(I decided not to share details of my attempt to solve this exercise unless asked. I don't think that my perspective is so valuable and anchoring would be bad.)
I think it would be good. It narrows down the issues required for the response. And it demonstrates effort to solve the problem on your part.
To be brief - "explain this to me, but I won't show any evidence of making the effort myself or attempting to make it easier for you to respond to me" - doesn't feel so respectful of the effort your asking of others, and it's so broad that I don't expect great bang for the buck with the effort required.
If you've got a question, make the issue as clear as you can make it, instead of treating us like guinea pigs in your experiment where you're trying to avoid bias.
I don't mean this in a big negative way (I don't do the emotion free writing tone so popular here). I see that you've spent effort detailing your question, are asking an honest one, and have a reasonable reason besides laziness not to elaborate further (avoid bias).
But asking for input is asking for a favor, and I tend to expect people asking for favors to make my fulfillment of their needs as easy and productive for me as possible.
Another way to express it, is that I'd be writing expressly in the dark of what the real issue is. Maybe it's a control thing. "Do this so I can analyze the results" doesn't have a lot of appeal.
I guess I wasn't brief. It's an interesting question, but as posed, it left me with a shrug.
Your point of view makes sense. Hence, I've written about my partial results: http://lesswrong.com/lw/h54/i_need_help_device_of_imaginary_results_by_i_j/8pow
In my defence, I will say that I decided not to share my approach not because of "we should reduce bias no matter what" reasoning, but because I truly think that my approach is (a) wrong and (b) attractive, and (c) the problem is difficult; hence, the information about can be dangerous.
But it makes sense to post this sort of information in comments anyway, so I did.
In the chapter 5 of the Probability Theory: Logic of Science you can read about so-called device of imaginary results which seems to go back to the book of I J Good named Probability and the Weighing of Evidence.
The idea is simple and fascinating:
1) You want to estimate your probability of something, and you know that this probability is very, very far from 0.5. For the sake of simplicity, let's assume that it's some hypothesis A and P(A|X) << 0.5
2) You imagine the situation where the A and some well-posed alternative ~A are the only possibilities.
(For example, A = "Mr Smith has extrasensory perception and can guess the number you've written down" and ~A = "Mr Smith can guess your number purely by luck". Maybe Omega told you that the room where the experiment is located makes it's impossible for Smith to secretly look at your paper, and you are totally safe from every other form of deception.)
3) You imagine the evidence which would convince you otherwise: P(E|A,X) ~ 1 and P(E|~A,X) is small (you should select E and ~A that way that it's possible to evaluate P(E|~A,X) )
4) After a while, you feel that you are truly in doubt about A: P(A|E1,E2,..., X) ~ 0.5
5) And now you can backtrack everything back to your prior P(A|X) since you know every P(E|A) and P(E|~A).
After this explanation with the example about Mr Smith's telepathic powers, Jaynes gives reader the following exercise:
Exercise 5.1. By applying the device of imaginary results, find your own strength of
belief in any three of the following propositions: (1) Julius Caesar is a real historical
person (i.e. not a myth invented by later writers); (2) Achilles is a real historical person;
(3) the Earth is more than a million years old; (4) dinosaurs did not die out; they are
still living in remote places; (5) owls can see in total darkness; (6) the configuration of
the planets influences our destiny; (7) automobile seat belts do more harm than good;
(8) high interest rates combat inflation; (9) high interest rates cause inflation.
I have trouble tackling the first two propositions and would be glad to hear your thoughts about another seven. Anybody care to help me?
(I decided not to share details of my attempt to solve this exercise unless asked. I don't think that my perspective is so valuable and anchoring would be bad.)
UPD: here is my attempt to solve the Julius Caesar problem.