What is the dilemma of switching a track to save five people instead of one called?
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Trolley problem
It probes whether one may actively cause one death.
💡 Did you know? It is a classic of ethics.
All questions with answers
Which thought experiment features an animal in a box that is both dead and alive?
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Schrödinger's cat
It illustrates the oddities of quantum physics.
💡 Did you know? Only looking fixes the state.
Which experiment asks whether we might be merely an organ in fluid fed a simulated world?
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Brain in a vat
It asks: can we trust reality?
💡 Did you know? The film “The Matrix” takes up the idea.
Which experiment by John Searle asks whether following rules already amounts to understanding a language?
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Chinese room
John Searle doubts machines truly “understand”.
💡 Did you know? It is central to the AI debate.
What is Rawls's idea of choosing just rules without knowing your own future place called?
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Veil of ignorance
It forces impartial decisions.
💡 Did you know? You don't know if you'll be rich or poor.
Which image of Plato shows prisoners taking shadows on a wall for reality?
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Allegory of the cave
It stands for the path from illusion to insight.
💡 Did you know? The freed one sees the true world outside.
What is the question whether a vessel with all planks replaced is still the same called?
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Ship of Theseus
It asks about identity over time.
💡 Did you know? It applies to us too: our cells keep renewing.
What is the donkey that starves between two equal hay piles, unable to choose, called?
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Buridan's ass
It illustrates the problem of free will.
💡 Did you know? With perfect equality there'd be no reason to choose.
What is Nozick's device offering a perfect but only simulated happy life called?
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Experience machine
It asks: does only the feeling count, or reality too?
💡 Did you know? Most people would decline it.
What is the paradox where a travelling sibling ages slower than the one who stayed called?
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Twin paradox
It follows from Einstein's relativity.
💡 Did you know? Near light speed, time passes more slowly.
What is the ancient paradox in which swift Achilles never catches the tortoise called?
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Zeno's paradox
It seems to make all motion impossible.
💡 Did you know? Only the maths of limits resolves it.
What is Frank Jackson's experiment about a colour scientist who has only seen black and white called?
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Mary's room
Does she learn something new on first seeing red?
💡 Did you know? It concerns conscious experience (qualia).
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