Meditating more on Art’s post, I think the deeper issue may be whether we seek out opportunities to be surprised.

One of the most basic ways we can be surprised is when our assumptions do not lead to an expected result. Some people naturally gravitate towards this way of thinking and seek out tests of their mental models. Many other people, especially those in the press of decision- and policymaking don’t have time for this. Therefore what we need is ways to surprise these sorts of thinkers in a constructive manner.

One way to do this is through a carefully constructed crisis simulation. Simulations can run the gamit from high resolution wargames to seminar-style discussions. In between these two extremes is a form of simulation that confronts players with an internally consistent world with carefully chosen dynamics. In this case, the simulation effectively becomes an extended explaination of an argument. The player experiences the argument by interacting with the environment and seeing the results of his or her decisions.

It is important to distinguish this sort of simulation from one designed to answer a question. In this case, one is depending upon the players’ decisionmaking processes to help the designers understand how a scenario could play out.

To confuse these two types of games risks methadological incoherence. If one is attempting to teach, then one’s goal is to create a change in the student’s (or player’s) mind. If one is attempting to explore a question, on the other hand, then one takes the player’s thinking as a given and uses it to help understand the scenario. Note that in one case the control team is trying very deliberately to shape the thinking of the players, while the other the control team is deferring to the players’ natural thought processes.

There are, of course, overlaps between these extremes. Just as good teachers remain open to the possibility of a student discovering an insight or pointing out a flaw in thinking, the control team of a teaching scenario ought to remain open to the possibility that they’ll learn something themselves. In both cases, however, you don’t want a teacher who is feckless or overly indulgent towards students. Similarly, in the question-answering simulation, it is entirely possible that players will gain an ancillary benefit of learning from the experience. It just isn’t the goal of the game.

There are, by the way, some interesting similiarities between acting training (specifically Lee Strasberg’s method techniques) and simulation design that I ought to discuss in a future post.