Philo's Thought Experiments (2019)
Do you often find yourself zoning out? And what exactly do you think about when you do?
What would happen if humans hibernated? How can we achieve immortality? How can we become happier? What if humans had chloroplasts? Are there aliens out there? Why do people sleep? What is memory? What is gender? Are humans born knowing how to walk? Why do some people love running marathons?
These questions and ideas constantly pop into my head. Engaging with people online has brought me a lot of joy and some truly fascinating answers, which inspired this annual collection.
May I always remain curious and imaginative, like a child.
The most interesting thing about Twitter is the way conversations unfold. I asked if cancer cells could be used to make lab-grown meat, and someone replied, “Tastes bad, I’ve tried it.” I wondered if cancer cells could lead to human immortality, and people recommended related novels and comics. When I brought up the structural oppression of gender, I saw users offer professional arguments in the discussion. This ability of an open platform to brainstorm and gather diverse perspectives is incredible. I genuinely enjoy getting valuable insights from different fields, even from seemingly simple questions. My thanks to all the enthusiastic Twitter users!
What would happen if humans hibernated?
Humans are so behind; we’ve evolved for hundreds of thousands of years and still haven’t developed the ability to hibernate.
Think about it: hibernation would save a huge amount of energy spent on heating, conserve massive food resources, and prevent the waste caused by low human productivity in cold conditions. All industries would shut down for a holiday, global carbon emissions would plummet, and the biosphere would begin to regenerate.
When we woke up, spring would be in full bloom, the air quality everywhere would be excellent, and everyone would start a new year of work, study, and life in the most comfortable state.
Each country could schedule hibernation dates based on its latitude; for example, the Southern Hemisphere could work while the Northern Hemisphere hibernated. Urgent tasks could be added to hibernators’ to-do lists, allowing them to wake for an hour each day or a full day each week to handle essential matters.
While most people hibernated, a small number of government personnel would remain awake to maintain urban safety, protect lives and property, and respond to individual emergencies. Other daily chores, like street cleaning, could be handled by a large fleet of robots; news gathering and recording could be done automatically by drones, providing records for people to read upon waking.
In the event of alien invasion, national war, or major natural disasters, more specialized forces would be awakened to address the situation. Within the allotted hibernation period, people could customize their hibernation plans. For instance, you could be awakened to play in the snow with friends when it snows, or to see a beautiful landscape or rare phenomenon when the weather is good. You could even arrange to wake up at the same time as someone else, ensuring you always have company.
There could also be safe and healthy hibernation plans for weight loss. By adjusting hibernation duration and nutrient intake, you could wake up with a healthy and beautiful physique. To ensure the health of hibernators, the intensity of these weight loss plans would be limited…
Whether human hibernation would be good for humanity is debatable, but it would certainly be good for Earth.
If human skin had chloroplasts
If we genetically engineered human skin cells to have chloroplasts, would humans no longer need to eat or cook? We could just drink some inorganic nutrient solution, soak up the sun, and feel full. The only side effect would be turning completely green.
@yourcountry64: Not quite. Plants get enough sunlight through extensive branching and large leaf surface areas. The human body has a very low surface area-to-volume ratio, which means insufficient photosynthetic efficiency, yet humans have a very active metabolism and huge energy demands. If humans could photosynthesize, even on a sunny day, it would only provide less than one percent of the body’s total energy needs.
Achieving immortality with cancer cells?
Cancer cells are not restricted by apoptosis mechanisms; as long as they have enough nutrients, they can grow and divide indefinitely without aging or dying. If we could find a mechanism to transform all human cells into cancer cells, while also limiting their division to a certain extent, would humanity achieve immortality?
We could study how cancer cells bypass the apoptosis mechanism and apply that knowledge to normal cells. Since only cancer cells have achieved indefinite growth, we could also research how to restore their other normal functions to prevent normal cells from aging.
@EndlessNull: At that point, they probably wouldn’t be called cancer cells anymore (like HeLa cells).
Using cancer cells to make lab-grown meat?
Could we use the infinite division of cancer cells to produce lab-grown meat? If so, would we then have a low-cost, unlimited supply of meat?
@Reno_Lam: They still need nutrients to replicate, and the production of culture medium itself is a bottleneck. Of course, strictly speaking, if we’re talking about artificially cultured tissues, there are already ways to lift the restrictions on cell division to make them proliferate quickly (relatively). Because current animal cell culture media are usually extracted from animals (like cows), lab-grown meat isn’t considered vegan food yet (even if the cell line source can agree to provide cells for culturing).
@hg4867: For cell division, raising pigs is still cheaper and more efficient.
@shijiejilupian: There’s a sci-fi novel called “The Cancer Man,” it’s quite interesting.
@dizzzzziness: Cancerous tissue tastes like dirt, it’s very unappetizing.
@eGUAbe2V7j26GHw: Sir, this is your braised prostate cancer… who could possibly eat that?
Socialized Rearing of Infants
What if the state uniformly raised all newborns, providing the best nannies and childcare services, ensuring ample love and companionship to guarantee their physical and mental well-being? Eugenics would be promoted through public education. Biological parents would need to pass an assessment and complete adoption procedures to take their children home, with ongoing follow-ups. If standards weren’t met, the child would be returned to state care; if they failed the assessment, the child would remain state-raised indefinitely. Wouldn’t this maximize the child’s best interests and foster the healthiest children?
Uniform rearing wouldn’t be an assembly line; love and companionship would come not just from caregivers, but also from community-based or extended family models where a designated pair of new parents might care for five or six children. Other parents interested in adoption could take in more children if they had the capacity. Costs would be covered partly by taxes, partly by mandatory child support from biological parents, and fully by the state for those unable to pay.
Parents willing and able to raise their own children could go through the adoption process to take them home. Those who didn’t would primarily be parents unable or unwilling to provide care. The government, in this model, could offer everything quality parents could, operating like a large family with five or six children, not a school-like institution or centralized dormitory. The only difference would be the absence of a blood relationship between them and the children.
Here’s a response from Professor Li Ying. I think this perspective is excellent. The greatest significance of various types of small families lies in diversity and freedom. Their ability to withstand risk in a constantly changing environment is much stronger than that of a centralized system. (My idea was inspired by “parents don’t need to pass exams,” and I wondered what would happen if they did. In normal circumstances, most parents would pass, but people tend to go to extremes when they hear “uniform.”)
@LiYing_2015: I recommend reading “Brave New World.” The biggest problem with centralization is the lack of local information; bureaucratic control absolutely cannot cope with ever-changing micro-environments. Economically, centralization leads to collective poverty. In child-rearing, centralization leads to a million-fold decrease in risk resilience. Once an unforeseen situation arises, it becomes impossible to cope, leading to total extinction. The complexity of human society and nature far exceeds human design capabilities, so such “accidents” are inevitable. This is the meaning of freedom: each person knows their specific interests, which differ from others’, and responds in their own way. Economic freedom brings flexibility and prosperity, just as diverse biological variations are the only way to survive. Social and political freedom have importance no less than economic freedom. The world often changes in ways unlike history, with no precedent, no knowledge to refer to, no foresight, and no planning. Therefore, only free systems lead to endless variations, which then offer the possibility of leaving behind seeds of survivors in future changes.
Another excellent point: socialized rearing doesn’t necessarily mean authoritarianism. On the contrary, it could liberate young people, freeing them from patriarchal and family pressures, and giving them more freedom of choice.
@Searl_Scarlet: Trotsky, during the Soviet First Five-Year Plan, proposed a transitional plan: outsourcing all housework, childcare, and cafeterias to public welfare institutions. This aimed to ultimately eliminate the economic function of the family and thus the family itself. However, due to insufficient funding, this welfare program was only implemented around Moscow and was later canceled during the Stalin era. (See “The Revolution Betrayed” for details.)
@postmodernbrute: Consider it from a different angle. Socialized rearing doesn’t mean the government has to provide “nanny and childcare services.” For example, local communities could form a mutual aid childcare organization, spreading the responsibility of raising children across the entire community. This could avoid many problems.
Although the family system has a long history, with social progress, improved civic quality, and declining birth rates, states and communities are taking on more and more childcare responsibilities (refer to various pro-natalist policies in developed countries). Single parenting is becoming increasingly popular, and perhaps one day the family system will completely dissolve. The influence of parents on children is diminishing, nearing the model I described. A highly developed civilization still has hope of achieving this.
A real-world example very close to this concept: SOS Children’s Villages.
Robotic Dragonflies for Mosquito Catching
How about using bionic dragonflies to catch mosquitoes in a room? They’d fly around silently, hovering, with a miniature laser cannon on their heads, powerful enough to zap mosquitoes but not damage furniture. After a mosquito falls, it would pick it up and drop it in the trash. If that’s too inhumane, the laser could be replaced with an air cannon to just stun the mosquitoes, then release them outside the window. Other times, the dragonfly would rest on a wireless charging pad, charging while monitoring the room for activity.
@asaaoiokaeri: It could be improved by emitting a magical pheromone to draw mosquitoes to the dragonfly for annihilation, and also intelligent mosquito identification (a bold claim).
@MapleYu_Neko: Let me roughly list the components a bionic dragonfly would need:
Bionic muscle high-intensity motor (or similar) Ultra-light, tough bionic wings Rapid charge/discharge supercapacitor Micro laser emission system OR powerful air compressor Indoor positioning system Friend-or-foe identification system Gripper device Wireless charging pad not necessarily required, just contacts would suffice.
Dream Machine
Could a “dream machine” address the psychological issues of terminally ill patients in end-of-life care? A dream machine could directly intervene in a person’s consciousness, allowing them to be in a dream state anytime, anywhere. In this dream, it could help fulfill their unaccomplished dreams, such as regaining health, revisiting a regretful memory to make a different choice, or traveling the world. Since they are dying anyway, it wouldn’t matter much if they couldn’t distinguish between reality and illusion.
@Qiolin_: That’s the plot of “To the Moon”! I cried playing that game.
Internet Time Travel
One hundred years from now, if these mainstream social media sites are still alive, the internet will be filled with countless digital graves. Each account, carrying fragments of its past owner’s life and memories, will be buried deeper and deeper through successive waves of internet trends.
By then, perhaps someone will develop a “Century of Digital Time Travel” project, establishing dedicated websites or other browsing channels, listing the most worthwhile digital graves to unearth from the past century, and guiding people to them.
Here lie celebrities who once stood in the spotlight, and countless ordinary people. This is the ultimate window for human observation. Here, you can see every detail of a child’s life, from their first cry to their slow aging, with the last entry being a posthumous obituary. Look how similar the joys and sorrows of people a hundred years ago are to today’s. These once vibrantly beating individuals are truly fascinating.
They lived earnestly. They died striving.
They still had traffic jams? I can’t believe it. Is that thing in their hand called a “mobile phone”? I saw one at my grandpa’s house. What is internet speed?
Why do people sleep?
What is the necessity of sleep? Can humans evolve to achieve proper rest without sleeping?
Physical recovery can be achieved while sitting/lying awake; the brain is still active during sleep, just organizing. Couldn’t it evolve to organize while awake? Did animals’ daily sleeping habits form because there was nothing to do when it got dark? Can polar bears see at night? Do they sleep all day during polar night or do they still forage?
I know sleep is currently necessary, but over a longer timescale, could individuals evolve to achieve good rest without sleeping? I’m also curious if, from an evolutionary perspective, traits like high DNA repair efficiency and memory consolidation during sleep might be because animals first developed the habit of sleeping (having nothing to do while asleep), and then the brain intentionally shifted these tasks from any time to the sleep state.
@ZenithFZH: It should be that the need for cleaning first led to the development of sleep-like activities (a state where many physiological functions shut down), which then gradually became fixed in evolution. Every internal organ in a human needs cleaning, but I’m more concerned with ions. For example, if you drink too much strong tea, your heart might feel uncomfortable; that’s due to excess sodium, similar to the reasons for sleep deprivation. The brain also needs to restore sodium-potassium balance, and the dynamic system needs to return to its starting point. (@philo2018: But does it really require shutting down many physiological functions to achieve cleaning? Why not evolve to clean while awake?) Other organs have needs too. For example, the liver and kidneys also have work to do, and they are constrained by the sympathetic/parasympathetic nervous system, ascending arousal pathways, etc. If they have to maintain a state of tension, they can’t perform their cleaning functions.
@yourcountry64: Polar night is winter, and polar bears, of course, hibernate for several months during winter.
@sumail666 Energy regeneration. I once heard a perspective: sleeping is entering the universe (consuming huge amounts of energy), and staying awake and working only accumulates energy for it.
@googollee: Conversely, as brain complexity increased, it needed downtime for maintenance, leading to the evolution of sleep. A book: “Why We Sleep?”
Multidimensional World
Could we be living in the same space as five-dimensional, six-dimensional, … eleven-dimensional beings, breathing the same air, but due to the limitations of our observational abilities, we can only perceive ourselves?
They are existences we cannot imagine, just as a paper-thin person cannot imagine a three-dimensional world. The universe we currently observe is already unimaginably vast, but each additional dimension adds countless more universes 🤔…
Could the effect of dimensions be related to causality? (A guess) How does observational ability manifest? Two lines in different directions form a plane, two planes in different directions form a space, so two spaces in different directions form a four-dimensional space, and so on. Different choices can be seen as transitioning from one space to another (affecting the world), and could higher-dimensional beings still be us?
@asaaoiokaeri: Could the effect of dimensions be related to causality? (A guess) How does observational ability manifest? Two lines in different directions form a plane, two planes in different directions form a space, so two spaces in different directions form a four-dimensional space, and so on. Different choices can be seen as transitioning from one space to another (affecting the world), and could higher-dimensional beings still be us? (@philo2018: Possibly. We actually live in other dimensions, but due to the limitations of our thinking, we can only perceive our three-dimensional selves (projections).) Wow, “projection” is such a vivid word! Excitement!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That’s exactly it. Because we can’t observe it directly, we feel our lives are linear.
@muzi_ii: I recommend the French popular science documentary “Dimensions: A Walk Through Mathematics.” It’s available on Bilibili with bilingual subtitles.
Are humans born knowing how to walk?
Is walking a purely learned skill for humans, or is it encoded in our genes?
Many animals can run as soon as they’re born. Why can’t humans walk when they’re born and need to be taught? If a baby isn’t specifically taught to walk, could they learn on their own? If they grew up in an enclosed space, never having seen anyone walk, would they develop a disability or suddenly just start walking?
@gloriousgobid: Babies are born unable to walk, sit up, or even roll over, because their muscles, bones, and nervous system haven’t developed to that extent. A child goes through rolling over, sitting up, crawling, standing, and walking without assistance. These processes don’t actually need to be taught; they’ll do them on their own when the time comes.
About Memory
People are made of memories, not opinions. You might find someone on Earth who agrees with you on every single stance and opinion, but they cannot replace you, and you cannot replace them, because you each possess different memories.
If you were to lose your memory one day (irreversibly), continuing past relationships would no longer be necessary, because you would have been reborn, essentially becoming another person.
Your memories constitute who you are. If your memories contain only hatred, then you are hatred; if your memories contain only joy, then you are joy; if your memories contain only love, then you are love itself.
@stoneyshow: This aligns perfectly with Grand Maester Tyrion Lannister’s “who has a better story” theory.
About Gender
Do trans individuals (MtF/FtM) struggle with accepting their bodies (sex organs), or do they struggle with the series of impacts that gender brings, such as societal expectations and constraints on different genders?
If a society completely eliminated discrimination against all genders, allowing everyone to pursue their interests freely, treating all jobs equally, and avoiding discrimination based on any gender expression, would transgender people still exist?
@tianna0026: Transgender individuals transition because their cognitive gender identity differs from their biological sex. I think societal norms or influences might play a role in shaping their thoughts, but it’s not the primary reason. The main reason comes from the body itself.
@h121040: Speaking from personal experience, I once thought about becoming a futa girl. I wanted a girl’s appearance and voice, and also both sets of genitalia. After all, I’ve experienced male stimulation and I’m very curious about female stimulation. Maybe I grew up in a more open environment; my friends all supported the idea of being oneself. In any case, I’d only want to be a born futa. Since I’m male now, I’ll go with the flow.
Baldness Topic
Has the topic of baldness only become particularly popular in the last two years, or was it (always) just as popular ten years ago?
@asaaoiokaeri: Ten years ago, computer technology wasn’t as advanced, so even if bald people were discussing it, the conversation couldn’t spread. It’s like the North-South differences in China; they’ve only become popular recently, but these issues have always existed. Are we just starting to pay attention to them? Perhaps it’s because transportation wasn’t very developed before, so fewer northerners studied in the south, and vice versa, leading to less shared experience.
@SamuelsLilin: For a topic to sustain long-term interest, one needs to observe its era, timeliness, social trends, and points of focus. A search for “Magi” reveals the rise of Bawang shampoo; its increasing popularity likely stems from recent years’ jokes about staying up late and programmers overusing their brains, which then became market demand and an internet meme. The prominence of the baldness gene also contributes to its current fundamental attributes. There are indeed differences between 10 years ago and now. (@philo2018: Can it also be understood that while baldness has always been an issue, it has indeed become more severe in recent years? Due to the development of mobile internet, there are more ways to entertain oneself at night, and the popularity of the 996 work schedule has led to a significant increase in the number of people staying up late compared to the past. Additionally, the increasing number of programmers, active on the internet, means their (baldness) problems are more likely to become internet hot topics.) I actually don’t believe physiological baldness has become more severe in recent years. Rather, it’s that groups can now communicate and find common ground, and their voices and needs create a market and connections. The internet is driving this process, giving baldness and thinning hair more meaning. Societal pressures and environmental factors then lead people to observe whether they and those around them are truly experiencing hair loss and baldness due to certain reasons.
Why do people live? (A pessimistic explanation)
People live to pass the time.
A well-functioning society is one where, after securing survival through work, people have enough leisure to develop hobbies to pass the time. “Changing the world” means either discovering a new way to pass the time or helping many people pass the time more happily. “Exploring the unknown” means being bored and wanting to find something nobody else has played with to pass the time.
“Developing hobbies” means making the process of passing time less boring. “Falling in love” means finding someone to pass the time with. “Making friends” means finding a group of people to pass the time with.
“Measuring a person’s value” means calculating how many people have spent how much time on that person or on what they created. The longer the total time, the greater the value contributed by that person. For example, people who open up new fields for countless future generations to research, people who write classic works that countless future generations read and study repeatedly, people who created YouTube, Twitter, people who built the iPhone, and so on.
Why does everything in dreams seem so real?
In dreams, no matter how bizarre or absurd the objects, scenes, or settings may be, when you are within them, you never question their logic or rationality. Instead, you implicitly believe in them and passively experience the unfolding plot.
I think perhaps it’s because dreams and reality each have their own complete worldview. Everything that appears in a dream conforms to that new worldview, which you’ve internalized, making everything seem logical, reasonable, and incredibly real.
Cognitive Bias
Why do villains turning good in TV shows win over a huge number of fans, but good characters turning bad are easily despised? Yet, if you assess the actual bad deeds committed by both, the villain’s misdeeds far outweigh the good character’s. Isn’t this an example of humans being blinded by emotion?
@softlips1024: There’s a similar situation in the capital market: if a stock you own has been rising and suddenly drops a little, even though you’re still making a profit overall, investors will feel great regret. If it’s been falling and suddenly rises a little, even though you’re still at a loss overall, investors will be very happy. In behavioral finance, this phenomenon is called mental accounting, where people irrationally separate gains and losses. (@philo2018: Ah, I remember loss aversion! It’s probably the same principle.) Yes, people have significantly different risk preferences when facing gains and losses. For example, someone who’s winning at cards or mahjong might feel it’s a good time to stop, while someone who’s losing always wants to continue, thinking they might break even. This emerging field is quite interesting and still under refinement, with ongoing debates in academia.
@EoyWVGbVYr1NXuP: Speaking solely about storytelling, my feeling is that villains are easier to empathize with and inspire a narcissistic savior complex in the audience. By the same token, (with the same creative ability) good characters are harder to portray, and often, good characters are simply not well-written. Sociological aspects are another matter.
@Yvonne520: This reminds me of another saying: a good person must go through 81 trials to become a Buddha, but a bad person only needs to lay down their butcher’s knife to achieve Buddhahood.
Why are men’s words unreliable?
There’s a saying, “A man’s mouth is a deceiving devil.” Compared to women, are men’s words truly that unreliable? If so, from an evolutionary and gene transmission perspective, do men maximize their interests by deceiving? And because women are the primary bearers of offspring, do they not need such sophisticated techniques in this regard?
Why do some people enjoy running marathons?
What motivates people who love running marathons? If it’s for health, there are many easier and simpler ways to exercise that don’t require running a marathon. If it’s for competition, that’s understandable. Besides competition, what special emotional benefits does a marathon offer?
@milachatu: With the promotion of marathons in cities, towns, and counties, participating in a marathon has become a fashionable sport. The media only talks about fitness and “persistence leads to victory,” rarely mentioning that if you feel unwell, you should stop immediately, otherwise it could trigger life-threatening symptoms like rhabdomyolysis. In this process, the media and cities gain influence, and participants fill a void in their lives.
@yourcountry64: It’s like eating spicy food; consistent running can lead to an endorphin addiction.
@godfatherincape: It’s really just the effect of dopamine, plus a little sense of accomplishment. The rest is about enjoying solitude.
@GuogySakura: It’s a great way to expand the breadth and depth of one’s life. For an ordinary person, increasing mileage from 5km to 42km is an incredibly complex engineering feat, and it could even be deadly.
@wu_xiaoshun: To gain a sense of spiritual superiority. It’s like a pilgrimage, an inner purification, and finishing the race holds significant personal meaning. Marathons can become a spiritual refuge for people, an escape from reality.