Thought Prototyping

Increasingly I see theory interested people like myself sharing early versions of their thoughts as reflections, provocations or drafts. For me this is a form of prototyping emerging thoughts in order to start conversations and test applicability early. In comparison to thought leadership such an approach does not aim to guide thinking into certain directions. It aims to intervene into existing thought structures and enable explorative conversations into all kinds of directions, depending on where people take them. This opens up possibility spaces that eventually enable new pathways. Theorizing matters because it addresses the preconfiguration of the mental conditions out of which we act. Considering that most activities are trapped in worldview-action loops, it is fundamentally important to design interventions further upstream than it is often done. Theoretical assumptions are at the bottom of everything we do, they render our relationship with the world and should therefore be a subject of design. Furthermore, thought prototyping acknowledges that there is no single truth but perspectives with diverse argumentative strengths and application areas. Theories from that angle can coexist, even if they are contradictory. Variant formation is a common strategy in design and can be applied to theory formation. Thought prototyping enables such pluralistic forms of understanding by proposing ideas as just one of many perspectives and as an emergent property within an evolution of thinking. This draft can be considered as a thought prototype itself that aims to provoke conversations of how we theorize. It is an idea I am not yet fully comfortable with but feel the need to prototype it.

May 27, 2025