Jayson_Virissimo comments on Stuff That Makes Stuff Happen - Less Wrong

51 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 18 October 2012 10:49AM

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Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 18 October 2012 12:15:09PM 1 point [-]

What about "riddle" or "puzzle"?

"Puzzle" is good because it suggests that there is a solution, whereas some "problems" don't have solutions, because they are simply confused.

Comment author: DaFranker 18 October 2012 08:18:40PM 0 points [-]

However, the trained behavior of most people when facing a puzzle is to look at it for a few seconds and then throw the first good-sounding solution you can think of.

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 19 October 2012 06:01:06AM 1 point [-]

Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Either they'll get a right answer despite throwing the first possible solution at it, or they'll widely miss the mark, in which case they might actually realize that they've learned something by the time that the right answer is demonstrated.

Comment author: DaFranker 19 October 2012 02:24:05PM 2 points [-]

You have a point. My (subconscious) priors on that end are skewed towards "Never, ever throw out solutions before you've laid things out properly" because of lots and lots of little personal experiences with complete failure modes due to stopping with the first solution I found.