiments, paradoxes and boundaries of logic // We are doomed # 2

Imagine that there is a scientist who constantly makes important discoveries. Vaccines, space engines, a cure for cancer, maybe even a pill for immortality. But there is a problem - he is a fucking maniac. Once a year, kills a random person in the most terrible way.

If you put a scientist in a cage, there will be no more discoveries. If left free, the most brutal crimes will continue.

What to do with him?

Another variation of the trolley theorem, only in the new scenery. A thought experiment about whether you are ready to go for lesser evil for the greater good.

A couple of years ago we argued with a friend about snot on the walls and came to the conclusion that choosing the lesser evil is the most useless and even hypocritical decision. So you chose to kill one person instead of, for example, five - supposedly making a contribution to the preservation of abstract humanity. The poor man moved alone in a trolley, and you said - but I saved five people, and this is better than one.

You consider this method correct and encourage everyone else to do the same. People listen to you, apply your method for a year, two, ten, one hundred, one thousand. Provided that the universe is infinite, and your knowledge will be preserved for new civilizations even if humanity dies from some kind of meteoritovirus, a loner will die infinity instead of five times.

Is there any difference between one times infinity and five times infinity?

Then we nevertheless agreed - it might be right to save five and kill one, just do not need to explain this with abstract logic. Frankly, it was an emotional choice, not a logical one. Stupid logic always rests on paradoxes with infinity and stops working.

If on one path lay a person close to you, and on the other five strangers? What if the learned maniac were your neighbor?

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On the one hand, I understand why some consider thought experiments a waste of the brain. On the other hand, I am convinced that this is one of the best activities that the brain can afford.

When everyone locked themselves in their homes, people seemed to be afraid of degradation and dullness, and it began. Here are lectures, there are lessons, there are performances, there are webinars, there are courses, here are marathons. The people behave like poor children, whose rabid parents enrolled in 25 circles, where they must spend at least an hour a day. People rushed to absorb everything like mad in order to manage to become better, while there is an opportunity.

My opinion may be unpopular under such conditions, but I think there is nothing better than filling the vacated hours with absolute complete idleness. Idleness - this does not mean - stupid in memechiki, series and video games.

It means to lie down, look at the ceiling and let the brain finally think about something on its own.

When he is completely fed up or becomes bored - toss him a puzzle. Solve the equation, multiply large numbers without a calculator, and finally beat up on thought experiments. Think of a situation that God forbid to ever get into reality, the worst of all, and think carefully about what to do.

This will be the best exercise to keep your life in your mind. It seems to me that this is generally the only natural activity for the brain, which is not busy with anything - to try to frighten oneself to hell, so that it would not be scary when the time comes to get really scared. The main thing is to stay within the framework of the experiment, and not go then to scare the rest with the fact that we will all die.

But my favorite pastime since childhood is to invent stories in my head, for months, or even years, but never write them down. Learning to keep in mind a sea of ​​context and details, return to the imagined, rewrite something. And when the story ends - just throw it away forever. The free time that is occupied by this, I will never exchange for new streams of information and new people.

We are withfillpackart they tried to roughly show how this works for us, they broke their minds about thought experiments, moral dilemmas and paradoxes - all known and made up by us.