Following up on the previous Thought ∩ Experiment, this post looks through a different lens to provide an additional perspective.
A thought experiment is “an imaginary scenario that is meant to elucidate or test an argument or theory. It is often an experiment that would be hard, impossible, or unethical to actually perform. It can also be an abstract hypothetical that is meant to test our intuitions about morality or other fundamental philosophical questions.”
It is imaginary – related to but separate from reality. The thought experiment is informed by and intended to reason about reality. These are important relationships and distinctions.
The same can be said about the map and territory as well as of course the model and the modeled, but we clearly do not look at a map and confuse it for a thought experiment. Other defining features, in particular with respect to the experiment aspect matter.
A thought experiment is narrative and because things usually happen in some order, i.e. not all perfectly at once also inhabit temporality. As such it is naturally distinct from any static representation: Its narrative is necessarily dynamic.
An experiment is usually motivated by a hypothesis and generally has these four parts:
- A defined starting condition, as rigorously as necessary for the given context.
- A change or intervention.
- Observation(s) of what occurred after the change, e.g. consequences.
- Interpretation of the observations(s), in the context of your hypothesis.
This describes one pass and experimentation is often cyclical, so observations and their related learning are taken into account next time, potentially resulting in an updated experiment. In a thought experiment of course, (2) and (3) are in your imagination, not actually done in reality.
A thought experiment’s goal is almost always to improve your understanding. If it does not change your thinking in some way, then it really is not effective for you, at that time.
The best thought experiments help you update your own mental models, change how you view the world.