The practical application of thought experimentation

A thought experiment in the broadest sense is the use of a hypothetical scenario to help us know the way things actually are. There are many different types of thought experiments. All thought experiments, however, employ a methodology that is a priori, rather than empirical, in that they do not proceed by observation or physical experiment. Thought experiments have been used in a variety of fields, including philosophy, law, physics, and mathematics. In philosophy, they have been used at least since classical antiquity, some pre-dating Socrates. In law, they were famous to Roman lawyers quoted in the Digest. In physics and other sciences, distinguished thought experiments date from the 19th and particularly the 20th century, but examples can be found at least as early as Galileo. Thought experiments often introduce interesting, important and valuable new perspectives on old mysteries and old questions; yet, although they may make old questions unrelated, they may also create new questions that are not easy to answer. In terms of their practical application, thought experiments are generally created in order to:

• Challenge the current status quo (which includes activities such as correcting misinformation (or misapprehension), identify flaws in the argument(s) presented, to preserve (for the long-term) objectively established fact, and to refute specific assertions that some particular thing is permissible, forbidden, known, believed, possible, or necessary);
• Extrapolate beyond the boundaries of already recognized fact;
• Predict and forecast the indefinite and unknowable future;
• Explain the past;
• The retrodiction, postdiction and postcasting of the indefinite and unknowable past;
• Facilitate decision making, choice and strategy selection;
• Solve problems, and produce ideas;
• Move current problems into another, more helpful and more productive problem space
• Attribute causation, inevitability, blame and responsibility for specific outcomes;
• Assess culpability and compensatory damages in social and legal contexts;
• Ensure the repeat of past success;
• Examine the extent to which past events might have occurred differently.
• Ensure the (future) avoidance of past failures.