Moral Dilemma

[Tilda]

Which track would you choose?

http://www.mindspring.com/~mfpatton/Tissues.htm

Spoiler

I think i'd go left, in my mind, a cure to cancer is worth another hitler. It certainly makes you think though

Tilda

 

[Tom]

If it happened in this country the train would be bogged down by the number of public enquiries forced upon it by the government.

 

[dysfunction]

Spoiler

This is not a moral dilemma...you choose the lesser of two evils which is clearly the one where the least death/harm comes to others...which is the one without Hitler in the future

Whatever you choose you dont really know the full consequences down the line so it probably makes no difference which choice you make really...

 

[Doh_boy]

Whoa that's top...

Spoiler

Go for left myself, since the man kills the 5 by accident and saves more peoples lives (if I've read it properly).

heh I could think about that all-day.

 

[Tilda]

Dys:

Spoiler

Even though the left route produces a hitler, he also saves someone who finds a cure of cancer. Surley a hitler can be stopped with a certain amount of losses, whereas, the number of lives saved by cancer is going to increase every year, which in my mind makes the left route to hitler and a cure for cancer better.

Tilda

 

[Panda On Smack]

I think you are all taking it a bit seriously?

 

[Bullitt]

I wouldn't care which way, on any route I'll kill one man. I wouldn't really want to choose, and as such don't.

Edit: btw merry fucking christmas! Tis the season to be jolly! Hitler, cancer, orphans, death etc..

 

[Doh_boy]

I think you are all taking it a bit seriously?

Personally I find this sort of thing fun. It's a good problem to think about, which would be the best choice of action, especially since it's going to be (essentially) 'taught' to other brains afterwards.

Reading through it, it says it's a joke but it's based on an actual (a number of, if I'm understanding it) thought experiements. There's even a fairly matrix side to it since the idea of a brain in a jar is basically the premise of the matrix.

 

[dysfunction]

Dys:

Spoiler

Even though the left route produces a hitler, he also saves someone who finds a cure of cancer. Surley a hitler can be stopped with a certain amount of losses, whereas, the number of lives saved by cancer is going to increase every year, which in my mind makes the left route to hitler and a cure for cancer better.

Oooh I missed that bit!

 

[Driwen]

I wouldn't care which way, on any route I'll kill one man. I wouldn't really want to choose, and as such don't.

Sort of agree, the only action you have a choice over is to kill a man or a man transporting the hearts. All the other actions are not directly the cause of my actions, you arent responsible either for someone beating up his wife just because you pissed him off somehow.
However if I do have to make a choice based on all the knowledge, I would still make the same one as the last sentence said that some demon is possibly deceiving me and I would then hope my vision isnt atleast deceived (if it is than all other information is most likely false aswell and then you have no way of judging which one is less worse).
And if there wasnt a demon, I guess I would need to know how bad the next hitler will be how much of a genious the person who finds the cure is (will the Hitler live to rule 30 years, how long will it take to find the cure for cancer without that person, etc).

 

[Tom]

The question is a bit pointless really. It presumes that you can see the future, something which AFAIK is impossible.

Its like the old sci-fi story of travelling back through time and having the opportunity to kill Hitler. How would you know that killing Hitler would be a good thing? In the short term many lives may have been saved, but the political face of the world was a very different thing before WW2, and nobody on the planet could say with any conviction that things would have been better had he died.

How can you make a decision based upon information which you can't possibly have?

 

[Elenos]

If you read the links associated to the article you will see that it is not intended for you to arrive at an answer but is merely the ego trip of some wannabe philosopher in seeing how many "in-jokes" he can fit into a unrealistic situation. The piece, as he says himself, is to philosophers a joke as he quotes all sorts of phrases from various sources to comic effect and to non philosophers it is an actual exercise that is designed to test their thinking capabilities, where they also will not get the jokes and will not find it remotely amusing.

 

[Tom]

So basically its like anyone else posting an industry joke, that only a few people are aware of, and laughing at the ignorance of those that don't.

An egomanic then.

 

[Driwen]

So basically its like anyone else posting an industry joke, that only a few people are aware of, and laughing at the ignorance of those that don't.

An egomanic then.

the creator never meant it to be read by non philosophers. It was meant as a joke on ethical philosophical debates, by creating such a complex effect of the choices that there is no right choice (which is the joke if I understand it correctly).

 

[Bullitt]

I feel like I should be wearing a monacle when reading through this stuff.

 

[Ch3tan]

Both choices it says lead to a war, one just with war crimes and one unjust with war crimes. So either way, none of the actions matter.

 

[Bodhi]

I'd go left cos it would kill the fucker who'd just wasted the last 5 minutes of my life.

 

[Catsby]

If you read the links associated to the article you will see that it is not intended for you to arrive at an answer but is merely the ego trip of some wannabe philosopher in seeing how many "in-jokes" he can fit into a unrealistic situation. The piece, as he says himself, is to philosophers a joke as he quotes all sorts of phrases from various sources to comic effect and to non philosophers it is an actual exercise that is designed to test their thinking capabilities, where they also will not get the jokes and will not find it remotely amusing.

Castby is however, much humoured by the fact everyone above has been trying to answer it.

 

[Jupitus]

I'd just flip a coin and go left on heads, right on tails. No point deliberating and worrying about it. Everything is pre-destined anyway hence any decision I make is bound to lead to what will be.

 

[nath]

Castby is however, much humoured by the fact everyone above has been trying to answer it.

What he said :S

 

[Mazling]

I'd just like to say that I did laugh at this

 

[old.Tohtori]

I'd let the trolley go where ever it was going and ring the f*cking bell.

 

[Wij]

I'm on the in-crowd so got the joke and have no interest in trying to answer the dilemma. Strangely though, I did not die of laughter. If, almost, but not quite, smirking, in a clever-clogs way, was fatal, then I might be dead, but it isn't, so I am not.







*wub comma key*

 

[Paradroid]

Sounds like a good cliff-hanger starring Mel Gibson as the brain...

..."Runaway Brain"...