Editing Thought (section)

===Thought experiments===
[[Thought experiment]]s involve thinking about imaginary situations, often with the aim of investigating the possible consequences of a change to the actual sequence of events.<ref>{{cite web |title=The American Heritage Dictionary entry: thought experiment |url=https://www.ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=thought+experiment |website=www.ahdictionary.com |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing |access-date=30 October 2021}}</ref><ref name="Brown"/><ref name="Goffi"/> It is a controversial issue to what extent thought experiments should be understood as actual experiments.<ref name="Sorensen10"/><ref name="Bishop">{{cite journal |last1=Bishop |first1=Michael A. |title=Why Thought Experiments Are Not Arguments |journal=Philosophy of Science |date=1999 |volume=66 |issue=4 |pages=534–541 |doi=10.1086/392753 |s2cid=170519663 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/BISWTE}}</ref><ref name="Norton">{{cite journal |last1=Norton |first1=John D. |title=Are Thought Experiments Just What You Thought? |journal=Canadian Journal of Philosophy |date=1996 |volume=26 |issue=3 |pages=333–366 |doi=10.1080/00455091.1996.10717457 |s2cid=143017404 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/NORATE}}</ref> They are experiments in the sense that a certain situation is set up and one tries to learn from this situation by understanding what follows from it.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Sorensen |first1=Roy |title=Roy Sorensen's Thought Experiments |journal=Informal Logic |date=1 January 1995 |volume=17 |issue=3 |doi=10.22329/il.v17i3.2425 |url=https://informallogic.ca/index.php/informal_logic/article/view/2425/ |language=en |issn=2293-734X|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref name="Sorensen10"/> They differ from regular experiments in that imagination is used to set up the situation and counterfactual reasoning is employed to evaluate what follows from it, instead of setting it up physically and observing the consequences through perception.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Reiss |first1=Julian |title=Counterfactuals, Thought Experiments, and Singular Causal Analysis in History |journal=Philosophy of Science |date=1 December 2009 |volume=76 |issue=5 |pages=712–723 |doi=10.1086/605826 |s2cid=43496954 |url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/605826?journalCode=phos |issn=0031-8248}}</ref><ref name="Brown">{{cite web |last1=Brown |first1=James Robert |last2=Fehige |first2=Yiftach |title=Thought Experiments |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thought-experiment/ |website=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |access-date=29 October 2021 |date=2019}}</ref><ref name="Sorensen10">{{cite book |last1=Sorensen |first1=Roy A. |title=Thought Experiments |date=1999 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-512913-7 |url=https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/019512913X.001.0001/acprof-9780195129137-chapter-10 |chapter=Are Thought Experiments Experiments?|doi=10.1093/019512913X.001.0001 }}</ref><ref name="Goffi"/> Counterfactual thinking, therefore, plays a central role in thought experiments.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Aligica |first1=Paul Dragos |last2=Evans |first2=Anthony J. |title=Thought experiments, counterfactuals and comparative analysis |journal=The Review of Austrian Economics |date=1 September 2009 |volume=22 |issue=3 |pages=225–239 |doi=10.1007/s11138-009-0082-8 |s2cid=144831020 |url=https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11138-009-0082-8 |language=en |issn=1573-7128}}</ref>

The [[Chinese room argument]] is a famous thought experiment proposed by [[John Searle]].<ref name="Cole"/><ref name="Hauser"/> It involves a person sitting inside a closed-off room, tasked with responding to messages written in Chinese. This person does not know Chinese but has a giant rule book that specifies exactly how to reply to any possible message, similar to how a computer would react to messages. The core idea of this thought experiment is that neither the person nor the computer understands Chinese. This way, Searle aims to show that computers lack a mind capable of deeper forms of understanding despite acting intelligently.<ref name="Cole">{{cite web |last1=Cole |first1=David |title=The Chinese Room Argument |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chinese-room/ |website=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |access-date=29 October 2021 |date=2020}}</ref><ref name="Hauser">{{cite web |last1=Hauser |first1=Larry |title=Chinese Room Argument |url=https://iep.utm.edu/chineser/ |website=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |access-date=29 October 2021}}</ref>

Thought experiments are employed for various purposes, for example, for entertainment, education, or as arguments for or against theories. Most discussions focus on their use as arguments. This use is found in fields like philosophy, the natural sciences, and history.<ref name="Brown"/><ref name="Norton"/><ref name="Bishop"/><ref name="Sorensen10"/> It is controversial since there is a lot of disagreement concerning the epistemic status of thought experiments, i.e. how reliable they are as [[evidence]] supporting or refuting a theory.<ref name="Brown"/><ref name="Norton"/><ref name="Bishop"/><ref name="Sorensen10"/> Central to the rejection of this usage is the fact that they pretend to be a source of knowledge without the need to leave one's armchair in search of any new empirical data. Defenders of thought experiments usually contend that the intuitions underlying and guiding the thought experiments are, at least in some cases, reliable.<ref name="Brown"/><ref name="Sorensen10"/> But thought experiments can also fail if they are not properly supported by intuitions or if they go beyond what the intuitions support.<ref name="Brown"/><ref name="Goffi"/> In the latter sense, sometimes counter thought experiments are proposed that modify the original scenario in slight ways in order to show that initial intuitions cannot survive this change.<ref name="Brown"/> Various taxonomies of thought experiments have been suggested. They can be distinguished, for example, by whether they are successful or not, by the discipline that uses them, by their role in a theory, or by whether they accept or modify the actual laws of physics.<ref name="Goffi">{{cite journal |last1=Goffi |first1=Jean-Yves |last2=Roux |first2=Sophie|author2-link=Sophie Roux |title=On the Very Idea of a Thought Experiment |journal=Thought Experiments in Methodological and Historical Contexts |date=2011 |pages=165–191 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/GOFOTV |publisher=Brill|doi=10.1163/ej.9789004201767.i-233.35 |isbn=978-9004201774 |s2cid=260640180 }}</ref><ref name="Brown"/>