You now know what's on your mind and how to keep your mind open. That's important to minimize the downsides of [inaudible] of observation. After watching the following clip, you will connect your mind to the minds of your peers, and you will get inspired by each others questions. The time that scientists could work independently of one another in splendid isolation has long passed. The real world problems we are facing are so complex that interdisciplinary is no longer a luxurious ideal, but rather an unavoidable vital condition for solving such intricate problems. But even scientists that do address questions that belong more or less to one specific scientific domain benefits to significant extents and we can get inspired by talking and listening to colleagues from other domains. Let me illustrate that by means of an autobiographical example that adds up to what we discussed earlier about abduction. I suspected that there was an analogy between, on the one hand, getting the point of a scientific or philosophical top experiment, and on the other hand, making a scientific discovery by solving an anomaly by accounting for an unexpected observation. But what exactly was the analogy? What was the pattern? Neither historians nor philosophers of science turned out to be particularly helpful in this respect. But surprisingly enough, linguists did. Overhearing a debate between two cognitive linguists and two computational linguists on the powers and limits of a linguistic theory of humor, the so-called forced reinterpretation account of incongruity resolution, I discovered that the same pattern of problem solving accounts for, on the one hand, getting jokes, on the other hand, performing thought experiments, and on the third hand, so to speak, and most importantly, making scientific discoveries. Now, let's consider an example of a joke, and we'll take a very silly joke, because we have to analyze it. "Is the doctor at home?" The patient asked in his bronchial whisper?. "No." The doctor's young and pretty wife whispered in reply, "Come right in." Now, what is the pattern? As listeners, we initially interpret the story in a certain way. Words like doctor and patients and bronchial, activate us to infer a certain explanation, to abduce a script. In this case, a doctor-patient script. We take this to be a story about a doctor and the patient and all the things that can happen with and between doctors and patients. But then, there is the punchline. Something unexpected happens. Something happens that is not in line with our doctor-patient script. Now this cognitive conflict between, on the one hand, what we expect on the basis of the script, and on the other hand, what we get, or more specifically, the information we get from the punchline, is called an incongruity. That incongruity defines the problem at hand, the riddle. At the same time, it triggers us to resolve that very problem in a certain way. Firstly, by identifying the elements that have led us astray, words like doctor and patient and bronchial, that we initially took to be the figure, but that in retrospect must have been grounds. And then subsequently, by taking other elements here, words like wife and young and pretty, words that we initially took to be grounds as figure. And now, those new elements allow us to form a new hypothesis to abduce a new interpretation, a new script, an adultery or lover script. What we thought to be a story about doctors and patients turned out to be a story about what happens with and between lovers. So basically, I was able to answer my philosophical question by listening carefully to and seriously considering an answer to a completely different question. Even more so, a completely different kind of question. A linguistic question. And also, by only reluctantly developing the analogy, taking it as far as possible until eventually, it break down. Of course, there are also dissimilarities, and they might even be of considerable significance or scope. Think, for instance, on the one hand, about the extremely short amount of time needed to get to a joke or to perform a thought experiment. In both cases, one gets the point in the blink of an eye. And on the other hand, the extremely long duration, and the complexity of making a scientific discovery. Nevertheless, in all these applications, the incongruity, that is the cognitive conflict between what one expects and what one gets, not only triggers, but also structures the rest of the problem solving process. That is the creation of a new interpretational script. A new conception or insight, or a new scientific hypothesis or theory. Now, it's time for you to connect your mind. First, have a look at the role of interdisciplinarity in the projects of the mind of the universe scientists. And make assignment 3A. Subsequently, become member of an interdisciplinary team. Join forces in making assignments 3B and improve your question.