First Blog

The Origins of Impossible Problems Introduction. Impossible problems have always been a part of the landscape of human thought. They arise from various sources, often rooted in cognitive, logical, or structural limitations. Some problems are truly unsolvable due to fundamental constraints, while others only appear impossible because of human limitations in understanding, reasoning, or approach. In many situations, we make difficult problems impossible because of our limitations, psychological and otherwise. It is a curious thought problem to consider what sort of limitations AI will reveal when we give it truly difficult problems to solve. We must hope that we humans have not transferred our complete reliance and dependence to machine-learning tools beforehand. Below are key sources of seemingly impossible problems, along with examples and a few references to philosophical and scientific thought. Impossible Problems . To explore impossible problems, we must consider our systems fo...

  A New Category of Impossible Problems Consider a new category of problems, impossible because they exist without clear solutions. In some cases, there are no possible solutions. Many of these problems are deeply embedded in systems, often going unnoticed or unrecognized. Corporate or national interests can easily conceal their presence or remain unaware of them. There may come a day when systems become so vast that they must be rejected, as their failure could lead to global disaster. Here are five examples, many of which involve significant government involvement in their creation. A. Global System Dependencies No company should be so globally pervasive that a failure in its systems could cause a worldwide catastrophe. This is particularly true for critical systems like airline booking, television networks, and health systems. For example, a technical issue identified by global cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike in its antivirus software for Microsoft Windows devices could have had ...

  Solution Methods of Last Resort G Donald Allen 1. Introduction . You and the team can't solve the complex problem. All the engineers, all the accountants, and all the plant managers can agree on nothing definite. Every tentative solution you’ve offered has been rejected by the higher-ups as flawed. Call this a Humpty Dumpty problem [1] .   When up against impossibility or at least complexity, the problem-solver looks for any clue to help. Just a trace of inspiration may do. When you’re trying to move a mountain, only a morsel of information can help. What is singularly important here is that these notes are not confined to normal propositional logic for consideration or resolution. They work with any problem-solving tool you may prefer, from beliefs to faith to emotions, to all. To this point, we’ve already discussed dozens of solution methods. In this chapter, we add on the final bunch, dominated by dream states and thought experiments. 2. The Usual Suspects. ...