Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
John D. Norton, a well-known philosopher of science, has noted that "a good thought experiment is a good argument; a bad thought experiment is a bad argument." [ 3 ] When effectively used, the irrelevant particulars that convert a straightforward argument into a thought experiment can act as "intuition pumps" that stimulate readers' ability to ...
The English term thought experiment was coined as a calque of Gedankenexperiment, and it first appeared in the 1897 English translation of one of Mach's papers. [11] Prior to its emergence, the activity of posing hypothetical questions that employed subjunctive reasoning had existed for a very long time for both scientists and philosophers.
Kavka's toxin puzzle is a thought experiment about the possibility of forming an intention to perform an act which, following from reason, is an action one would not actually perform. It was presented by moral and political philosopher Gregory S. Kavka in "The Toxin Puzzle" (1983), and grew out of his work in deterrence theory and mutual ...
This page was last edited on 22 October 2024, at 00:47 (UTC).; Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License; additional terms may apply.
The thought experiment involves a pair of particles prepared in what would later become known as an entangled state. Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen pointed out that, in this state, if the position of the first particle were measured, the result of measuring the position of the second particle could be predicted.
In philosophy and mathematics, Newcomb's paradox, also known as Newcomb's problem, is a thought experiment involving a game between two players, one of whom is able to predict the future. Newcomb's paradox was created by William Newcomb of the University of California 's Lawrence Livermore Laboratory .
The countdown to Christmas is on, but the threat of delayed packages could dampen the holiday spirit. Winter storms, out-of-stock items, ground shipping risks and a host of other issues could ...
In philosophy, Pascal's mugging is a thought experiment demonstrating a problem in expected utility maximization. A rational agent should choose actions whose outcomes, when weighted by their probability, have higher utility. But some very unlikely outcomes may have very great utilities, and these utilities can grow faster than the probability ...