Slogs and Problem Solving Methods (was: failure to file taxes vs dine-and-dash (was: Freedom and Force Questions))
On Dec 30, 2018, at 8:22 AM, PAS <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Dec 30, 2018, at 12:02 AM, Elliot Temple [email protected] [fallible-ideas] <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>> PS What should I take away from PAS’s lack of followup regarding this topic? Disinterest? Temporarily being busy but would have followed up on his own initiative later? Not seriously trying to reach a conclusion and resolve the matter? Something else?
>
> Not seriously trying comes closest, but doesn’t fully capture the situation.
>
> I have been thinking about this topic fairly often, and I haven’t been too busy to post. I’ve started writing posts a couple of times and abandoned them.
>
> The problem is a familiar one: I’m neither persuaded nor have I created a statement which I think is persuasive.
>
> I don’t think that’s too bad in itself. But when I’m in that state about an issue, I quickly let myself get distracted from thinking about it.
>
> If I was on a 2 hour flight and all my device batteries were dead my guess is I’d think about this topic to the point of either being persuaded or coming up with something to say that I think is persuasive.
>
> But I’m not on a 2 hour flight with no devices. I have a bunch of things I can and want to do all the time. Which is good! But when I feel “stuck” on something, I just switch to something I’m not “stuck” on rather than slogging it out to a conclusion.
Slogging is bad, in general. Not awful. People should try it a few times to see what it’s like, to see that they can succeed that way, to understand their options, and maybe to occasionally use the slogging method for super valuable things.
I would not advise you to slog through this. Slogging is an indication something is wrong. It can mean you aren’t adequately interested in the activity, don’t value the outcome much, or your method of proceeding isn’t very effective.
In general, if you think it would be a slog, I’d suggest writing a post like, “I think continuing this would be a slog. Anyone got ideas about this problem?” plus providing some additional info about the problem and context. You can communicate problems and get advice about problem solving methods.
There is a generic method for making progress on this kind of thing. But before attempting it there’s something to check first. Double check your priorities. Maybe you have a bunch of higher priority things to do instead, so you should using problem solving on those things instead. When you hit any kind of significant obstacle or problem, that’s a good time to give your priorities at least 5 seconds of thought. I’m guessing you did check your priorities at some point, but I wanted to include this because it’s important.
Note: If something is not a priority for you but you think (maybe) it should be, that is itself a different problem which should have a different, separate priority level, and which one may want to pursue.
OK, back to the slog. If you hit a slog, you should *take a step back* and get a broader perspective. Consider: how can I make progress without going through this slog?
This is the generic method i’ve talked about at http://fallibleideas.com/avoiding-coercion and elsewhere.
When you hit a problem, first try directly solving it. If that isn’t working well, consider what can be done while *not* directly solving it. Can you go around it? Can you first change your method of approach then problem, then try solving it again? Can you understand redirect your problem solving effort to the meta problem of what the blocker is, and solve that?
You can try to understand the cause of the slog and fix *that*. Or you can use a different path for making progress. There are many types of alternative paths. You can build up general purpose skills (become a better intellectual, expand your intellectual toolkit) or build up domain-specific skills or just find a different way to directly get at your goal.
Looking at the bigger picture – I’m trying to solve X, I hit slog Y, what are my options in this situation? – is a new thing to work on and think about which isn’t part of slog Y and doesn’t require a solution to slog Y.
This method of taking a step back can be repeatedly infinitely – if you have difficulties when looking at the bigger picture you can look at the even bigger picture – and there are reasons it tends to get simpler and easier with each iteration which helps avoid it being endless. It won’t always get you a solution to the original thing, but it will get you a way forward which is compatible with reason and with making progress, and which a reasonable person can be happy with or at least not unhappy.
Instead of being stuck for a significant amount of time on problem X, to the point it doesn’t seem to be working and can be recognized as a slog, one should *change the problem* to X2. And if stuck on X2 for a while, try X3. And X4 and X5 are available if needed. Note that, once at X5, you can always go back to X, X2 or any earlier problem if you prefer to. You can quickly bounce around between all these problems as you get some ideas to try out for any of them. You’re gaining more options for problems to solve but you still only need to solve any one of them in order to make progress and move on.
This problem solving method is so important that I would advise people to highly prioritize practicing it – remembering to use it and explicitly working through it and seeing how it works in many cases. Focus more on the method than the actual problem you’re facing – getting better at the method matters more. I shared it years ago and people don’t seem to be using it much or to be focusing much attention on trying to learn to use it.
BTW there is a difficulty people can encounter, a thing that makes it hard to get a solution this way (or any way, it’s not a weakness of this particular method compared to other methods) even though it shouldn’t be that hard. I’m not going to preemptively address it right now. I forget what I’ve said about it publicly. If people were trying to learn this stuff, they ought to run into the difficulty (or, in the alternative, have tons of success). They might then reasonably have trouble identifying what it is, precisely, but should be able to say *something* relating to it that’s in the ballpark enough for me to potentially identify the issue.
> On Dec 30, 2018, at 12:02 AM, Elliot Temple [email protected] [fallible-ideas] <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>> PS What should I take away from PAS’s lack of followup regarding this topic? Disinterest? Temporarily being busy but would have followed up on his own initiative later? Not seriously trying to reach a conclusion and resolve the matter? Something else?
>
> Not seriously trying comes closest, but doesn’t fully capture the situation.
>
> I have been thinking about this topic fairly often, and I haven’t been too busy to post. I’ve started writing posts a couple of times and abandoned them.
>
> The problem is a familiar one: I’m neither persuaded nor have I created a statement which I think is persuasive.
>
> I don’t think that’s too bad in itself. But when I’m in that state about an issue, I quickly let myself get distracted from thinking about it.
>
> If I was on a 2 hour flight and all my device batteries were dead my guess is I’d think about this topic to the point of either being persuaded or coming up with something to say that I think is persuasive.
>
> But I’m not on a 2 hour flight with no devices. I have a bunch of things I can and want to do all the time. Which is good! But when I feel “stuck” on something, I just switch to something I’m not “stuck” on rather than slogging it out to a conclusion.
Slogging is bad, in general. Not awful. People should try it a few times to see what it’s like, to see that they can succeed that way, to understand their options, and maybe to occasionally use the slogging method for super valuable things.
I would not advise you to slog through this. Slogging is an indication something is wrong. It can mean you aren’t adequately interested in the activity, don’t value the outcome much, or your method of proceeding isn’t very effective.
In general, if you think it would be a slog, I’d suggest writing a post like, “I think continuing this would be a slog. Anyone got ideas about this problem?” plus providing some additional info about the problem and context. You can communicate problems and get advice about problem solving methods.
There is a generic method for making progress on this kind of thing. But before attempting it there’s something to check first. Double check your priorities. Maybe you have a bunch of higher priority things to do instead, so you should using problem solving on those things instead. When you hit any kind of significant obstacle or problem, that’s a good time to give your priorities at least 5 seconds of thought. I’m guessing you did check your priorities at some point, but I wanted to include this because it’s important.
Note: If something is not a priority for you but you think (maybe) it should be, that is itself a different problem which should have a different, separate priority level, and which one may want to pursue.
OK, back to the slog. If you hit a slog, you should *take a step back* and get a broader perspective. Consider: how can I make progress without going through this slog?
This is the generic method i’ve talked about at http://fallibleideas.com/avoiding-coercion and elsewhere.
When you hit a problem, first try directly solving it. If that isn’t working well, consider what can be done while *not* directly solving it. Can you go around it? Can you first change your method of approach then problem, then try solving it again? Can you understand redirect your problem solving effort to the meta problem of what the blocker is, and solve that?
You can try to understand the cause of the slog and fix *that*. Or you can use a different path for making progress. There are many types of alternative paths. You can build up general purpose skills (become a better intellectual, expand your intellectual toolkit) or build up domain-specific skills or just find a different way to directly get at your goal.
Looking at the bigger picture – I’m trying to solve X, I hit slog Y, what are my options in this situation? – is a new thing to work on and think about which isn’t part of slog Y and doesn’t require a solution to slog Y.
This method of taking a step back can be repeatedly infinitely – if you have difficulties when looking at the bigger picture you can look at the even bigger picture – and there are reasons it tends to get simpler and easier with each iteration which helps avoid it being endless. It won’t always get you a solution to the original thing, but it will get you a way forward which is compatible with reason and with making progress, and which a reasonable person can be happy with or at least not unhappy.
Instead of being stuck for a significant amount of time on problem X, to the point it doesn’t seem to be working and can be recognized as a slog, one should *change the problem* to X2. And if stuck on X2 for a while, try X3. And X4 and X5 are available if needed. Note that, once at X5, you can always go back to X, X2 or any earlier problem if you prefer to. You can quickly bounce around between all these problems as you get some ideas to try out for any of them. You’re gaining more options for problems to solve but you still only need to solve any one of them in order to make progress and move on.
This problem solving method is so important that I would advise people to highly prioritize practicing it – remembering to use it and explicitly working through it and seeing how it works in many cases. Focus more on the method than the actual problem you’re facing – getting better at the method matters more. I shared it years ago and people don’t seem to be using it much or to be focusing much attention on trying to learn to use it.
BTW there is a difficulty people can encounter, a thing that makes it hard to get a solution this way (or any way, it’s not a weakness of this particular method compared to other methods) even though it shouldn’t be that hard. I’m not going to preemptively address it right now. I forget what I’ve said about it publicly. If people were trying to learn this stuff, they ought to run into the difficulty (or, in the alternative, have tons of success). They might then reasonably have trouble identifying what it is, precisely, but should be able to say *something* relating to it that’s in the ballpark enough for me to potentially identify the issue.
Comments & Events
Elliot
I wrote this email in Dec 2018. I wanted to try forwarding an email with quotes.