Thought Experiments Website
Hullo,
I’m hoping for your feedback. I recently finished a sort of beta of a website that allows users to explore and vote on thought experiments:
https://thought-experiment-explorer.vercel.app/
The spirit behind it is somewhat similar to LessWrong’s: I think people should examine their lives and reasoning more. I also love gamification and broadening the appeal of academic things.
It has a small batch of some very famous ones, but as I improve the site, I’ll add a lot more, as well a page that lets you search and filter by type (such as “utilitarian” or “non-Western”). The About page notes some other plans.
I hope you like the idea and general design so far, but I’d love to hear critiques and suggestions.
Thanks much!
Kat
I miss the answer option: “Mu, the question doesn’t make sense, is ambiguous, or otherwise not answerable with Yes/No.” Preferably with a field to explain why.
Thanks! Every experiment I add needs to be somehow coerced into a yes/no question, because that’s the way the site achieves interactivity without complexity. It’s very pop compared to LessWrong’s forum format.
But I definitely want to fix it if you think a question needs to be rephrased. On the site, that communication can be achieved via the Contact section, but maybe in light of this I will add a feedback icon directly to the navbar that opens a simple text submission modal.
Can you tell me which one(s) you wanted to change and how? A friend has already suggested I remove the “or even irrationality” part from Buridan’s Ass.
OK. If you want to keep it as simple as possible, you can leave out the “Mu” button, but I suggest that you then a) randomize the experiments and b) count the relative fraction of unanswered experiments (compared to people who have answered at least one). That way, you can see which questions more people refuse to answer.
For example, I have gone through all questions now, but refused to answer Drowning Child (“similar” needs to be more specific), Mary’s Room (uncertainty if an adult brain can still learn to interpret the new sensations), and Blind Men and Elephant (“our” is ambiguous: all, any, or average).
On the questions I answered, I had the biggest difference for Deceiving Demon. I answered “No” because if everything (!) is created by the demon, and there is no observable difference to explanations based on physical models (physical not because it refers to physical reality, but because of the type of model), then “Deceiving Demon” is just a fancy name for the same thing—physics.
Counting unanswered ones is a great idea, thanks. Same friend said I should use “equivalent” for Drowning Child, and I agree about Blind Men.
Deceiving Demon is actually the train of thought that led Descartes to, “I think, therefore I am.” (It’s my favorite.)
”But there is I know not what sort of Deceivour very powerful and very crafty, who always strives to deceive Me; without Doubt therefore I am, if he can decieve me; And let him Deceive me as much as he can, yet he can never make me not to Be, whilst I think that I am. Wherefore I may lay this down as a Principle, that whenever this sentence I am, I exist, is spoken or thought of by Me, ’tis necessarily True.”
Strictly, it only proves that something exists. I could be just a thought of the demon. Though, granted again, a simulation also exists in some meaningful sense. Which gas raised the moral concern for mental constructions and simulations.
This underscores the need for me to add some further thought/guidance/context about these post-answer. :D
i only spent a few minutes browsing, but i thought this was surprisingly well-made!
There is also this (incredibly well known?) website where (among other things) you can try to stay alive on a trip to Mars.
edit: And there is also No Vehicles in the Park.
Thanks, I’ll add these to the More page!
I like the idea, for a future iteration you can add a comment section where users can share their idea about each experiment
I understand the interest, but I will probably never add this, cuz it would disrupt the cleanliness and simplicity of the site, come with a host of issues like moderation, and change the nature of it into something more like Reddit or LessWrong.