A few days ago I was lucky enough to be invited to a series of talk about Symmetries in Geneva. We were five speakers, three cosmologists, one biologist and yours truly.
We had together with the speakers, members of the organisation and various guests, passionate discussions about symmetries naturally as each of us was curious about the way others will approach the topic. Throughout the week, we touched on a number of subjects: pedagogy, communication, music, food, politics, arts, etc.
I wonder to what extent it’s a “deformation professionnelle” of mine, but I love to spot patterns within people. One thing was certain: this particular lot was quite smart and accomplished in their respective fields.
But this was neither here nor there. What was far more interesting was a curious common denominator they shared, the best way I can put it is:
An ability to do thought experiments and the willingness to play along with them.
In my last article I was exploring the idea of “seeing what is not there”. At the moment I am asking myself if a thought experiment is manifestly a way to materialize creativity?
In its essence a thought experiment requires the ability to make assumptions beyond the ordinary and/or beyond what is established. In many ways they permit to draw an invisible path between the good old “What if…” to the glorious “Actually this does not sound like utter rubbish”. What a thought experiment also requires is the acceptance of the discomfort of the unfamiliar. Not only the path from one thought to another is unknown but it can lead to absolutely nowhere, or and this could be less pleasant, an expression of one’s own intellectual limitations.
Hand in hand with the ability to make a thought experiment is the willingness to play along with one. Indeed, this counterpart demands the intelligence to follow a line of arguments drawn by another, as well as the confidence in oneself to not feel bad if you can’t keep up. The receiver of the thought process is potentially far from passive, especially if they participate and contribute to narrowing the path by asking questions and making a detour by “This is fascinating, have you considered…” or “This will never work but it’s fun to think about it”, hence their role ought not to be neglected. Good listening is a bijection after all.
Before this realization, I had never quite appreciated to what extent they play a core part in scientific reasoning but not only, they can be very powerful in making a spark of an idea move forward.
Now, here are a few questions for you dear reader, what is your favorite thought experiment? Which thought experiment do you wish you had thought about first ? Finally, when was the last time you ventured down the thought experiment road? Let me know, I am curious.
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