Ask HN: What is your favorite thought experiment? - PascLeRasc
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Nadya
Not so much a thought experiment - but trying to grasp the Library of Babel.

Somewhere on the pages is your entire life story, already written. Waiting to
be discovered. The story of your birth, every variation of death. Every
success. Every failure.

Just a meaningless collection of words waiting to be discovered, only given
meaning once found.

[https://libraryofbabel.info/](https://libraryofbabel.info/)

Even my post already existed:
[https://libraryofbabel.info/bookmark.cgi?vdayie_ifpawv163](https://libraryofbabel.info/bookmark.cgi?vdayie_ifpawv163)

~~~
PepeGomez
What is that?

~~~
iyn
[http://flavorwire.com/515783/brooklyn-author-recreates-
borge...](http://flavorwire.com/515783/brooklyn-author-recreates-borges-
library-of-babel-as-infinite-website)

[http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/07/23/the-library-
of...](http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/07/23/the-library-of-babel-as-
seen-from-within/)

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PascLeRasc
Personally, I think Newcomb's Paradox is really interesting:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcomb%27s_paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcomb%27s_paradox)

~~~
PepeGomez
That's only called a paradox becasue some people refuse to accept the obvious
solution.

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alphydan
Einstein's thought experiment on simultaneity illustrated with a train
(simultaneous,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Traincar_Relativity1.svg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Traincar_Relativity1.svg)),
(not simultaneous,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Traincar_Relativity2.svg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Traincar_Relativity2.svg))

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willstepp
This is meditative and not scientific, but still a thought experiment: To
consider, who am I between two thoughts?

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gull
What is the one thing that could reverse an entrenched system, and how could
you build a prototype in the least amount of time. Preferably, something
people think is too much work, while it actually takes two days.

------
bediger4000
Imagine Pinocchio at rest.

Suddenly, Pinocchio says "My nose is growing!"

What happens next?

~~~
shermanyo
> Imagine Pinocchio at rest. Not sure why, but pictured a spherical Pinocchio
> in a vacuum :P

~~~
cabbeer
Like the inside of a whale?

