In the 20th century, thought experiments played a key role in defining a physics revolution. No wonder these exercises are so popular in philosophy.įrom an Einstein puzzler developed while writing up his special theory of relativity to a brain-twisting exercise that could prove computers don’t really understand language, here are four modern thought experiments that will test your mental mettle (and probably fire up some heated debates at your next family dinner).Įinstein’s Train-and-Embankment Thought Experiment And hopefully, through the process of unpacking circular reasoning (when you use evidence to support a claim that is just repeating the claim itself) and rhetorical logic (the art of persuasion), the thought experiment will illustrate some sort of big idea. ✅ A thought experiment doesn’t really have an answer-and that’s the whole point these sometimes strange, open-ended questions use hypothetical scenarios to let your creativity and problem solving run wild, according to The Decision Lab. But we do know the first written evidence of thought experiments comes from ancient Greece, where pre-Socratic philosophers used them to solve math equations. Typically delivered in narrative form with accompanying diagrams, thought experiments are used in wide-ranging disciplines for “entertainment, education, conceptual analysis, exploration, hypothesizing, theory selection” and more, according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.īut no one knows when the first thought experiments took place, according to The Decision Lab, an applied research firm that specializes in behavioral science. Such “thought experiments” are carried out using one’s imagination rather than doing actual research. Have you ever imagined the solution to a logic problem instead of calculating it?

Lenina thought train