Definition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_experiment
"...the process of employing imaginary situations to help us understand the way things really are (or, in the case of
Herman Kahn’s "scenarios", understand something about something in the future). The understanding comes through reflection upon this imaginary situation. Thought experimentation is
a priori, rather than an empirical process, in that the experiments are conducted within the imagination ("laboratory of the mind"), and never in fact."
Or, a better discussion of this concept can be found
here:
Thought experiments are devices of the imagination used to investigate the nature of things. ... Thought experiments should be distinguished from thinking about experiments, from merely imagining any experiments to be conducted outside the imagination, and from psychological experiments with thoughts.
They should also be distinguished from counterfactual reasoning in general, as they seem to require an experimental element.
The primary philosophical challenge of thought experiments is simple: How can we learn about reality (if we can at all), just by thinking? More precisely, are there thought experiments that enable us to acquire new knowledge about the intended realm of investigation without new data? If so, where does the new information come from if not from direct contact with the realm of investigation under consideration?...
Historically their role is very close to the double one played by actual laboratory experiments and observations.
There is widespread agreement that thought experiments play a central role both in philosophy and in the natural sciences and general acceptance of the importance and enormous influence and value of some of the well-known thought experiments in the natural sciences, like Maxwell's demon, Einstein's elevator or Schrödinger's cat... Much of ethics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mind is based firmly on the results of thought experiments as well, including Searle's Chinese room or Putnam's twin earth. Philosophy, even more than the sciences, would be severely impoverished without thought experiments, which suggests that a unified theory of thought experiments is desirable to account for them in both the sciences and the humanities. There have been attempts to define “thought experiment”, but likely it will be better to leave the term loosely characterized, so as not to prejudice the investigation. Many of the most important concepts we deal with are like this, e.g., religion or democracy.
Try using this concept in my thesis as a way of exploring the design outcomes.
See this
interactive example...be aware though that this one is about your views on abortion.
So, for my thesis...
- describe the experience of walking into a (badly designed) modern hospital room, then contrast this with a description of (1) an historical hospital room (2) a home - these descriptions will include sounds, smells, and texture/touch as well as what they look like
- then pose the question about the likely things you're feeling in each scenario under certain circumstances - which is better, why? - how do certain elements compound this feeling? (or contradict it)
- create different personas to help explain this, eg. create a person with a set of memories (past events, places they felt safe in etc, the smells etc associated with these places)
'Porirua', like Carrington, Tokenui, Kingseat, is still associated with the stigma of mental illness. Our guide through the museum gave us plenty of examples from his long and enthusiastic memories of this place.
Some interesting details:
