…after you died, you would be transported back and forth in time and get to be each of the other people who ever lived, one at a time, but with no recollection of your other lives?
…you had lived your entire life once already, and got to the end and achieved disappointingly few of your goals, and had now been given the chance to go back and try one more time?
…you were invisible and nobody would ever notice you? What if you were invisible and couldn’t even affect the world, except that you had complete control over a single human?
…you were the only person in the world, and you were responsible for the whole future, but luckily you had found a whole lot of useful robots which could expand your power, via for instance independently founding and running organizations for years without your supervision?
…you would only live for a second, before having your body taken over by someone else?
…there was a perfectly reasonable and good hypothetical being who knew about and judged all of your actions, hypothetically?
…everyone around you was naked under their clothes?
…in the future, many things that people around you asserted confidently would turn out to be false?
…the next year would automatically be composed of approximate copies of today?
…eternity would be composed of infinitely many exact copies of your life?
***
(Sometimes I or other people reframe the world for some philosophical or psychological purpose. These are the ones I can currently remember off the top of my head. Several are not original to me. I’m curious to hear others.)
Realistic thought experiments
Link post
What if…
…after you died, you would be transported back and forth in time and get to be each of the other people who ever lived, one at a time, but with no recollection of your other lives?
…you had lived your entire life once already, and got to the end and achieved disappointingly few of your goals, and had now been given the chance to go back and try one more time?
…you were invisible and nobody would ever notice you? What if you were invisible and couldn’t even affect the world, except that you had complete control over a single human?
…you were the only person in the world, and you were responsible for the whole future, but luckily you had found a whole lot of useful robots which could expand your power, via for instance independently founding and running organizations for years without your supervision?
…you would only live for a second, before having your body taken over by someone else?
…there was a perfectly reasonable and good hypothetical being who knew about and judged all of your actions, hypothetically?
…everyone around you was naked under their clothes?
…in the future, many things that people around you asserted confidently would turn out to be false?
…the next year would automatically be composed of approximate copies of today?
…eternity would be composed of infinitely many exact copies of your life?
***
(Sometimes I or other people reframe the world for some philosophical or psychological purpose. These are the ones I can currently remember off the top of my head. Several are not original to me. I’m curious to hear others.)