Psy-Kosh comments on Use the Try Harder, Luke - Less Wrong

59 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 02 October 2008 10:52AM

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Comment author: Psy-Kosh 12 October 2008 03:36:04AM 6 points [-]

Here's a recent personal fairly trivial "use the try harder" anecdote, for any who are interested:

A few days ago was my birthday. Someone gave me one of those interlocking block puzzles as a gift. (A really nice wooden one, incidentally.)

Anyways, it's one of those "move this piece to unlock this piece to unlock this piece", etc. I began carefully trying to take the cube apart, so that I could keep track of what went where, but it kind of fell apart into its six pieces after several "unlock" moves.

Anyways, at first it kinda looked hopeless for me to be able to figure out how to put it together ("okay... I need to put it together, but when putting it together, I can't really make incremental progress because I have to figure out what pre shape to assemble it into before I can even begin sliding the blocks into their final positions in the locking pattern so to actually make the cube.")

Today I sat down again and started really fiddling with it, remembering that the first unlock piece on one side had a color the same as it next to it in the piece it was in, and that that piece was unlocked, and that piece looked like so, so this piece must have been like this... and... no idea what next... but wait, the only two possible pieces that can fit this piece here are this and that, but that isn't compatable with this original piece being there, so...

Anyways, eventually figured out what pieces should go where in the final configuration but "how the heck do I actually assemble it?" I sort of fiddled around a few times with running the unlock sequence (skipping whichever one piece I didn't have in place at the the time) and eventally was able to see how to then hold it in the unlocked in state, carefully take it apart and place the unplaced piece and actually then get it all together.

As I said, really really trivial (yay, I solved a block puzzle) but illustrates the whole "actually sit and work at it for a bit. Don't really bother thinking about "trying" (or even about "doing", instead just be thinking/working on the problem itself) and it may end up turning out to be a bit less "impossible" than it was.)

(to those in charge of doing so, feel free to delete this post if it seems more noise than signal or otherwise seems like pointless babbling)

Comment author: gwern 20 April 2011 08:14:35PM *  9 points [-]

An excerpt from a likely-never-to-be-finished essay:

"Claude Shannon once told me that as a kid, he remembered being stuck on a jigsaw puzzle.

His brother, who was passing by, said to him: "You know: I could tell you something."

That's all his brother said.

Yet that was enough hint to help Claude solve the puzzle. The great thing about this hint... is that you can always give it to yourself."

--Manuel Blum, "Advice to a Beginning Graduate Student"

Comment author: Psy-Kosh 20 April 2011 11:35:42PM 1 point [-]

Good quote. I guess the lesson there would be to tell yourself "It might just actually be possible for me to do this"?

Comment author: player_03 18 July 2014 06:24:57AM *  5 points [-]

His brother's hint contained information that he couldn't have gotten by giving the hint to himself. The fact that his brother said this while passing by means that he spotted a low-hanging fruit. If his brother had spent more time looking before giving the hint, this would have indicated a fruit that was a little higher up.

This advice is worth trying, but when you give it to yourself, you can't be sure that there's low hanging fruit left. If someone else gives it to you, you know it's worth looking for, because you know there's something there to find. (The difference is that they, not you, took the time to search for it.)

Again, it's a worthwhile suggestion. I just want to point out that it boils down to "If you're having trouble, check for easier solutions," and that while you can always give this advice to yourself, it will not always help.

Comment author: gwern 18 July 2014 10:54:31PM 0 points [-]

The fact that his brother said this while passing by means that he spotted a low-hanging fruit. If his brother had spent more time looking before giving the hint, this would have indicated a fruit that was a little higher up.

The brother could have spent arbitrarily much time on the jigsaw puzzle before Claude started playing with it.

Comment author: player_03 20 July 2014 12:18:51AM *  0 points [-]

I suppose, but even then he would have to take time to review the state of the puzzle. You would still expect him to take longer to spot complex details, and perhaps he'd examine a piece or two to refresh his memory.

But that isn't my true rejection here.

If you assume that Claude's brother "spent arbitrarily much time" beforehand, the moral of the story becomes significantly less helpful: "If you're having trouble, spend an arbitrarily large amount of time working on the problem."

Comment author: gwern 20 July 2014 01:49:51PM 2 points [-]

the moral of the story becomes significantly less helpful: "If you're having trouble, spend an arbitrarily large amount of time working on the problem."

I don't think that's what it becomes. It remains what it was: 'a solution exists, and oddly enough, reminding yourself of this is useful'.

Comment author: wedrifid 18 July 2014 12:39:18PM 4 points [-]

Yet that was enough hint to help Claude solve the puzzle. The great thing about this hint... is that you can always give it to yourself."

Not credibly and not with the actual information content that the brother's utterance provides. That leaves the question of whether and in what circumstances it is instrumentally rational to self deceive in the direction of optimism bias (or optimism regarding the relative merit of rechecking the low branches for more fruit instead of climbing higher). Some considerations:

  • Humans have all sorts of biases against doing the kind of tasks that a beginning graduate student has to do. Because evolutionary speaking (and possibly colloquially speaking too, for that matter) it's probably a crazy thing to be doing. Assuming the academic qualification has been adopted as a goal, however, overriding the long term focus problem with mental hacks is nearly a necessity.
  • It is more beneficial for others in my society to systematically take risks (in this case of time and potential) than for me to take risks. This would lead me to expect advice of this form to become common wisdom even were it slightly bad for the recipient.
  • The hint given is sufficiently ambiguous as to be a nudge in the direction of various discrete strategies. This includes "think from the perspective of your model of various other suitable people" which is popular advice itself (with some credible studies backing it).
  • Mild social competition can be a useful focus for some people's problem solving skills. Conceivably the imaginary social competition could help too.
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