Mental experiments What are they?

What are mental experiments? Let's read the following text: Mary is a brilliant scientist who is, for some reason, forced to investigate the world from a black and white room through the black and white television monitor. It specializes in the neurophysiology of vision and acquires, suppose, all the physical information to obtain about what happens when we see ripe tomatoes, or heaven, and uses terms such as "red", "blue", etc.

She discovers, for example, just what combination of heaven waves stimulate the retina, and exactly how this produces through the nervous system the contraction of the vocal strings and the expulsion of air from the lungs that results in the pronunciation of the prayer " the sky is blue". […] What will happen when Mary is released from her quarter black and white or is given a television with color monitor? Will you learn something or not?

With these words, wrote the philosopher Fangk Jackson the mental experiment called "Mary's room". Through this experiment, It is intended to investigate Mary's experience is enough that when the world sees in color it is surprised or acts normally. That is, will you have learned so much Mary that you will know how colors are? Or as much as you have learned the lack of direct exposure will make you learn a new knowledge?

Content

• What are mental experiments?
  • Uses and criticism
• Known mental experiments
  • The Chinese room
  • Original position
  • Bibliography

What are mental experiments?

Mental experiments are imaginative resources used to investigate certain aspects of nature and hypothetical situations. Thanks to them, we can understand some aspect of reality without the need for direct experimentation. All are carried out at the mental level, that is, They lack empirical confirmations. His applications, among them, range from philosophy, physics and mathematics.

Ornelas, Cintora and Herández (2018) affirm the mental experiments that "Our own ideas are at our disposal easier and immediately than physical facts. We experiment with thought, for this say it, at a low cost. Then should not surprise us that, on occasion, the mental experiment precedes and prepares the way for the experiphysical ment ". The advantage of the mental experiment is obvious, since it does not require economic investment. However, their conclusions are always valid? Is it necessary to empirically verify your results? 

The physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach spoke of mental experimentation: Those who do projects, those that build castles, romancers and poets who get carried away by social or technical utopias, make mental experimentation; They are also made the serious merchant, the reflective inventor and the wise. All are represented diverse circumstances and relate to these representations certain conjectures. But the former change in their imagination circumstances that are not found in reality, or these circumstances followed by consequences that have no links with them are represented, while the merchant, the inventor and the wise have as representations good images of the facts and remain in their thoughts very close to reality. 

Uses and criticism

Mental experiments aim to explain, legitimize or contradict explanatory models about a phenomenon. The scope covers both philosophy, mathematics, history, economy and even psychology. They can be used as a form of experimentation or as a didactic tool. Experiment and learn through thought, constitutes a powerful teaching tool.

The main criticisms of this type of experimentation is precisely its lack of empirical verification, So some authors qualify them as simple intuitions. In this way, according to critics, mental experiments do not have the necessary seriousness and validity for their conclusions to be considered scientific knowledge.

Known mental experiments

The Chinese room

The philosopher John Searle wanted to challenge the concept of artificial intelligence, how did he do it? Imagine that within a room there is a person who only speaks English and completely ignores the Chinese. Within the room there are Chinese letters and an instruction manual. Through a slit, someone who does speak Chinese, passes a sheet with questions in Chinese. The individual inside, through the instruction manual, is able to respond to what they ask but without understanding absolutely nothing.

Searle, challenged other authors such as Alan Turing who said that if a machine can "deceive" a human and make him think that he is talking to another human, it means that the machine thinks. So that, Searle, through this mental experiment, wants to demonstrate that simulating that it is known Chinese, is not understanding it, so it is not artificial intelligence.

Original position

John Rawls, proposed in 1971 this mental experiment on the theory of justice. A group of people must prepare the laws of the future. Once these laws are composed, everyone will die. However, they will all resurrect but without knowing if in the next life they will be rich or poor, men or women. So, what kind of laws will create? What will they take into account? 

The author affirms that this mental experiment has two functions: on the one hand, it allows the principles of justice to be achieved and, on the other, the principles of justice must be examined. In this way, based on ignorance, that is, without knowing what will be in the other life, all efforts will be combined to carry out more just laws for all for all.

Bibliography

• Aguilar, and. And Romero, to. (2011). With regard to mental experiments: an attempt for the construction of science explanations. Scientific Magazine, 169-174.
• Ornelas, j., Cintora, a. And Herández, P. (2018). TRabajando in the laboratory of the mind: nature and scope of mental experiments. Mexico: UASLP.