Thought Experiments

12:19 AM

I am reading this article called "7 thought experiments that will make you question everything" by Big Think. Other than Thompson's Violinist and Buridan's Ass, I have read about or even devised the same exact thought experiments myself.

Mary's Room is a pretty basic thought experiment, I actually came up with a variation of it way back as a kid, even without reading about it. Basically Mary's Room is entirely black and white, she lives in a black and white world and has never seen any color. All her books and screens are all in black and white only, and again she has never seen any color in her entire life. She spends all her time reading books and websites and posts about people describing colors and what they are, so she has basically all possible knowledge on what these colors are, without ever experiencing them. One day her computer glitches and shows her the color red, does she now have new knowledge she never had before?

I think the obvious answer is yes. The "original author" of this "thought experiment" (it's a really basic one that even a kid could come up with), changed his mind and now says no, which makes no sense. Anyway I have seen the word qualia written again here for one of the few times in my life, and described too. Qualia is basically self-experience or anecdote, an experience has value and counts as knowledge, even if it can't be shared or expressed to others.

My alternates that I thought about as a kid regarding qualia and this kind of thought experiment, was about colors too. Do we all see the same colors? We can't ever know. My gray might be different from someone else's gray, they might even see it as "pink" from my perspective, but to them it's gray. But they see it in all places where gray would be, so when we talk about gray it's like we are talking about the same color, even if our qualia are completely different.

Another idea was taste and fruits. If someone has never tasted lychee, ube, or taro, it's impossible to describe these flavors as they are different from every other flavor. It's like someone who has never tasted a strawberry, which is a very common flavor, or a banana, or a mango. You wouldn't be able to describe these flavors to them. That person needs qualia to experience them. Also lychee, ube, and taro are such good flavors, again all completely unique and as different as mango is from strawberry.

Also animal flesh itself pretty much has no flavor. Meanwhile plant foods all have unique flavors. It's mainly vegan seasonings and ingredients that add flavor to meals, and all meals can be recreated without harming any animals. In blind taste tests, people will not even be able to identify which meal has animal torture and cruelty and which meal doesn't (aka vegan). There is a restaurant I know where you point at to choose meals behind a counter similar to Chipotle, that uses a meat substitute instead of cow flesh. They did say it was vegan when I asked, but I don't think anything had any labels and you just point and choose. It's always sold out, everyone just eats it probably thinking it's made from a massacred cow, when it involves no animal cruelty at all.

That brings us to a vegan thought experiment, I first read about this variation probably in 2017. There is a hypothetical non-vegans would somehow ask vegans thinking it's a clever question, "what would you do if you were stranded on an island and there was nothing to eat except a pig?" If the pig is from this stranded island to begin with, and they survived all this time, then there's edible plants on the island. Of course if it's a last resort and they are hostile, I will kill even a human for my own survival. If no one is attacking the other and we have the rest of our lives here, I'd rather the pig and I just be friends, then whoever dies first gets to eat the other if they want to, I probably wouldn't eat the pig anyway.

Now for the vegan thought experiment. Suppose you are a human against animal torture and cruelty. Some vegans including myself have already done public activism this way, and 100% of people all say they are against animal torture and cruelty. "What if you lived in a world where you didn't have to pay people to torture and kill animals for you, where you didn't have to buy or eat any animal body parts or secretions. You can make all the same taste and flavor, be perfectly healthy (or even healthier), and even have 90%+ less land, water, and carbon footprint. This is actually the current reality we live in. As a logical person against animal torture and cruelty, would you continue to pay people to torture and kill animals for you?

Try one meal without animal cruelty. Then go for a day. Go for even longer. How long can you go without contributing to animal massacre?"

Send this to people and see what responses you get. I think this is a great thought experiment.