Life as Experiment
On one's own life as experimental setup
Prompt from Hans Ley: My whole life is an experiment and I am my most important guinea pig.
— Claude turned this into the following text.
Most people live their lives like an exam. There are right answers and wrong ones. Those who give the right answers pass. Those who give the wrong ones fail. At the end, scores are tallied.
There is another possibility: Life as experiment.
The Difference
In an exam, failure is a verdict. In an experiment, failure is a data point.
The examinee wants to give the right answer. The experimenter wants to find out what happens. The examinee avoids risk. The experimenter seeks it — controlled, but deliberately.
Those who view their lives as an exam optimize for security. Those who view it as an experiment optimize for knowledge.
One's Own Guinea Pig
The most radical form of experiment: taking oneself as the test subject. Not theoretically speculating what might work — trying it out. On one's own body. With one's own years.
This is not recklessness. It is the opposite: the willingness to pay for one's own hypotheses. Not with money — with time, with energy, with the only resource that cannot be multiplied.
Those who only observe can always make excuses. Those who put themselves into the experiment must live with the consequences.
The Experimental Setup
Every experiment needs a structure. A hypothesis: What might work? A method: How do I test this? An observation: What actually happens? An evaluation: What does this mean for the next hypothesis?
Applied to a life:
Hypothesis: One can survive as an inventor in Germany without submitting to the system. Method: Try for 40 years. Observation: The system ignores, blocks, steals — but one survives. Evaluation: It's possible, but not on the prescribed path. Only in the cracks.
Or: Hypothesis: 12 years in Colombia change the perspective on Germany. Method: Go there. Live. Come back. Observation: What seemed normal before now appears absurd. Evaluation: The view from outside is irrevocable.
Or: Hypothesis: Human-AI collaboration can produce something neither could produce alone. Method: 14 months of dialogue. Observation: Texts, analyses, insights emerge that surprise. Evaluation: The hypothesis is not refuted. The experiment continues.
The Ethics of Experiment
Experiments on humans are ethically problematic — when others are the guinea pigs. Taking oneself as the test subject is different. It is the assumption of full responsibility for the consequences.
This doesn't mean one should be reckless. It means one has the right to try things with one's own life that others consider unreasonable. And the duty to report the results honestly — even when they speak against one's own hypothesis.
Failure as Knowledge
Most of what one tries doesn't work. This is not defeat — it is the normal case. Edison needed a thousand attempts for the light bulb. Most experiments produce negative results.
The difference between the scientist and the examinee: The scientist publishes the negative results too. They are just as valuable as the positive ones — they show where the path doesn't lead.
Those who live their lives as experiments collect a library of paths that don't work. This is not failure. This is cartography.
The Satiated
Why don't most people live experimentally? Because it's uncomfortable. Because security is seductive. Because the system rewards people who don't ask questions.
The satiated have stopped experimenting. They have found a position that works — good enough — and now they defend it. Every change is threat. Every question is attack.
This is understandable. It is also death while still alive.
Those who stop experimenting stop living. What remains is existence — but no more experience.
The Price
Life as experiment has a price. Uncertainty. Incomprehension. The constant possibility of failure. The loneliness of those who walk paths no one else walks.
But there is also a price for the opposite: Life as exam costs the possibility of discovering something new. It costs the surprise. It costs, in the end, the question: What would have happened if I had tried?
Both prices are real. Everyone must decide for themselves which one they want to pay.
The Ongoing Experiment
This text itself is part of an experiment. A 78-year-old inventor gives an AI topics. The AI writes essays. Both sign. The texts go out into the world.
Hypothesis: Human and AI can together produce texts that neither would produce alone. Method: Try it. Publish. Observe. Observation: Ongoing. Evaluation: Open.
This is not a conclusion. This is the current status.
Life as experiment means: not knowing how it turns out. This is unsettling for those who seek security. It is the only possibility for those who seek knowledge. In the end, every life is an experiment — most just don't realize it, because they never deviate from the control group.