philosophical japanese quiz question TRY TO ANSWER
I saw this on a japanese website a long time ago and wanted to share.
Let's say that there is a button that allows you to instantly get $1000000, would you press it?
Well there's a catch.
The instant you press the button, you'll be teleported to a void in space time continuum where you will be forced to stay all alone for the next 500 thousand years. There will be no one but you, and there will be nothing around you. It will just be an endless stretch of darkness.
HOWEVER! After you spend those 500 thousand years, you will come back to real life and you will FORGET about the 500 thousand years you spent in the void.
It will be as if you just pressed the button and instantly got $1000000.
So would you press the button?
I almost forgot. You can also press the button multiple times. So you could press it 10 times in a row for 10 million dollars but that would mean you spend 5000 thousand years in the void.
6 Comments • Newest first
If it's given that you might as well treat it as if nothing would happen if the button were to be pressed, I would definitely press it.
But if the laws of science still apply to this continuum, then I'd be dead in the first minute or so from lack of oxygen, or if there is oxygen in this continuum, then death from starvation and dehydration. In that instance, it would technically be impossible, so I wouldn't press it. But if I just remained dead for the next 500,000 years and were to come back to life afterwards as if I had just pressed it, that is no different than nothing happening. (But a real philosophical question: if I were to come back to life, would I still be the same person/self as the one who pressed the button? A question that Derek Parfit and many others would probably ask.)
Anything else implies that I would have 'transcended' beyond human limitations (like a God, or some other being past the sensible realm), and so technically the question would be whether or not I would be "suffering" at all given that I would no longer carry some of the fundamental qualities that would otherwise make me a human being.
I would rather posit a more interesting, but similar philosophical scenario for your interest:
If you press the button, you win $200,000, but someone you don't know will die. Would you do it? (Taken from the short story 'Button, Button' by Richard Matheson, adapted into a Twilight Zone episode & a movie 'The Box'.)
I don't think the human brain can handle that desolation for that long. Chances are you'll try to kill yourself in the void.
@tiesandbowties: surprisingly a lot of people. i think it appeals to some people because of the fact that you would forget about the 500 thousand years of suffering in the void and no time would've actually passed in real life
I would forget about the void because I would be dead in the first century of void wandering.
Although it would be funny to just let my corpse teleport to a random area, if I were to say yes can I choose where I place my decaying body?
Can I contract smallpox on my final second of life, so when my corpse appears with $1,000,000.00, the person who finds and steals my money also gets smallpox?
I guess it doesn't matter, I wouldn't press it.
"It will be as if you just pressed the button and instantly got $1000000."
-Press-
who would answer yes to that lol
especially for such a small amount of money.