Because it’s arguably unethical to conduct a real experiment, this will remain a thought experiment. Inspired by the Allegory of the Cave, *The Truman Show * and Cube. Imagine that a couple is selected to give birth to a child in a white room. To ensure a controlled experiment, even in the nine months prior the couple lives in the white room. When the child is born, the clock starts. To be sure, this is no ordinary experiment and this is no ordinary room. Like in The Truman Show, every moment of the child is filmed; unlike The Truman Show, it is taken to the extreme as the child is born and raised in the white room. In the nine months prior, there will be nothing apparently interesting in the white room; the couple will be filmed talking to themselves about the expectant child, about the run-up to the decidedly live experiment, and what will happen once the experiment begins. As a prelude to what will happen during the experiment, the couple will be fed though a series of computer-controlled panels wherein food and beverage will be placed on them, the remains of which will be placed on the panels to be removed from the white room. Consequently, the human remains, feces and urine, will be removed from the white room in a similar manner. Standard issue clothing, along with other necessary items, will be changed and exchanged as needed.
Nothing will be introduced to the white room unless it is introduced by those conducting the experiment and anything introduced to the white room will be introduced by computer-controlled panels or other apparatuses on the walls of the white room. No humans, other than the couple and the child, will have any direct contact within the white room; conversely, the couple and the child will only have indirect contact with outside of the white room, i.e. via the panels.
A child is introduced in the white room.
The birth is the first significant event in the white room. The couple, trained by the experimenters, have a live birth. The umbilical cord is cut, and removed via the panels. The panels also clean up the amniotic fluids, and clothing is exchanged via the panels. Day 1 of the experiment: a father dressed in standard issue blue colored clothing, a mother dressed in standard issue blue colored clothing, and a naked infant, wrapped, perhaps symbolically, in swaddling clothes.
A father, a mother and child in the white room.
However, the experimenters have instructed the father and the mother on how to raise the son. They have instructed them to live as if they are not mother and father, or male or female. They understand that to mean live as Person 1 and Person 2 and Person 3. They are not allowed to name the child. They are not allowed to say their own names. They are forbidden to say “the white room” or even “room”. Above all, they must never, ever, say anything about “outside” the white room.
Other than that, the couple is instructed to raise the child as if he were their own child as in fact he is indeed. During the first year, they do just about everything that any other mother and father would do: change diapers (which are introduced and then removed via the panels), play with toys (which are introduced and them removed via the panels), and feed the baby, which, at first is by breastfeeding, and then though baby food and baby formula introduced via the panels.
When the child is two they teach him to walk. When the child is three and four they teach him how to talk and how to read (books being introduced via the panels).
After the child’s fifth birthday (which is not observed as time is not to be observed within the white room), he becomes a happy, healthy little boy who likes to jump and run around in the white room.
Soon the child begins to ask questions. Where does the food come from? Where did we come from? Who are you? Who am I?
The mother and the father just shrug and effectively say “I don’t know”.
The experiment goes on day by day. The couple and the child sleep when they effectively are tired for as long as they need to each day. They wake up when they wake up. Breakfast is provided via the panels. They eat. Lunch is provided via the panels. They eat. Dinner is provided via the panels. They eat. Clothes are provided via the panels. They change their clothes and put the identical clothing that became soiled and dirty into the panels to be removed. They sleep. Another day in the experiment.
On day 5480, the child turned 15. On that day, the child wakes up while the mother and father are sleeping. He rises up and puts his hands over the neck of the sleeping mother, strangling her. The mother dies. The child, now tired from what he had done, goes back to sleep. The mother’s body is immediately moved by the panels and then is removed from the white room. The father and the son wake up at the same time afterwards. The son says he did something to her.
“Who?”
The son was never taught the concept of murder. The son is now lied to by his father. The father lies saying, “There is no one else. There never was. There’s just you and me.”
The son now looks around at the white room. No blood. The blood had been removed from the white room without a trace.
Day 5481 of the experiment: a man wearing standard issue blue colored clothing stares at a man wearing standard issue blue colored clothing staring back.
Day 5482: a man stares at the white room.
Day 5483: the white room stares back.