Original post: http://bearlamp.com.au/wicked-problems/

Nothing is a wicked problem.

When I started researching problems and problem solving and solutions and meta-solving processes I stumbled across a wicked problem. This is from Wikipedia:

Rittel and Webber's 1973 formulation of wicked problems in social policy planning specified ten characteristics:[3][4]

1. There is no definitive formulation of a wicked problem.
2. Wicked problems have no stopping rule.
3. Solutions to wicked problems are not true-or-false, but good or bad.
4. There is no immediate and no ultimate test of a solution to a wicked problem.
5. Every solution to a wicked problem is a "one-shot operation"; because there is no opportunity to learn by trial and error, every attempt counts significantly.
6. Wicked problems do not have an enumerable (or an exhaustively describable) set of potential solutions, nor is there a well-described set of permissible operations that may be incorporated into the plan.
7. Every wicked problem is essentially unique.
8. Every wicked problem can be considered to be a symptom of another problem.
9. The existence of a discrepancy representing a wicked problem can be explained in numerous ways. The choice of explanation determines the nature of the problem's resolution.
10. The social planner has no right to be wrong (i.e., planners are liable for the consequences of the actions they generate).

Conklin later generalized the concept of problem wickedness to areas other than planning and policy.  The defining characteristics are:

1. The problem is not understood until after the formulation of a solution.
2. Wicked problems have no stopping rule.
3. Solutions to wicked problems are not right or wrong.
4. Every wicked problem is essentially novel and unique.
5. Every solution to a wicked problem is a 'one shot operation.'
6. Wicked problems have no given alternative solutions.

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Defeating a wicked problem

It took me a while to realise what a wicked problem was.  It is evil.  It's a challenge.  It's a one-shot task that you don't really understand until you are attempting to solve it, and then you influence it by trying to solve it.  It's wicked.  And then I started paying attention to everything around me.  And suddenly being a social human was a wicked problem.  Every new interaction is not like the last ones, as soon as you enter the interaction it's too late; and then you only have one shot.  Any action towards the problem adds more complexity to the problem.

Then I looked to time management.  Time management is a wicked problem.  You start out knowing nothing.  It takes time to work out what takes time.  And by the time you think you have a system in place you are already burning more time.  Just catching up on a bad system is failing at the wicked problem.

Then I looked to cooking.  No two ingredients are the same.  Even if you are cooking a thing for the 100th time, the factors of the day, the humidity, temperature, it's going to be different.  You can't know what's going to happen.

Then I looked at politics.  And that's what wicked problems were invented around, social problems where trying to solve the problem changes the problem.  And nothing makes it easier.

Then I took my man-with-a-hammer syndrome and I whacked myself on the head with it.

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Okay so not everything is a hammer-nail wicked problem.  Even wicked problems are not a wicked problem.  There are problems out there that are really wicked problems, but it would be rare that you find one.

There is a trick to solving a wicked problem.  The trick is to work out how it's not a wicked problem.  Sure if it's wicked by design so be it.  But real problems in the real world are only pretending to be wicked problems.

1. The problem is not understood until after the formulation of a solution.
   

Yeah, okay.  So you don't really get the problem.  That's cool.  You have done problems before.  And done problems like this before too.  The worst thing to do in the case of being presented with a problem which is not understood is to never attempt it.  If you don't understand - it's time to quantify what you do understand and quantify what you don't understand. After that it's time to look at how much uncertainty you can get away with and how to solve that.  If in doubt refer to the book How to measure anything.

2. Wicked problems have no stopping rule.

Real wicked problems don't have a stopping rule but real world problems do.  Or you can give them one anyway.  How many years is enough years of life.  "I don't know I will decide when I get there".  How much money is enough money? "I will first earn my next 10 million dollarydoos and then decide what to do next".  Yes.  A wicked problem has no stopping rule.  But that's not the real world.  In the real world even a fake stopping rule is good enough for your purposes.

3. Solutions to wicked problems are not right or wrong.

Okay.  Maybe a tricky one.  Lots of things are not right or wrong.  "should I earn to give, or should I bring around FAI sooner?".  Who knows?  Right now people are arguing about it but we don't really know.  If you are making decisions based on right or wrong you probably want to do the right thing.  We know already that if you can't decide that makes all options equally good and irrelevant what you choose.  If you can make one more right than the other - do that.  It's probably not a real wicked problem.  "How should I format this word document" is not a right or wrong, but it's also irrelevant.

4.  Every wicked problem is essentially novel and unique.

Yes.  If you are facing a truly novel and unique problem there is nothing I can say that can help you.  But if you are not, there are many options.  You can:

• build a model scenario and test solutions
• look for existing examples of similar problems and find similar solutions
• try to break the problem into smaller known parts
• consider doing nothing about the problem and see if it solves itself

IF a problem is truly unique, then you really have no reason to fear the unknown because it was not possible to be prepared.  If it's not unique - be prepared (we are all always being prepared for problems all the time)

5. Every solution to a wicked problem is a 'one shot operation.'

Yea, these are hard.  Maybe some of the solutions to 4 will help.  Build models, try search or create similar scenarios (why do trolley problems exist other than to test one-shot problems with pre-thought-out examples).  You only get one shot to launch a nuclear missile the first time (and we are very glad that we didn't ignite the atmosphere that time).  Now days we have computer modelling.  We have prediction markets, we have Bayes.  We can know what we don't know.  And we can make it significantly less dangerous to launch into space - risking the lives of astronauts when we do.

6.  Wicked problems have no given alternative solutions.

Yes.  Wicked problems don't, but real world problems could, and often do.  Find those solutions, or the degrees of freedom in your problem.  Search and try to confirm possible options, find friend scenarios, and use everything you have.

Nothing is a wicked problem.

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Meta: This took 1 hour to write and has been on my mind for months.  Coming soon: Defining what is a problem

Less Wrong,

Before posting this, I debated myself as follows:

"Should I create a new username?"

Motivations (normal):  I have not posted here in a long time.  There are honest, good reasons to start on an interesting forum with a "clean slate."  One reason is that I have changed so many of my opinions since I last posted.  This is not a big deal.  I am recently 25.

Motivations (abnormal):  OH MY GOD SOCIETY ANXIETY NEW SITUATION AAHHHHHHH.

Motivations (selfish):  Less Wrong is full of experts whose internet names I keep coincidentally running into...

A pleasant surprise:  Absolutely everybody I've been speaking with lately is entirely surprised that I had social anxiety all along.

My therapy:  honesty.  Weaknesses of honesty:  obvious.  Strengths of honesty:  also obvious.  For radical honesty, non-obvious to non-rationalists.

(I have not seen a therapist in about 10 years.  My therapy is, to put it shortly, in the style of Bertrand Russell.  Sort of.)

Well, I'm back.  Let's see how much better I have become.  I promise that I did not give myself time to read my old posts.  Anybody who is sufficiently interested in me will always be able to find out what I was like anyway.  My greatest protection is that I am not that interesting.  That's risky.  I have preferred the simple life for a reason.  That reason has been bad.

Anxiety is irrational.  It leads you to overestimate the degree to which people are interested in you.  Anxiety is rational.  It is an evolutionary vestige, reflecting a typical spectrum disorder, and is therefore likely to have been subject to selective effects, like overly aggressive dogs, and so forth.  Real life paradoxes.  Tricky things.  They can drive you absolutely bonkers.

I give Less Wrong my total honesty.  I will decline only with generalized rationales, only to protect the rights of others.  These include ordinary rights to privacy.  Again, anxiety.  None of my friends have known me as long as I have been away from Less Wrong.  Still, if I want to say "ask me anything," my reasons for declining, should I decline, will be "ordinary."  I will therefore decline in polite, normal ways, and simplify answers in polite, normal ways.  This took recent training:  even after holding a steady, normal job for quite some time, in which I was "very good."  It is blue collar.  Nothing exciting.  I will be leaving shortly.

I've come a long, long way my last post in a lot of ways.  I remember one stupid mistake which kept me from posting on Less Wrong for a while:  I came back - for a second - not too long ago, having read a few things about population genetics, and then I made an argument that was obviously stupid.  (From memory and shame:  I forgot about matrilineal descent.)

I have read the sequences.  I remember them, from long ago, unusually well lately.  They seem to be popping back up a lot.  You can quote them to me.  Do not assume I know anything.  I've learned to be a little more patient.

I've learned a lot about the private sector which I "knew but didn't <em>know</em>."  Like LaTex, HTML, and category theory (biological) and category theory (mathematical).  I am still working full time in a blue collar job.  I will find the time to learn.  The question is, where to start...

Bad answers:  school.  (not yet.  I know.  I have a university subscription.  It's practically free.  I have access.)

Bad answers:  textbooks.  (I've read them.  I prefer the real articles.  I already know the only category theory (mathematics) textbook I need.  To me, that's obvious. It's even more obvious to me than propositions like, "now's a good time to sleep.")

Good answers:  "what?"

This Q and A will be conducted in the style of Robert Sapolsky.  My plagiarisms are honest.  You may request sources to any answer.

I will sleep.  That's healthy.  Much more healthy than I ever really understood.  I'll check in tomorrow.

If nothing else, I do like jokes.  You are allowed to treat this post with the full force of intellectual cruelty.

I was not always nice.  I have done it to strangers.  I do regret it now.  Still, it can be funny.  So, fire away!

 

______________

 

That concludes my first Less Wrong experiment.  Like any bad experiment, it confirms what I know, because I know what a self-fulfilling prophecy is.

From now on, I will post on the presumption that I am not anonymous.

Continue.

(Note:  as an analytical social hyperanxious who envied "normal functioning," I do not believe that I can hide.  I can only expect people to be exactly as nice as they always were.  There are no demands, in the world of hyperanxious honesty.  Only requests.)

______________

Now, to begin another experiment:  I am not anonymous, and I am also not here for therapy.  That is what friends are for.  I have my therapy.  You know, family and stuff.  Same honesty, new constraint, which, as promised, only random people on the internet may introduce.

Less Wrong just filtered what it can and cannot hear.  It has done this before.  Not its fault.  Mine.  I accepted "random internet responsibilities."  I must now accept "people who are not me" constraints.  Those, are rules.  I am good at formalisms....

Continue as before.  Ask me anything.

______________

The second experimental result:  I have failed to elicit interest.  Per the original posts, I accept the responsibilities of a writer, though I am no writer.  Per ordinary standards of intellectual honesty, I will emphasize:  this is an experiment.  Less Wrong determines the parameters as it goes.  The experiment will continue on the following lines:

My failures:  clear communication.

My "root cause theory":  Generalized Anxiety Disorder

My constraints:  the lack of expertise to make that call.

My second constraint:  sufficient knowledge and skill to avoid learning precisely what I need to.

My "primary" motivation:  from memory, Less Wrong is full of people with similar intellectual interests.

My prediction:  "self help" threads will be similar to mine, in some ways, albeit much better written.

My control:  I have not ever read a self help thread.

Limitation:  Why should Less Wrong believe that?

Ask me anything.  Or not.  Some experiments fail, others succeed.

AMA is here : http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1r6exr/i_am_kenneth_hayworth_a_phd_neuroscientist_and/

 

The Brain Preservation Foundation's founder Ken Hayworth is going to be available on Reddit (http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA) this Thursday at 7:00PM EST to answer your questions. We hope to have a very interesting discussion ranging from the technical aspects of plastination and cryopreservation to the social consequences of widespread adoption of brain preservation.

Hayworth is a Senior Scientist at the Janelia Farm Research Campus and is an expert in state of the art brain preservation and imaging.

From the Brain Preservation Site:

Kenneth Hayworth, President and Co-Founder of the Brain Preservation Foundation, is currently a Senior Scientist at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Farm Research Campus (JFRC) in Ashburn, Virginia. JFRC is perhaps the leading research institution in the field of connectomics in the United States. At JFRC, Hayworth is currently researching ways to extend Focused Ion Beam Scanning Electron Microscopy (FIBSEM) imaging of brain tissue to encompass much larger volumes than are currently possible. For an overview of this work see his recent review paper and online presentation. Prior to moving to JFRC, Hayworth was a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University. Hayworth is co-inventor of the Tape-to-SEM process for high-throughput volume imaging of neural circuits at the nanometer scale and he designed and built several automated machines to implement this process. Hayworth received a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Southern California for research into how the human visual system encodes spatial relations among objects. Hayworth is a vocal advocate for brain preservation and mind uploading and a co-founder of the Brain Preservation Foundation which calls for the implementation of an emergency glutaraldehyde perfusion procedure in hospitals, and for the development of a whole brain embedding procedure which can demonstrate perfect ultrastructure preservation across an entire human brain.

Links:

- http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA
  Ask me anything page where the discussion will be held

- http://chronicle.com/article/article-content/132819/     
  Overview article explaining plastination and the Brain Preservation foundation

- http://hplusmagazine.com/2013/05/28/neuroscience-and-the-future-of-humanity-interview-with-ken-hayworth/
  Extensive interview with Hayworth.

- http://www.brainpreservation.org/
- http://www.janelia.org/people/scientist/kenneth-hayworth
- http://www.brainpreservation.org/content/contact