simulation thinking

Humans are uniquely gifted with a mode of thinking that we under appreciate and under use. I’m calling it Simulation Thinking.

It’s actually foundational to our progress as a species. Everything from storytelling, fiction writing, scientific discoveries, entrepreneurship, strategy, and more, depends on this form of thinking, yet very few do it deliberately and even fewer master it.

Those who master this skill dominate every aspect of life — from personal relationships, business outcomes to general well-being.

To define simply, it’s the art and science of mentally living through alternate possibilities without having to experience them in reality. It’s not mere day dreaming, but constrained imagination.

The closest way for me to paint a picture is the scene from Marvel End Game, where Dr Strange tells Tony Stark he saw 14,000,605 possible futures and in only one of them do the Avengers win.

Let me define a framework to start applying this:

1. Define the clear end goal or outcome. Simulation thinking is not just to predict the future, but to gather valuable insights and information. Without a clear goal, you cannot separate signal from noise.
2. Create an exhaustive list of actors in the system. The actors can be people, objects, behaviours, incentives, principles governing the system, laws and relationship between them.
3. Start by changing the properties of just one actor. Then list out the possible outcomes or reactions from the system. You should suspend your belief of reality in this step, so you can gather important data and insights. Eg: Inverse a behaviour of a calm friend to chaotic while planning a road-trip. It might never happen, but you have to do it so you can gather critical information.
4. Change the next actor, and the actor after that. Keep going until you have formed a general intuition about the right configuration of the system to achieve your goal.

There are a few things you can do to generally get good at this:

1. Read broadly, as it helps in living through a simulation written by another person.
2. Understand mathematics, as it’s the foundational language. If you can create a mathematical model of a system, then you can visualize and quantify the changes you make on each actor.
3. Learn to write well, as it helps you externalize your thinking.
4. Seek timeless wisdom and principles across domains, as they help you in arriving at the right combination of actors in a system to achieve a goal.
5. Suspend belief from time to time, simulate on everyday decisions and make it a habit.

Let’s take an example:

Imagine planning a road trip with three friends who only meet once every three years. One friend is responsible for the car. Now assume that on the morning of the trip, the car refuses to start. Another friend usually handles the money. What happens if they forget their wallet?

Just by simulating these possible scenarios, you begin to understand which assumptions the trip depends on, how confident you are in those assumptions, and where problems might emerge.

You were not trying to predict the future. You were gathering critical information before reality plays out. That is simulation thinking.

That’s it for now. I hope you can run effective simulations, and calibrate against reality. Happy simulating!