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Misha comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 13, chapter 81 - Less Wrong Discussion
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I enjoyed every bit of the speculation but then finding out that some of the speculation was correct disappointed me. I would approve of a repeat if you made the puzzle sufficiently hard that nobody figures it out.
Strongly disagree. Puzzles that can't be solved aren't puzzles, they are authors being obnoxious. There's no talent in making an unsolvable puzzle any more than there is in making a Zendo rule that no one can solve. And there's no fun in it for most people either. We shouldn't be in a situation where at the last minute we're informed that no one but a dark wizard would put mustard on top of the sauerkraut (Standard TVTropes warning).
It was disappointing to me because it wasn't the first time I'd heard the solution. It was like I had a spoiler for the chapter, because I was reasonably confident as to what it was. And while I've seen research linked to on LW that says spoilers don't decrease enjoyment, I definitely find they do, at least for me.
It was redeeming, however, that more complications were added on top of the imperius!debt. If it had simply been Harry winning with it, I think would have found the chapter dull.
So it should be a completely fair puzzle that nobody solves. If Harry Potter can do the impossible, then why not.
How do you determine that a puzzle is completely fair and isn't solved? Is that a meaningful category?
In retrospect you're not supposed to think "well, how was I supposed to know about the sauerkraut" but "oh, that makes sense, I wish I'd thought of that."
So the key is to make the puzzle only seem obvious in retrospect? This sounds like you want puzzles that actively trigger hindsight bias. Not exactly a promotion of rationality.
Not hindsight bias, just an asymmetrically easy verification. Imagine a large subset sum problem: answers can all be found logically, it's very hard to find an answer, and it's very easy to verify an answer. Any such problem can trigger hindsight bias of the form "that clearly would have been easy to solve; I just wasn't trying", but that's a flaw of the biased person not the problem.
Well, not obvious in retrospect, that would be silly. I really don't understand how you're arguing with me about the fact that puzzles can be easy or hard without adding sauerkraut.
The issue isn't that puzzles can be easy are hard. The issue is that a good hard puzzle is still solvable. It takes no talent to make a puzzle that no one solves. The difficulty in making a puzzle that's worthwhile is making it in the narrow band of puzzles that are tough enough to be interesting but are still solvable.
Right, and what I'm saying is make the puzzle hard enough that nobody figures the whole things out, spoiling the chapter when I actually read it. It's okay if people think of partial solutions, but when the whole chapter is basically posts A, B, and C glued together then it's a disappointment.
If part can't be figured out then it falls into that category, doesn't it? I'm confused by what you are saying and wonder if there's some set of terminological differences here. Perhaps we should carefully define our terms?
Next to the thumbs up and thumbs down karma buttons, should be placed a snapping finger icon.
What could it do that could possibly be of great enough import?