The Alan Sondheim Mail Archive

The double thought experiment of Wittgenstein (also known as the double
earth experiment)

Imagine, says Wittgenstein, there is another earth, another thought. That
this is correlative with what you conceive of as your earth, your thought.
But there is a modicum of control from the other earth, other thought. It
may be of the order of full control, or nothing more than the slightest
influence. It is as if a door has opened between the other earth, other
thought, into what you think of as your earth, your thought. As if it were
a matter of scale. But that something you think, you might think as a
result of the other earth, other thought, has been taken from you. That it
is not as it was or might have been. There is the matter of free will, you
think, if there is such an other earth, other thought. But the correlative
or influence may well depend on free will, may be integrative with free
will, that perhaps free will has shifted to the other earth, other
thought. Or the other earth, other thought has shifted free will upon
yourself, not only for all intents and purposes, but also for all physical
experiments and measurements, as if such a thing were possible. That is,
everything you might think or do would appear to one which is to say, to
you, as if there were free will, which would be no contradiction, i.e. it
would be the same or identical with free will. You may in fact have this
thought on this earth, that there is an other earth, other thought, as if
the other earth, other thought permitted you this earth and this thought.
And so you remain at an impasse and Wittgenstein says, this impasse is all
the same, it is all there is, as he has said elsewhere, it is all that is
the case.

(When he says this, it is as if a door opens, into space, a very ordinary
door in fact.