thought-experiment

name	thought-experiment
description	Strategy: Williamson-style precise thought experiments — construct carefully specified counterfactual scenarios to test whether conclusions depend on contingent features.
type	strategy
tactics	["minimal-change-search","causal-necessity-testing"]
dependencies	{"tactics":["causal-necessity-testing","minimal-change-search"],"sops":["causal-claim-extraction","counterfactual-scenario-construction","factor-enumeration","flip-point-detection","load-bearing-identification","necessity-evaluation"]}

Thought Experiment Strategy

Williamson methodology: construct precise, well-specified counterfactual scenarios that isolate individual variables.

Method

1. causal-claim-extraction identifies the conclusion and its dependencies
2. factor-enumeration identifies contingent vs. essential features
3. counterfactual-scenario-construction builds precise thought experiments
4. flip-point-detection identifies which scenario variations flip the conclusion
5. necessity-evaluation determines if flipped factors are genuinely necessary
6. load-bearing-identification distinguishes essential from contingent support

Design Principles

• Scenarios must be internally consistent (no impossible worlds)
• Changes must be minimal and precisely specified
• Background conditions must be held fixed except the target variable
• Conclusions must follow from the scenario, not from intuition pumps

Budget Table

Parameter	S	M	L
Thought experiments	3	8	15
Variables isolated	3	6	12
Scenario precision checks	1	3	6

Orchestration

causal-claim-extraction → factor-enumeration
→ [for each contingent feature]:
    counterfactual-scenario-construction (precise scenario)
    → flip-point-detection (does conclusion hold?)
    → necessity-evaluation (is this genuinely necessary?)
→ load-bearing-identification (essential vs contingent)

Subagents

• causal-claim-extraction (dependency identification)
• factor-enumeration (contingent feature detection)
• counterfactual-scenario-construction (scenario design)
• flip-point-detection (conclusion testing)
• necessity-evaluation (necessity judgment)
• load-bearing-identification (classification)

Available Tactics

Optional, no fixed order; the final leaf is always a sop.

Tactic	When to use
causal-necessity-testing	Tactic: Extract causal claims, evaluate probability of necessity (PN) and sufficiency (PS) for each, classify into necessity-sufficiency quadrants.
minimal-change-search	Tactic: Generate candidate changes, detect flip-points where conclusion reverses, measure fragility as distance to nearest flip.

Available SOPs

Optional, no fixed order; the final leaf is always a sop.

SOP	When to use
causal-claim-extraction	Extract all causal claims (X causes Y, X leads to Y, X enables Y) from an artifact, producing a structured list of cause-effect pairs.
counterfactual-scenario-construction	Construct precise, internally consistent counterfactual scenarios where specified factors are altered, then reason about the resulting conclusion.
factor-enumeration	List all key factors, conditions, and assumptions that support or enable the artifact's conclusion.
flip-point-detection	Find the minimal change magnitude along a dimension that causes the conclusion to flip from true to false.
load-bearing-identification	Identify which factors are "load-bearing walls" — factors whose removal would collapse the conclusion.
necessity-evaluation	Evaluate the probability of necessity (PN) for a causal factor — would the conclusion fail if this factor were absent?