Episode Details

David and Tamler do another tier ranking--this time on philosophical thought experiments, so as not to further alienate our chemistry-adjacent listeners. We hit most of the big ones: Pascal's wager, Pascal's mugging, Mary the color scientist, the Ring of Gyges, Jarvis Thomson's violinist, the experience machine, the utility monster, and a lot more. Can you guess our grade for the trolley dilemma?

• The Chinese Room (Searle) [wikipedia.org]
• Descartes' Evil Demon (Descartes) [wikipedia.org]
• The Experience Machine (Nozick) [wikipedia.org]
• Mary the Color Scientist (F. Jackson) [wikipedia.org]
• Pascal's Mugging (Yudkowsky/Bostrom) [wikipedia.org]
• Pascal's Wager (Pascal) [wikipedia.org]
• The Ring of Gyges (Plato) [wikipedia.org]
• The Shallow Pond (Singer) [wikipedia.org]
• The Ship of Theseus (Hobbes) [wikipedia.org]
• The Trolley Problem (Philippa Foot/J.J. Thomson) [wikipedia.org]
• The Utility Monster (Nozick) [wikipedia.org]
• The Veil of Ignorance (Rawls)  [wikipedia.org]
• The Violinist (J.J. Thomson) [wikipedia.org]