Description: The purpose of this project is to utilize computer technology to enable students to investigate complex thought experiments, principally in the developing sub-field of artificial life. Today a philosophy instructor can bring these complex thought experiments into the philosophy curriculum only if he or she is an expert programmer. Furthermore, while typical philosophy students know how to use personal computers, they have little if any programming expertise. Extensive and properly guided first-hand exploration of complex thought experiments is the only effective way to teach students the general techniques involved in independently formulating and pursuing philosophical issues with these novel philosophical technologies.
The project aims to enable undergraduates to explore the implications of a few complex thought experiments. The specific objective is to produce software and documentation tools that can be used independently and flexibly by all of our students. The software for each experiment will be designed so that students can explore the thought experiments in an open-ended manner. The documentation will include the following material:
The project will focus on the following three thought experiments:
These three complex thought experiments each have specific rich philosophical consequences (e.g., that very complex macroscopic behavior can emerge spontaneously and completely nonmysteriously from trivially simple microscopic mechanisms).
Philosophers around the world are becoming increasingly interested in the philosophical impact of these complex thought experiments (for example, see W. Bechtel and R. Richardson, Discovering Complexity, Princeton UP, 1993; D. Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life, Simon and Schuster, 1995; Peter Godfrey-Smith, Complexity and the Function of Mind in Nature, Cambridge UP, 1996; M. Boden, ed., The Philosophy of Artificial Life, Oxford UP, 1996). The software and documentation tools produced will be freely available through the internet. Reed has adequate computer hardware available for students to be able to use the software and documentation tools in their courses or their independent research.