JamesCole comments on Something's Wrong - Less Wrong

82 [deleted] 05 September 2010 06:08PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (161)

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: JamesCole 04 November 2010 04:00:01AM 3 points [-]

Some further thoughts:

Noticing that something isn't right is very different from developing a solution.

The former may draw on experience and intuition - like having developed a finely honed bullshit detector. You can often just immediately see that there's something wrong.

I've noticed that when people complain that someone has given a criticism but hasn't or can't suggest something better, they seem expect that person to be able to do so on the spot, off the top of their head.

But the task of developing a solution is not usually something you can do off the top of you head. It's a creative act, and that usually means you have to sketch out bits and pieces, critically evaluate them, modify them, and repeat until you have developed something satisfactory.