Problem-Solving --- Persistence

The Persistence of Problems

Many problems seem to persist, despite our best efforts to solve them – assuming only the tools provided by critical thinking. Some problems are just too hard. We’ll see some problems are solved and solved again, each time with unsatisfactory outcomes. Still others are shrouded in complexity, vagueness, and wickedness. Let’s consider the root origins of these problems in ten steps.

1. We don’t have the tools (yet) to solve them, intellectual, theoretical, or instrumental. Example. Origin of the universe.

2. We don’t know what the real problem is. Example. Explaining matter - from antiquity to wave-particle duality. Disease.

3. We make a solution. It catches on. It becomes the solution until it fails. Then we begin again. New failure. Begin anew, and on and on. Example. Explaining planetary motion took several tries. Pedagogy. Fads!

4. We assume what the solution should be and persist in using it even though it fails. Example. Education. Government.

5. Special types of problems, called wicked*, are so rich in variables and options, that there is no unique solution in almost every sense. What is contrived is a collection of answers, incomplete and inadequate, and with no consensus but eventual acceptance. Example. Massive construction/organizational projects.

6. Politicians intervene in the process, corrupting it, and leading to incorrect solutions. Example. Medicine. War. Energy.

7. Some problems are too difficult for the human mind. Often they are indecomposible, as in breaking them into smaller, tractable pieces. We try to solve them but fail because we do not and cannot understand them. (Noem Chomsky called them mysteries.) Example. Consciousness. War and peace. Life.

8. Some problems are expressed in vague terms with only vague guidance to help solve them. Example. Anything involved with “truth.” The law. Philosophy.

9. A malaise of pessimism, individual or collective, provides boundaries or limitations to thought, making the problems at hand more difficult, if not impossible. Example. Epidemics. War. Happiness.

10. The solution is unknowable – no matter how smart you are. Or it is undecidable, meaning it may be true or false but there is no possible proof of either. Sciences are a collection of theories where some unknowable problems gradually become known. Example. Undecidability. Such are found in Computer Science and Mathematics. God.

All of these points are historical, and anyone from any century may think similarly about them. One idea is that the reason humans evolved to have faith and beliefs was to help confront these problem types. Going a step further we suggest problem-solving was a driver for evolution, then and even now. Another fundamental question is whether Artificial Intelligence (AI) can help. The notions of analytical and original thought by and from AI come into play.

*The term “wicked” is well-studied and known within the literature. Roughly, the definition of a wicked problem follows (from Wikipedia and other sources).

There is no definitive formulation of a wicked problem.
Wicked problems have no stopping rule. That is there is no rule for stopping to solve.
Solutions to wicked problems are not true-or-false, but better or worse.
There is no immediate and no ultimate test of a solution to a wicked problem.
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.
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.
Every wicked problem is essentially unique.
Every wicked problem can be considered to be a symptom of another problem.
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.

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