Marty's comments about the true definition of a Thought Experiment and how it doesn't mean the same as a "daydream" is probably technically accurate. But I think most experiments started with a thought. How else would someone "dream up" the experiment? If we don't dream and think in this forum then are we just to sit and regurgitate the known facts? You know, the technical ones.
Yes, of course experiments must be preceded by thought.
Yes, some good ideas may come to qualified experimenters in the form of a dream or a daydream. Arthur Koestler's book,
Sleepwalkers, collects any number of stories like that. So, too, does Polya in
How to Solve It.My disagreement is whether this particular "thought" ("Wouldn't it be nice to destroy an Electra at Niku?") is going to lead to a theoretical breakthrough in TIGHAR's work or to a real experiment. My answer is, "No."
TIGHAR has been using the hypothesis and scientific methodology to develop this same hypothesis. Slowly more facts come to life. Especially from the island visits. But every one of those trips had a agenda. Someone 'thought' about what that agenda was to be. That's the thinking that needs to continue. I believe that's what Harry was suggesting.
I don't find your "thought" in the same class as the "thoughts" that lead TIGHAR to Niku and that have guided TIGHAR's research on the island. Your thought reminds me of the cranks whom I have encountered personally, through reading Polanyi's files, and in my former work as a member of the Big Eight Management Board, where I dealt with some mathematical cranks. Yes, scientists think; yes, some of their thoughts come in unusual forms; no, this thought that you have had is not one that is going to lead to good results.