Twinearth Thought Experiment - Term Paper Example

Twin Earth Thought Experiment Twin Earth Thought Experiment is an experiment in which a word is associated in the minds of two people with similar specific list of attributes (Barber 2005, 49). It shows that the psychological state does not determine the extension of a word.The problem this thought experiment is meant to solve is the concept of meanings of English terms. Early philosophers tried to solve this problem by introducing a concept which involved the methodological solipsism assumption.

This is the assumption that no psychological state assumes the existence of any individual other than subject to whom the state is attributed to. This concept has failed severally to give the necessary results and thus it should be rejected.People have also tried to use is the notion of extension and intension to solve the problem. This notion although seemed to be the simplest, it actually complicated the whole problem. The terms, which are more problematic, are those having more than one sense like the words rabbit and set (Putnam 1975, 581).

It is proposed that treating each sense of a word as a different word can solve this problem of complication. It is due to these complications that the Twin Earth Experiment is preferred over this method.The Twin Earth thought experiment assumes that somewhere on the galaxy there exists a planet identical to earth called Twin Earth. The only difference experienced between Twin Earth and the Earth is the vernacular English spoken in either. These differences are contributed by the uniqueness of Twin Earth (Putnam 1975, 584).

It is believed that the chemical composition of the liquid called water on Twin Earth is not H2O but another complicated chemical which we shall assume as XYZ. In this experiment it is believed that XYZ performs on Twin Earth all the functions water perform on earth and it tastes like water. It is also known that at normal temperatures and pressure, H2O is different from XYZ. In addition, it is understood that oceans, seas, and lakes of Twin Earth contain XYZ and that it rains XYZ on Twin Earth.

Suppose now that we have two individuals with identical attributes, one from the earth and the other one from Twine Earth. If these individuals exist in the current society in which we can assume that the chemical composition of water is known both on earth and on Twin Earth, each will understand water differently. The one from the earth will understand water as H2O and the one on twin earth as XYZ. Now suppose that these two individuals exist in a time when the chemical composition of water was not known on both Twin Earth and the Earth.

In this case, it is hard to understand that they both understand the word water differently. Since they are on the same psychological state, we can conclude that the extension of psychological state is not a function of the psychological state of the speaker by itself.This idea can also be used with other English terms. In any case, it will yield the same results. So far, this theory has been successful in trying to explain the concept of meaning. According to me, it has helped in conceptualization of the idea of meaning of English terms in a simpler way.

Like any other method, it requires some bit of improvement in order to accommodate changes in the understanding of the current society.ReferenceBarber, A. 2005. Language and Thought. Milton Keynes: The Open University Press.Putnam, H. 1975. The Meaning of “Meanings”. In Language Mind and Knowledge, ed. K. Gunderson, 131-93. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.