Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

danhakimi t1_iyvld05 wrote

This strikes me as more of a parable than a thought experiment. It's a story, and there are some sorts of lessons in the story, but the language is flowery, designed to make you feel something, and the main downfall is Hannibal having fallen too deep into character, which is hardly a philosophical issue, more of an issue internal to the plot.

It's vaguely reminiscent of the Chinese Room, but the Chinese room is not 95% story and 5% question, it's a simple hypothetical designed to evoke a focused question.

Any story can be framed as a thought experiment, but a true thought experiment is focused on debating a specific question, rather than focusing on motivations of characters and the bonds of friendship and stuff like that.

3