Exercise: A conversation with a mentor you never met

Time: About 25 minutes

Write a question you are stuck on.
Choose someone whose work you know a little and whose perspective could challenge yours.
Use the first prompt, then ask at least three follow-up questions.
Use the second prompt to identify what needs checking. Treat its classifications as provisional.
Find an original book, talk or article and check one claim yourself. What did the simulation help you notice, and what did it get wrong?

How it works

Choose a thinker or practitioner and identify what interests you about their perspective.
Ground the simulation in their work, supplying relevant extracts where possible.
Follow the conversation with questions of your own.
Step out of the simulation and check important claims against original sources.

Things to watch

Quote the person’s actual work when attributing an idea to them.
Give an unfamiliar perspective a chance. An imaginary panel that always agrees with you has a limited syllabus.
The assistant’s second pass can also be wrong. Use it to guide your checking, then do the checking.

Optional ways to involve AI

Use these examples as a starting point. Replace the square-bracketed fields with your own material.

Explore another perspective

Help me explore my question through a clearly labelled simulation of [NAME]’s perspective, grounded in their published work. Use the material I provide where available. Distinguish documented positions from your extrapolations, and say when you are unsure. Do not invent quotations or sources. Make clear that these answers are generated, not statements by the real person.

MY QUESTION:
[Write your question.]

MATERIAL TO DRAW ON:
[Provide relevant extracts or source details, if available.]

Step outside the conversation

Leave the simulated perspective. Review the main claims you made. For each, identify any source you can substantiate, what was your extrapolation and what remains uncertain. Do not invent evidence to justify an earlier answer. If you cannot verify a claim or source, say so. Help me make a short list of claims to check against the person’s original work.

The thinking behind it

What might someone with a very different intellectual background ask about your problem? A simulated conversation can help you explore that question. Keep the distinction between an interesting perspective and the real person’s documented views clear throughout.

Explore a question with a clearly identified simulation of a thinker or practitioner. Let the unfamiliar perspective challenge yours, then return to the person’s actual work. An interesting simulated answer gives you something to investigate; it is not a quotation from the real person.

Tool from the same chapter: Multi-Avatar Simulations
Tool from the same chapter: Inner Dialogues
Tool from the same chapter: Meta-prompting
Glossary: AI avatar dialogue

AI Avatar Dialogues