Not in the Star Trek future, they don’t…
I don’t know, but you can tell a cow does. When asked, it also answers “moo.”
Spock and Kirk solved one in The City on the Edge of Forever. Since Spock was involved, the solution must be correct.
The answer to the trolley problem is meta. The answer is mu - you have to unask the question. The person who creates the hypothetical scenario is the one causing the issue, so you just have to unask the question so the dilemma no longer exists.
It’s the same with the Voight-Kampff test question about why you turned a tortoise over to die in the sun and you’re not helping it. The person asking the question is telling you that you’re doing something wrong, thereby creating the dilemma. You can’t be morally blamed for someone else’s decisions over which you had no influence.
“Ship of Theseus” isn’t just a philosophical question. People do rebuild ships, replacing most of the original wood.
This is Leo, who’s rebuilding the Tally Ho, and in the process replacing ~90% of it’s structure talking about his take on it. For me, the most convincing argument is that as far as ship registries are concerned, when she’s re-launched, this will still be the Tally Ho.
After all, we can argue about which is the original all day, but what really matters is what the ship insurers think, because they’re going to be demanding money.
There is nothing more depressing I can imagine than answering a philosophical question with “well, really, it’s whatever the capitalists want it to be”. I don’t want the answer to the trolley problem to be that if you don’t hit the switch it’s easier for the company to avoid being taken to court.
Sisyphus is happy if the good of the many outweighs the boulder.
Just then, Sisyphus is struck by lightning, which kills him instantly. At that exact same moment, another bolt of lightning strikes a smattering of matter in a swamp some 100 meters away, scattering the matter in just such a way that it ends up in the exact same form as Sisyphus, down to the position of each individual atom in Sisyphus’ body as he was in the instant when he died 100m away. As the infinitely complex array of neurons in the “brain” of the swamp matter is exactly as it was in Sisyphus’ brain when he was still alive, the matter has the exact same thoughts and memories as Sisyphus did.
Is the smattering of matter in the swamp happy?
Only if it gets run over by a trolley.
Will a tram do?
I live in Melbourne. That can be arranged.
Spoken like a man whose job was sitting in a cafe chain smoking Gauloises.
Though I do have to admit that Sisyphus and Bouldy did look pretty happy in the game Hades
The answer is obviously Fnord.
Fixed that for you.
I can still see the fnord!!!
The problem with the Theseus’ Ship dilemma is simply the lack of nuance in recognizing that there are technically multiple Theseus’ Ships in different conceptions.
There’s the physical ship made of the pieces that currently constitutes it. There’s the idea of the ship. There’s the ideal of the ship. There’s different people’s memories of the ship. There’s the plans for the ship. Et cetera.
In the same vein, you can speak of a person as being a body, a personality, a soul if you believe in that, a facade presented to others socially, a memory held by our loved ones after we pass, an idea of self that we’re using to fool ourselves into believing we’re something we’re not, etc.
Nothing is just one thing, even when you’re just talking about a physical constitution.
The answer to the tr⌀lley problem is, obviously:
I think we should take a serious look at whoever it is who keeps tying these people to the tracks.