Philosophy and Ethics
1 The Trolley Problem — You can pull a lever to divert a runaway trolley, saving five people but killing one. Should you act? (Explores utilitarianism vs. deontological ethics.)
2 The Experience Machine (Robert Nozick) — If you could plug into a machine that gives you endless pleasure and perfect happiness but none of it is real, would you do it? (Questions hedonism and reality.)
3 The Ship of Theseus — If every plank of a ship is replaced over time, is it still the same ship? (Explores identity and persistence through change.)
4 The Brain in a Vat — What if your brain were in a vat, connected to a computer simulating reality — how could you know what’s real? (Challenges epistemology and realism.)
5 The Chinese Room (John Searle) — If a person inside a room follows rules to manipulate Chinese symbols perfectly, do they “understand” Chinese? (Questions whether computation equals consciousness.)
6 Mary’s Room (Frank Jackson) — Mary knows everything about colour but has never seen it. When she finally sees red, does she learn something new? (Explores qualia and the limits of physical knowledge.)
7 The Prisoner’s Dilemma — Two prisoners can betray each other or stay silent. Rational self-interest leads to worse outcomes than cooperation. (Highlights moral conflict and game theory.)
8 The Veil of Ignorance (John Rawls) — Imagine designing a fair society without knowing your position in it. (Examines justice, fairness, and moral reasoning.)
9 The Swampman (Donald Davidson) — A lightning bolt creates an exact copy of you from a swamp. Is it still you? (Questions meaning, identity, and consciousness.)
10 The Twin Earth (Hilary Putnam) — Imagine an identical Earth where water is not H₂O but a similar substance. Does “water” mean the same thing? (Explores semantics and externalism.)
Physics and Science
11 Schrödinger’s Cat — A cat in a box is simultaneously alive and dead until observed. (Illustrates quantum superposition and measurement paradoxes.)
12 Maxwell’s Demon — A tiny demon sorts molecules to decrease entropy, seemingly violating thermodynamics. (Challenges the second law of thermodynamics.)
13 Laplace’s Demon — If an intelligence knew all forces and positions, it could predict the entire future. (Explores determinism and free will.)
14 The Twin Paradox (Einstein) — One twin travels near light speed and returns younger than the twin who stayed on Earth. (Demonstrates time dilation in relativity.)
15 Boltzmann Brain — Could self-aware minds randomly form from chaos in the universe? (Raises questions about entropy and the likelihood of reality itself.)
Mind, Reality, and Existence
16 The Simulation Hypothesis (modern) — What if our universe is a computer simulation indistinguishable from “base” reality? (Modern extension of the brain-in-a-vat.)
17 Zeno’s Paradoxes — Achilles can never catch the tortoise because he must first reach halfway, and halfway again. (Explores motion, infinity, and continuity.)
18 Plato’s Allegory of the Cave — Prisoners see only shadows on a wall and mistake them for reality. (Addresses perception, truth, and enlightenment.)
19 The Butterfly Dream (Zhuangzi) — A man dreams he’s a butterfly. Upon waking, he wonders if he’s a man who dreamed he was a butterfly — or a butterfly dreaming he’s a man. (Examines self and reality.)
20 The Infinite Library (Borges’ Library of Babel) — Imagine a library containing every possible combination of letters and words. (Reflects on meaning, order, and chaos.)
21 The Teleporter Problem