Demon (thought experiment)

Last updated

In thought experiments, philosophers and scientists occasionally imagine entities with special abilities as a way to pose thought experiment or highlight apparent paradoxes.

Contents

The word "demon" here does not necessarily connote a demon, a malevolent being. For instance, when William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) came up with the Maxwell's demon to highlight the implications of James Clerk Maxwell statistical interpretation of thermodynamics, he used the term in analogy to daemons in Greek mythology, supernatural beings as unseen forces of nature. [1] [2] [3]

Notable examples

Similar entities

There are other creatures which feature in thought experiments about philosophy. One such creature is a utility monster, a creature which derives much more utility (such as enjoyment) from resources than other beings, and hence under a strict utilitarian system would have more or all of the available resources directed to it. Newcomb's paradox supposes a being who is believed to be capable of predicting human behavior; Robert Nozick suggested a "being from another planet, with an advanced technology and science, whom you know to be friendly". [10]

Philosophical zombies are similar to Searle's Demon, above. The thought experiment posits humans with no form of soul, consciousness, or intentionality, but which react exactly the way a "normal" human might. Outwardly, they are indistinguishable from "normal" humans.

Further reading

See also

References

  1. Thomson, William (9 April 1874). "Kinetic theory of the dissipation of energy". Nature . 9 (232): 441–444. Bibcode:1874Natur...9..441T. doi: 10.1038/009441c0 .
  2. "The sorting demon of Maxwell". Nature. 20 (501): 126. 1879. Bibcode:1879Natur..20Q.126.. doi: 10.1038/020126a0 .
  3. Weber, Alan S. (2000). Nineteenth Century Science: a Selection of Original Texts. Broadview Press. p. 300.
  4. Important Arguments from Descartes' Meditations Archived 2017-09-26 at the Wayback Machine by David Banach Archived 2017-09-13 at the Wayback Machine Department of Philosophy, St. Anselm College (retrieved 8-24-2007)
  5. Berger, Jorge (1990). "Szilard's demon revisited" . Int J Theor Phys. 29 (9): 985–995. Bibcode:1990IJTP...29..985B. doi:10.1007/BF00673684. S2CID   121519335 . Retrieved August 13, 2023.
  6. Charles H. Bennett (2003), "Notes on Landauer's principle, Reversible Computation and Maxwell's Demon" (PDF), Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 34 (3): 501–510, arXiv: physics/0210005 , Bibcode:2003SHPMP..34..501B, doi:10.1016/S1355-2198(03)00039-X, S2CID   9648186 , retrieved 2015-02-18.
  7. Savitt, Steven F. (1982). "Searle's demon and the brain simulator" . Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 5 (2). Department of Philosophy, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada: 342–343. doi:10.1017/S0140525X00012395. S2CID   143547619 . Retrieved August 13, 2023.
  8. Haugeland, John. (1980) "Artificial Intelligence". Behavioral and Brain Sciences. vol. 3. pp. 219–224.
  9. "The Demon of Bureaucratic Chaos". The New Atlantis. Retrieved 2021-07-05.
  10. Nozick, Robert (1969). "Newcomb's Problem and Two Principles of Choice". In Rescher, Nicholas (ed.). Essays in Honor of Carl G. Hempel (PDF). Springer. p. 114. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2018-11-23. Retrieved 2015-02-22.