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Lumifer comments on Open Thread February 25 - March 3 - Less Wrong
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Comments (354)
This is commonly known as brainstorming, around since the 50s.
Apparently the evidence on whether it actually works is contradictory.
Ah, yes, I should have remembered that, thanks.
You have to be clear about what it means to "work," I think brainstorming is viewed as a tool for being creative. I am proposing it as a tool for avoiding inertia bias.
My guess is that both brainstorming and reverse brainstorming (avoiding proposing solutions) are at least a little better than the default human tendency, but I have no idea which of the two would be better.
It seems like the answer to this question should be very valuable to CFAR. I wonder if they have an official stance, and if they have research to back it up.
It's pretty straightforward: discover a valid solution to the problem presented.
If all solutions were equal, and there was a good way to check if something is actually a valid solution, then I feel like the question about biases is not all that meaningful.
I am trying to come up with the best solution, not just the first one that pops into my head that works.
That is rather hard, because in the general case you need to conduct an exhaustive search of the solution space. "The best" is an absolute -- there's only one.
Most of the time people are satisfied with "good enough" solutions.