Imagine you have a craving for ice cream. You and your spouse decide to get in the car and go to the same Dairy Queen you’ve patronized dozens of times in the past, spread out over several years. You run a blog and you’ve taken pictures of it. You’ve had many conversations about what is wrong with this particular location, the fact that the management is lacking, the construction materials were inexpensive, and the menu is not complete.
You pull off the highway and find nothing but an empty lot. There is no Dairy Queen there. There never was. There is no sign of demolition or construction. It is a field.
Confused, you call your parents, siblings, and friends, asking what happened. They all respond as if you are crazy. “There has never been a Dairy Queen there”, they insist. “Are you okay? Did you hit your head? Are you sleep walking? What is 12 times 12 then divided by 10 rounded to the nearest whole number then squared, calculated in the sequence I gave you ignoring the mathematical rules for orders of operations?”
“Stop kidding around,” you respond. “I’m perfectly fine. And 196.” You then hang up the phone and look at the empty field in front of you.
The Four Scenarios for this Thought Experiment
Scenario 1:
- Your spouse has identical memories of the Diary Queen, and can match your responses to questions about its layout when you both write your answers on index cards in separate rooms
- Your blog, which is hosted several states away, still contains pictures of you in front of the Dairy Queen
Scenario 2:
- Your spouse has identical memories of the Dairy Queen, and can match your responses to questions about its layout when you both write your answers on index cards in separate rooms
- Your blog, which is hosted several states away, contains no pictures of you in front of the Dairy Queen. The posts have disappeared, as well. You check the logs and there have been no changes, indicating that they never existed.
Scenario 3:
- Your spouse has no recollection of the Dairy Queen
- Your blog, which is hosted several states away, still contains pictures of you in front of the Dairy Queen
Scenario 4:
- Your spouse has no recollection of the Dairy Queen
- Your blog, which is hosted several states away, contains no pictures of you in front of the Dairy Queen. The posts have disappeared, as well. You check the logs and there have been no changes, indicating that they never existed.
The Questions for This Thought Experiment
For each scenario, answer the following questions:
- What is your course of action (be as detailed as possible, in chronological order)?
- What do you think happened?
- How would this change your behavior in the future?
How you work through these scenarios will demonstrate, to a significant degree, how many mental models you have incorporated into your life, how rational you are, and your dexterity with deductive reasoning and inversion.
