Mental Models & Product #6: Relativity & Thought Experiments
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In my previous article, I talked about cognitive biases and how difficult it is to actively challenge them. That got me thinking: how can we eliminate thinking fallacies through empathy? How could we, perhaps, take a step out of our individual “thinking bubble” to introduce another layer of objectivity in our thinking?
What is relativity?
Relativity focuses on how several observers estimate the same event.
Considered one of the most important physics concepts popularized by Einstein, the theory of relativity focuses on both special relativity (all physical phenomena in the absence of gravity) and general relativity (laws of gravity and its relation to other special forces of nature).
This theory was transformative in the physics space (specifically theoretical physics and astronomy) where it helped introduce concepts like the unified entity of space and time, improved the study of fundamental interactions between elementary particles, and predicted many fun things in astronomy.
Now, I have to put a disclaimer out there: I was a terrible physics student — I dropped physics after Grade 9 and as a teenager, declared I would never become an engineer because I did not want to take another physics class ever again. So to really understand the vast and complex concept of relativity, we need to break it down to the basics:
Let’s start with the history of gravity. Introduced in Isaac Newton’s laws of motion, gravity is the force of attraction between two objects. The force tugging between two bodies is supposed to depend on how massive each one is and how far apart they lie. There were some flaws in Newton’s theory, so Einstein decided to investigate and further prove classical physics concepts. In one of his thought experiments, he noticed discrepancies in his findings with previous equations.
“Time flies when you’re having fun”
That led to his eventual exploration in the theory of special relativity: that the speed of light within a vacuum is the same no matter the speed travelled, so events that occur at the same time for one observer could occur at a totally different time than another observer. This was known as space-time. He found that if the speed of light is constant, then people must experience time differently.
Einstein found the concept “time dilation” while taking a train at home. He realized that the faster we moved through space, the slower we move through time. Richard Feynman proved it with a setup of lights and mirrors, where he found that the moving clock runs slower than when it was at rest.
Einstein noticed that massive objects distorted space-time. This showed that mass and energy are interchangeable, which introduced one of the most famous equations ever written: e=mc². This equation is derived from the finding that as an object moves, its mass also increases — they are just different forms of the same thing.
“Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That’s relativity.” — Albert Einstein
Using the concepts of Time Dilation, when we are moving fast or when we are subjected to the “gravitational pull” of something we are attracted to, we experience time relatively slower than someone standing still doing nothing. I know. So trippy.
Learning about the concept of relativity is the cause of many new shower thoughts like “do frequent flyers age slower because they are always moving around so much or are they getting older because they are always in the air?”. It also helps put things into perspective and generate empathy beyond the physical impacts of relativity. From a broader lens, relativity demonstrates that one situation can be looked at in many different ways by other people, and understanding those variations can help us have meaningful conversations with them.
So is everything relative?
To recap: Special relativity explains that some events and things can look different to people in different locations or motion at different speeds. General relativity was the byproduct of special relativity when Einstein felt like it was insufficient to describe the whole universe. General relativity emphasizes that the curve space-time at any point in the universe will depend on how much gravitational force is present in the area. All this to say that the natural world allows no ruling frames of reference.
(source: differencebetween.net)
When disagreements happen and a compromise can’t be reached, a common conclusion is to “agree to disagree”, since it is believed that “everything is relative anyway” — it implies that everyone believes in their own truths and that there aren’t any absolute truths in the world. So is everything really relative? Not necessarily, since ironically, the statement “it is all relative” is absolute in itself.
Instead, “agreeing to disagree” is a flawed statement since its initial goal was to get someone to agree with the opposing view, and when they don’t, the two parties come to a shared admission of failure — when in fact, it is more important to identify discussions (or debates) that don’t require an agreement as an outcome but more of a shared understanding as a goal.
Taking it back to the theory of relativity, it doesn’t mean that someone in motion who is experiencing time differently than the stationary you is wrong on time. They don’t have to agree with you that the time that you are experiencing is the same time that they are experiencing, because it’s not accurate to their conclusion of time.
If we valued understanding more than the need to agree, we can truly make the most out of relativity’s nature.
The need for greater empathy.
Empathy is the critical success of the Product Management trade. This can be sometimes contradictory as there is an innate assumption that PMs are also expected to “know” the answers.
Similar to the theory of relativity, relativity is among different stakeholder groups are based on biases. When prioritizing new candidates, bugs, or customer detractors, there are two different POVs we need to take into account: the business value and the customer impact.
As mentioned in my article about Game Theory, while we can assume that each actor in the game is rational and acting in their self-interest, each actor’s rationality is also relative. What is important to the executive team (driving big $$$ to the company) maybe not as important to the design team (making the site’s brand consistent and accurate).
The goal again is not to get everyone to agree to our roadmap, because we ultimately can’t please everyone, but to understand why the decisions were made.
A question that I think about a lot as a Product Manager is “how can I say no to stakeholders but they feel like they are still invited to come back?”. I want my stakeholders to trust me, to assume good intentions about the roadmap, to feel like they have a two-way partnership to uncover what’s needed for our team to do great work.
The key is to understand everybody’s journey (stakeholders include customers too) and understand where they are coming from. Using the analogy of time dilation, providing everybody with an opportunity to be heard will “slow” the conversations down (striving to achieve similar velocity) and ensuring everyone is on the same page (a constant like the speed of light).
Einstein’s way of thinking.
“When finding empirical evidence is impossible, we turn to thought experiments to unspool complex concepts.” — Shane Parrish
Another takeaway from the theory of relativity is Einstein’s hallmark usage of Gedankenexperiment (visualized thought experiments) as a fundamental tool for understanding physical issues. A thought experiment is a logical argument cast within the context of an imaginary scenario.
(source: Wikipedia)
A scientific thought experiment, in this specific case, may examine the implications of a theory, law, or set of principles with the aid of fictive and/or natural particles in an idealized environment. They can only provide conclusions based on deductive and inductive reasoning from their starting assumptions. This process can utilize inferencing mechanisms, existing representations, and general world knowledge to construct and manipulate a mental simulation of the experiment.
(source: jstor)
In Einstein’s case, he used moving trains and flashes of lightning to explain special relativity. He also considered a person falling off a roof, accelerating elevators to explain general relativity. The usage of thought experiments helped him explore often impossible scenarios and predict their implications/outcomes. And he was not the only one. Galileo and Ernst Mach were the few brilliant people who used them as well.
Thought experiments are usually rhetorical and no particular answer can or should be found. Some famous examples would be the Trolley Problem, the Veil of Ignorance, or even the Prisoner’s Dilemma.
Let’s dive into one.
There is a fast-moving runaway streetcar that’s charging towards five overnight workers. You’re in the control booth and you’re seeing it happen in real-time. There’s only a fraction of time for you to possibly pull the switch that will move the train into another parallel track, but there is a worker on said track working alone.
The trolley problem dives into two different concepts of morality: Do we choose the action with the best overall consequence — utilitarianism (one person dying instead of five), or do we adhere to strict duties (choosing passivity to not actively kill a human being)? This thought experiment has had ripple effects on philosophy, neuroscience, politics, and more relevantly, research on driverless cars.
So how do we experiment with the thought?
“Show me the hard facts…” is something I default to regularly when I think about backing up an argument or theory. When reading more about this topic, I was trying to understand how to draw the line between guided intuition and a full-blown conspiracy theory. For example, there is a thought experiment called Twin Earth that proposes a Twin equivalent of every person and thing here on Earth, with one difference of not having water on Twin Earth. This provoked criticism from some philosophers, calling it “intuition pumps” where the thought experiment is set up in such a way that one’s intuitions will be pumped in the desired direction, which would lead to blind spots and faulty intuition.
A thought experiment is almost like a prediction. We start with a hypothesis and a scenario. This will help us digest the complex hypothesis by turning it into forms of narratives and analogies.
Shane Parrish writes another great article (of course) about thought experiments and provides a ton of detail on what they look like. He breaks down the different types of thought experiments, thought experiments in science and philosophy, and goes into in-depth details about a few famous examples. I highly recommend it as a follow-up read.
There are seven types of thought experiments, where one reason from either cause to effects or effects to causes.
- Prefactual: Anticipates future outcomes from the present situation (i.e. “What was the observed outcome?”)
- Counterfactual: Speculates possible outcomes if there were different pasts (i.e. “If something else happened, what would it look like today?”)
- Semifactual: Speculates the extent to how similar the present would look the same if there were different pasts (i.e. “Even if it had happened differently, would it differ from today?”)
- Predictive: Predicting outcomes based on existing data sets (i.e. “Based on what I know, what do I think would happen as an outcome?”)
- Hindcasting: Running a forecast after an event has happened to test whether the simulation is valid/accurate (i.e. “Is our forecasting model accurate enough to predict reality?)
- Retrodiction: Similar to reverse engineering, tracing back steps to understand the root cause of a specific outcome (i.e. “What is the ultimate cause of the status quo?”)
- Backcasting: Imagine moving back in time, step-by-step, from the future to the present to unravel its causes (i.e. “If this future were to happen, what would be the causes of it?”)
A thought experiment essentially consists of well-structured, well-defined hypothesis questions that ask “what might happen if, or, what might have happened if”. When we engage in a thought experiment, we are rearranging or reorganizing existing data/information while drawing new inferences from them. It provides us with a patterned way of thinking to explain, predict, and control events in a more productive way.
By taking concepts of first principles thinking, second-order thinking, and probabilistic thinking, we can map them out into a thought experiment every time we need to prove a hypothesis without spending too much time and resources in proving a point (hopefully).
In using thought experiments when brainstorming new ideas, identifying top candidates for quarterly planning, or understanding key customer detractors in our products, we can minimize duplicate work, form a deeper level of understanding with our customers, and save time on building throwaway work.
