The Intuitive Advantage

Thought Experiments: Exploring the "What Ifs" of International Relations

This podcast episode explores the fascinating world of thought experiments and their application to the field of International Relations (IR). While often overlooked, thought experiments offer a powerful tool for IR scholars to test existing theories, refine complex concepts, and generate new hypotheses about the world around us.

Here's what we'll cover:

● What are thought experiments? We'll discuss how they work, drawing parallels to scientific experiments conducted in a "laboratory of the mind". We'll also address common criticisms and explore the epistemological foundations of thought experiments, particularly their role in harnessing scholarly intuition.

● Beyond "What if Franz Ferdinand survived?": We'll move beyond the traditional Minimal Rewrite Counterfactuals (MRCs) to uncover a diverse range of thought experiments employed in IR67. We'll examine how imagining alien invasions, zombie apocalypses, and even altered historical events can offer valuable insights into international politics.

Five ways thought experiments enhance IR research:

○ Testing modal consequences of macro-level theories: How can thought experiments help us understand the implications of theories, especially when real-world experimentation is impossible?

○ Refining concepts: We'll discuss how thought experiments can help clarify the meaning of key IR concepts like "the state", "war", and "terrorism".

○ Exploring grand theoretical scales: Thought experiments are particularly suited for examining macro-scales of human organization and international systems, where traditional empirical research faces limitations.

○ Probing black swan events: We'll examine how imagining improbable events like nuclear war or climate catastrophe can help us prepare for the unthinkable.

○ Facilitating public engagement: How can thought experiments make complex IR topics more accessible and engaging for a wider audience?

A new typology for understanding thought experiments: We'll introduce a new typology based on the structure of thought experiments, helping you categorize, compare, and adapt them for your own research. This typology will help you identify whether a thought experiment focuses on changes to agents (like individual leaders) or structures (like international institutions), and the scale of those changes.

Join us as we unlock the power of "what if" thinking and discover how thought experiments can deepen our understanding of international politics.

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Duration:: 9m
Broadcast on:: 13 Sep 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

Ever find yourself kind of like lost in those what if rabbit holes? You know, like, what if I actually invested in that tiny company? What was it? Google way back when? Or what if I had just taken that left turn back there instead of going right? Totally. It's really wild how our brains love to play in those alternate realities. And actually, that's what we're diving into today, that whole what if thing. But like on a global scale, you know, with international relations and before you think we're just messing around with daydreams here, let me tell you, this is serious stuff. We're going to unpack how those what ifs, those thought experiments can actually be like this powerful tool to understand all the craziness of global politics. And lucky for us, we've got this great article by Adam B. Lerner, harnessing intuition and disciplining abstraction, thought experiments and international relations to guide us. This article, man, it really flipped my thinking about how we make sense of everything. We always hear international relations and it sounds so huge, right? Like this massive web of countries and conflicts and treaties. It can definitely feel overwhelming for sure. But when you get down to it, it's really about trying to wrap your head around the wise and hows of how countries deal with each other. Exactly. It's about the underlying dynamics, the motivations. Right. And that's where learners take on thought experiments comes in. He's saying it's a way to kind of break down those super complicated interactions into these smaller, more manageable chunks. It's like using a microscope to examine something up close. Yeah, I like that. Yeah. And speaking of up close, Lerner actually uses this great example, Cleopatra's nose. So picture this. What if Cleopatra, you know, the Egyptian queen, what if her nose was, well, let's just say less than queenly. I've heard that theory before, that her nose was a bit, um, yeah, less than Regal, would Mark Anthony have been so smitten? Would history have gone down a totally different path? It's a classic thought experiment for a reason. It forces you to consider those seemingly insignificant details. And how those details can snowball into these huge historical shifts. It really makes you question this whole idea of cause and effect. And that's precisely what Lerner is getting at when he calls thought experiments, scientific investigations that play out in the laboratory of the mind. It's not about letting your imagination run wild. There's a real method to it. It's like we're putting on our scientist hats, but instead of test tubes and beakers, we're using our brains. Exactly. So instead of those fancy labs, we've got our own mental labs going on. That's a great way to put it. And honestly, it's super useful, especially with something like international relations, because like you can't exactly run a controlled experiment on a global scale. Oh, yeah, right. Like, Hey, let's just have country A invade country B and see what's up. Totally can't do that. It definitely breaks a few ethical codes right there. It's just a tad. Yeah. But you see with these thought experiments, we actually get to mess around with those scenarios, those ones that would be impossible or, you know, like straight up wrong to try out in real life. Makes sense. And plus, isn't the world of international relations, like completely overflowing with information? Oh, absolutely. It's like drinking from a fire hose, trying to keep up with it all. Seriously, though. But these thought experiments, they're like this awesome filter. They help us cut through all that noise and really zero in on the core logic of a situation, you know, like what really matters here. I'm with you so far. And what's really cool is learner lays out these five key ways we can actually use them. So first off, and this is huge, we can use thought experiments to kind of stress test our theories. Stress test. OK, now that sounds interesting. Yeah, right. It's like putting those theories through the ringer, seeing if they can handle the heat. So let's say you're trying to figure out why a global pandemic spread so rapidly. Oh, I'm following. So you might have this theory that it's all about how people travel around the world, right? But then you could use a thought experiment to create the scenario where everything about international travel is exactly the same, but the public health systems totally different. Oh, interesting. So it's like you're controlling for certain factors in your head to see what really makes difference. Yeah, that whole scientific method thing, but like super sized. You got it. And that leads us to the second awesome use for thought experiments. They can help us like fine tune how we understand these really complex ideas, you know, particularly those terms that carry a lot of baggage. Like when we talk about war or terrorism. Yeah, those are definitely not simple terms, not at all. What I might consider an active terrorism, someone else might call a fight for freedom, you see, definitely a gray area, exactly. But with a well crafted thought experiment, you can poke at those boundaries, examine those gray areas. We can ask what actually makes the state a state and what happens when those lines get blurry. So we're going beyond just simple definitions and really wrestling with the complexities. Exactly. It's about nuance. And this is what I love, it's not just about international relations. It supplies to so much in life for sure, for sure. And it gets even cooler. Learner's third use for thought experiments is all about coming up with totally new ideas. It's like asking what if and just seeing where that takes you, you know, going off a map. So instead of just looking back at the past, we can use these thought experiments to imagine different futures, explore all the what ifs. Exactly. Let's say you're super passionate about tackling climate change, right? You could use a thought experiment to imagine a world where every single country has gone 100% renewable energy. What happens then? What new problems pop up? What awesome opportunities emerge? It's like we're giving ourselves permission to think outside the box to envision solutions we never even considered before. Exactly. And that kind of thinking is crucial, especially when we're dealing with these massive global challenges. But sometimes it's not about finding those solutions. You know, it's about bracing ourselves for the totally unexpected. That's where learners fourth use comes in, understanding those black swan events. Oh, yeah, those are those things that seem to come out of nowhere, right? Like a global pandemic that throws everyone for a loop or like a sudden financial meltdown. You nailed it. It's those things we often tell ourselves, nah, that can never happen. But when we use thought experiments to really imagine those unlikely scenarios, we can start to prepare ourselves for a much wider range of possibilities. It's like we're taking that whole, expect the unexpected thing to a whole new level, totally. And to really get the most out of these thought experiments, learner, he suggests thinking of them on a spectrum. He calls it the rewrite spectrum. And it's honestly brilliant. It's like this way to categorize the different types of thought experiments. OK, a spectrum. You've definitely got my attention now. Tell me more. So on one end of the spectrum, we've got what learner calls minimal rewrite thought experiments. And basically these involve making like the tiniest tweaks to history, you know, like imagine hitting rewind on a specific event, changing just one tiny detail and then seeing how everything plays out differently. So instead of those late night, what ifs about my own life is more like, what if Archduke Franz Ferdinand had just taken a different route that day in Sarajevo? Exactly. Would World War One have still happened with the entire 20th century of unfolded in a totally different way? These minimal rewrite thought experiments, they make you reconsider those moments in history that seem inevitable. Wow. It's amazing to think how one small change could have such massive ripple effects. But what happens when we want to like crank things up a bit? What's the next level on this spectrum of yours? All right. So that's where we move into moderate rewrite territory. Now we're talking about introducing some bigger changes, really shaking things up. But we're still generally playing within the realm of what's actually possible, you know, like what if aliens landed on Earth tomorrow? Or what if a massive solar flare just wiped out all global communication? OK, so now we're venturing into sci-fi territory, but like with a purpose. Precisely, these moderate rewrite scenarios, even though they're fictional, they can reveal a lot about how our world actually works. Like let's say you imagine this huge global cyber attack. That thought experiment could expose all sorts of vulnerabilities in those interconnected systems we rely on. Right. Or what about a scenario where some crazy new technology pops up and totally disrupts the balance of power on a global scale? Exactly. It's like we're using fiction as a lens to examine potential realities to see where the pressure points are. I like that using fiction to prepare for reality. But then there's that really extreme end of the spectrum, right? Maximum rewrite. Oh, yeah. That's why we really let our imaginations go wild. We're talking about dreaming up completely new worlds with totally different rules and systems. It's like stepping through a portal into an alternate dimension. So let's what if the internet was never invented and more like what if humans had evolved to communicate telepathically instead of with language? Now you're getting it. Learner actually throws out a really interesting one. Imagine a world without any borders. How would we even function? Would our current ideas about government even make sense in that kind of world? It's mind blowing to even try to picture it. But I can see how grappling with those maximal rewrite scenarios, those really out there ones could help us understand the very core of human nature and how we build societies. Absolutely. And that's the beauty of thought experiments of all kinds. They let us step outside our usual ways of thinking, challenge our own assumptions and just explore in a whole universe of possibilities. And the best part is you don't need to be an academic or anything to play along. That's so true. Anyone can use these thought experiments to really deepen their understanding of the world, to ask better questions and to have those aha moments. It's like we've unlocked this secret level of thinking. I love that because in the end thought experiments, they're not just about exploring these hypothetical situations. They're about cultivating a mindset, you know, a mindset of curiosity, critical thinking and a willingness to embrace the unknown. So for everyone listening, we'll leave you with this. What, what if scenario has really been sticking with you? What world are you going to create in the laboratory of your own mind? Until next time, happy thinking, everyone.