Thought Experiments and some Puzzles...

A train is hurtling down the track towards a 'y' junction, and has 5 people on board.  You control the points at the junction.  If you do nothing, the train goes straight on, into a brick wall, and all 5 will surely die...  If you alter its direction, it will go to another track and all five people will live.  BUT - on this track, a man is bound to the track - the five passengers will live, but he will die.  Would you pull the lever, to save the 5 at the expense of the one?  Most people say they would... Ok.  But how about this...

Let us suppose that you are a doctor and have five patients, each with a faulty organ - one has a dodgey ticker, another a failing liver and so on.  All five will die unless they get an organ transplant.  You also have a perfectly healthy patient, with fine organs, in perfect working order.   He can be sacrificed and his organs used to save the 5 dying patients.  Would you kill him?  Most people say 'no'.  But why not?  Why is your answer different to the answer you gave with the train problem.  In each case you are taking positive action to save 5 people at the cost of one person's life...

NOW - what if the 5 people on the train were Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao Tse Tung, and Idi Amin.   And the person strapped to the other track was your parent or child... 

Hmm...

There is a barber who shaves all those and only those who do not shave themselves.  If the barber shaves himself, then he doesn't shave himself, and if he doesn't, he does....

The liars paradox:   "This sentence is false"....   Think about it!

Can a robot be human?  Are you a robot?  Is there more to you than behaviour body and brain?  If so, what?

I think therefore I am.  Is that the test of 'existence'?  But a tree 'is' and yet does not think.

Do you have the answers?  Let us know!