For the past month or so, I've been writing a lot about Networked Thoughts:
One of the things about modeling thinking this way is it approaches being rigorous about human thought. I think coming up with a theoretical framework can be really important; even if it's just an approximation, it can help people build better tools for other people to use, which in turn could help us build better things in general.
In fact, it feels to me like we're often "shooting in the dark", and approaching problems by intuition rather than a theory based approach. Take UI/UX for example (I talk about this domain a lot just because I'm familiar with it, but I think my conclusions can be generalized). We often create user interfaces with intuition; something feels off so we change it, or we imagine/actually test a user using the product, and we realize there's a problem with the interaction, so we modify it. It's an iterative process in nature:
People improve solutions iteratively
but I think this can end up being paradoxical. We'll improve a solution iteratively and maybe get to something that works, but we could potentially run into an interface problem that requires "refactoring" i.e. reverting all the previous iterations and then making a different choice there. Or we decide to just leave in the interaction b/c it's too much work to change it.
Physics is pretty different. Usually when we're thinking of "thought experiments" (like Albert Einstein puts it), we apply our theory and observations to "solve" the experiment. If we run into a paradox, we modify the theory.
Creating and evaluating models in physics can be applied to other fields
There's not really edge cases. There aren't some interactions that don't work well or are inconsistent with the theory. I guess the connection I'm really trying to make is this: in physics, we have a real world and we're trying to find the fundamental "rules" it follows. The more we look, the more and more simple the universe actually becomes. When we create something, we should strive to build things the same way the world was created. We should have one consistent simple foundation for how people work and think, and then build more complex theories and our tools on top of that foundation.
This is where a rigorous model for human thought could really change the way we work. It could be possible to instead evaluate your design on an theoretical basis that will give you information on how a human might perceive and understand your interface. Using that feedback can then lead to finding fundamental flaws in your interface that will make you realize iterations won't help, and core restructuring will be needed before you ever release. The same way you realize the "graph" of the interface you've built and the core "graph" of the tool are different (look at Networked Thoughts).
I'm working on it more here:
Coming up with a rigorous model for human thinking
I know this idea probably doesn't make much sense yet. It doesn't to me either, really, but I can feel it. It's just a matter of putting it into words and adding concrete examples.
Feelings are just thoughts we haven't understood yet
A slightly concrete example I can think of is how a lot of times, you'll provide a criticism, and people will respond with something like "Well not everything can be perfect" or "There are always tradeoffs". Why? Things aren't just made with tradeoffs. If the perfect interaction can't be created or tested, there's always a reason. You'd need to think about why the interaction isn't perfect in the first place, and then what prevents you from changing that quality about it.