Summary

I realized how I use the Thought Experiment at work to solve problems. Celebrating the thought experiment as a tool of modern science and a way to use our imaginations. The basis of this argument: Thought experiments help us figure out the consequences before we make the mistake. Using our imaginations to ask better questions transforms our intellects. This is a case for using your imagination.

What I Learned in School Today

A long time ago, in some physics or chemistry class, I was presented some work based on “thought experiments“. I can tell it wasn’t a conceptual structure that much interested me – perhaps figuring it out was secondary to the challenge of figuring out the lesson at hand. I recall when the thought experiment finally became vivid to me: While reading a book on Einstein’s life and work, I remember reading that he conjured those world-changing ideas by way of thought experiment.

A Patent Advantage

As I recall, Einstein’s early career was spent working in a patent office. As it was probably described and as I loosely imagine it, one would see many examples of conceptual illustrations by reviewing patent applications. It follows that in evaluating them, a reviewer would simulate the concept by mashing together the written description and the illustration(s). Much practice at this – for the appropriate mind – would be a growth factor or accelerator for conceptual simulations.

A Foundation for Modern Physics

My college education gave me the impression that much of modern physics is based on thought experiments. After all, how else would Michelson and Morley test the aether? Well, this is one of those things that brought me to life in a way I hadn’t been before. On the personal side was my entire life history simulating – in some combination of memory and imagination – scenarios that I could learn from. On the intellectual and pedagogical side was the wonder of how brilliant a tool they had. Thought experiments proved wonderful at crashing through mythical fabrics of non-science. I viewed this as a new justice, since it seemed those myths had held back human progress from what it could achieve. And, they were so effective because they were both supported by mathematics and useful for extending mathematics as a platform for thinking.

A Punctuated Equilibrium is our Mental Evolution

Later in life, as I pursued a 10-year program towards my bachelors and masters degrees in cognitive science, I learned that tool-making in primates is a mark of cognitive evolution. As species were pressured to adapt to new settings, they could devise tools from materials in their surroundings. (The hairless apes I call my professional brethren now call this design.) For instance, non-human primate tools might be twigs used to extract insects from plants, or rocks to crack open mollusks. I think it’s a special type of perspective to look at how cognition evolves. And, I think it’s a special type of empowerment to see the thought experiment as a recent tool we’ve come up with. There are perhaps other punctuation marks in this equilibrated narrative of human evolution, but this one is dear to me because of its degree of abstraction.

Question-driven Imagination

While many of my fellow design-oriented hairless apes think science is evil, cold, and out-moded, I love it. I fell in love with it when I realized that its modern way was to use your imagination to craft bigger problems and to crack them open with simpler solutions. Problems are really questions. They are hard questions. Sometimes they glance off your mind, only to have shaken you in a way you didn’t expect. However, they can be so massive as to be seen as witchcraft or bloviation by those who don’t understand them.

The science teachers whom I saw connecting with their students would often say that the practice of science is asking better questions. This was beautiful and inspiring to me. Of course, when I’m stuck in traffic or feeling like I dont’ have enough money to support my family, it seems trivial. But, when I think of something to teach my children that would keep them inquisitive, it is this: Ask yourself  questions. Figure them out. Ask yourself harder questions. Keep figuring them out. Keep asking harder questions.

I say harder questions to mean something like ‘more sophisticated’ questions. Those teachers who had become philosophers of their practice – as the PhD is intended to mark – would describe it as asking ‘better’ questions. Better means more elegant. It’s not just about asking complex questions, but asking the most appropriate questions. The question should be well-stated.  This is where I challenge my designer colleagues who despise science as a cold practice. Science is about using your imagination to hone your ability to relate to and make sense of the world to the point that you achieve the elegance of a master craftsman.

Incremental enlightenment

In design-for-hire work, we frequently encounter a benefactor whose meddling so hinders the design process that you wonder how they are even employed at all. They tend to mettle in places they should not. They tend to issue edicts when they should ask questions. However, many of our wonderful benefactors have not worked in the type of design project they have just contracted out. So, how then, can we expect them to know they should ask or tell? I’ve come to think of this as us demanding that our clients achieve enlightenment on the spot. That helps, because it points out how absurd our demand is.

We in user experience make a practice of helping companies approach their business problems from an other’s perspective. If we’re fortunate, we help them ask better questions as we earn their trust.  After reading a few books about enlightenment – and, dare I say, having striven for it myself a few times, only to have the wax in my wings melt – I realize that this is a state very few humans ever achieve. So, I returned to the thought experiment as a tool by seeing that it provides an incremental enlightenment. It allows you to simulate life experiences you might not have. It allows you to simulate the story of another with yourself in the first-person.

However,  it demands rigor. That is, you’re not likely to get a patent approved for a money tree, because it’s rather straightforward that they don’t exist and will not be made. There is a Scientific Method that outlines how to apply and maintain rigor. Similarly, one must be rigorous in the thought experiment. But, rigor is strengthening when most people think it is stifling. In fact, many designers who dislike science can be found to apply and demand rigor in the practice and definition(s) of design.

Why do I ask? It’s all about Consequences…

The basis of this argument: Thought experiments help us figure out the consequences before we make the mistake. Using our imaginations to ask better questions transforms our intellects.  Working in UX means seeing people make mistakes because they don’t figure out the consequences. Actually, just regular social interaction in the course of a day exposes you to people making mistakes because they don’t figure out the consequences. In fact, it seems that we have whole corporate institutions and fields of business meant to prevent us from common mistakes. (And, snake oil salesmen to relieve us the grief of those same common mistakes.) I see the people I want to be around are those who have sharpened their intellects such they will figure things out before they make mistakes. It’s not about being an actuary or a priest or a professor. It is about having the respect for your practice and yourself to be as good as you can be.

It’s also about Perspective…

You see, I believe that applying user experience – by imagining and designing for user’s and not for the designer – is an exercise in performing a thought experiment similar to the one Einstein used to describe his Theory of Relativity.
Among the consequences of his thought experiment are that one realizes there is no absolute frame of reference for measuring time or velocity. I see this as translating to: There is not absolute frame of reference for measuring quality, satisfaction, effectiveness, value, or usability. (Or, any other aspect of the user experience.) And, yet, a predictable occurrence in design-for-hire relationships is that the benefactor – ahem, stakeholder – presumes his/her frame of reference as absolute. This blasphemy is made worse by the fact that the benefactor will then justify their absolution with this modifier: “If I were the user, …” Oh, yes, my dear, but you are not. And, even if and when you are, there is a host of cognitive principles illustrating that you are too biased to honestly evaluate those situations.  Perspective is humbling, and it is profitable. Understanding what others need will bring you rewarding relationships – whether you want monetary or karmic rewards. I would extend that to say that enlightenment is humbling and profitable. I just don’t think there’s a good model for corporate enlightenment yet. In fact, the tone of my profession’s discourse shows that there’s not really a good model for perspective in corporations. I expect there can be good models because corporations can be treated like individuals, and there are good models for individuals to achieve perspective.

It Takes Confidence to Imagine

On the better days of being a father and a friend, I hope that I encourage people to use their imaginations. After a little while of actually trying, I see that many people don’t trust their imaginations.

In one way, I suspect that we compartmentalize our more lustful imaginings away from work – if not away from others altogether. In fact, I suspect that many people only regard their imaginations as the places where their hidden desires live, and thus the realm of the id. In another way, I suspect that people don’t trust their own minds, their own intelligences, their own cognitive abilities, to be able to figure things out.

The days I’ve enjoyed the most at work are when I’ve taken on a new situation and crafted a solution spontaneously. If it’s at all frightening, that feeling is the same as the risk of falling while rock-climbing.

We’ve all seen John Lennon’s beckoning to imagine. And, sadly, that seems to have made it passe.

The Corporate Imagination

A professional goal of mine is to run a Labs or R&D group. You see, this is where I think corporations apply their imaginations.

When I started working in UX, I noticed that some of the best products were coming out of teams that called themselves “Labs”. Or else, they came from start-ups that conceived a new solution. It were as if those were the only two (financially sanctioned) ways to apply your imagination.

The Labs-model is what I see as the way corporations can learn to use their imaginations. When I was studying science, I fully expected to graduate with a PhD and then work my way into an R&D group who was coming up with new products, new tools, new ideas, but – most important – new questions to ask.

Just reminding myself of this sparks a flame that is inspiring. I hope that as we think some old single-celled organisms absorbed smaller things we now call Mitochondria as a way to generate energy, that corporations will absorb people who have a skill at using their imaginations to ask better questions. The corporations need fuel, and we always need new tools.