Thought experimentation is a tool we philosophers often use in order to explore life, existence and the Universe without having to get out of our chairs. So let the experiment begin.
Suppose you look out of your bedroom window at 01:00 am, and see a naked man standing in the middle of your lawn. Let’s say you estimate his age to be somewhere between 65 and 75 years old. He is quite bald, and carrying a generous amount of weight, although not evenly distributed. A good proportion of it has been monopolised by his belly; mostly at the expense of his legs, which seem rather bandy. He has hairy shoulders. The street lamp right next to your garden is bathing him in a pool of light far brighter than you are comfortable with.
Okay, the scene for our thought experiment has now been set; let’s call it scenario 1 (S1).
Consider S1, but now the man is wearing ankle socks and sandals, just like the socks and sandals you can see being worn by men of this age on the streets of any popular British seaside resort. Let’s call this S1a.
For S1b, we have all the above, plus the addition of an umbrella, which the man is holding as if to shelter himself from heavy rain, even though it isn’t raining.
S1c sees our man as above, but also holding an over stuffed Teddy Bear -similar in scaled down proportions to the man himself- and also wearing socks and sandals.
S1d; as above, but there is also a tent and camping stove on your lawn.
That’s part one of the thought experiment, so make sure you’ve had a good think about it before we move on to part two.
Part two simply consists of two questions:
Q1. Up to what point of the scale from S1 to S1d would you just return to bed, hoping that everything would be back to normal in the morning?
Q2. After which point of the scale from S1 to S1d would you feel it necessary to take some sort of action?
As far as I know, this thought experiment has never been done before, so we are probably breaking new ground here.
I certainly wouldn’t be ignoring the man.
