by Darcy Dean and Rickayla Myles
The definition of a thought experiment is a hypothetical situation that is laid out for the purpose of thinking through its consequences. There are many different examples of thought experiments, some that you might have even done before. They weigh how you think about consequences and the way that you perceive obstacles.
One example of a very popular thought experiment is the Trolley Problem. In this thought experiment, you are put into an imaginary situation where there is a runaway trolley and you are a bystander. The trolley is headed toward five people down the track. You have a chance to divert the tracks in order to save those five people, but on the track that you would divert the trolley to, there is the person that you care about the most. In this experiment, you are asked if you would choose to divert the tracks or not therefore, you take the lives of others into your own hands.
When asked this, there are differing answers. One study done by a student at the University of Colorado revealed that 90% of the people asked would have pulled the switch and to divert the track to the one person on the track rather than stand by and allow the five people to be hit by the trolley.
If you were asked this question, what would you say?
Another example of a trolley experiment is The Tunnel Problem. This is what it proposes: you are in a car that you could not control (an autonomous vehicle) and can only tell to go left or right. While driving on a mountain road, a person appears just before a tunnel, and you only have two choices: either to drive yourself off of a mountain or hit the person in the road. Would you hit the person, or would you risk your life instead just to save theirs? Would you be able to live with yourself thinking you killed an innocent person just so you can live the rest of your life?
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