Some of the competing factors in progress towards problem solving are design, feasibility, immediacy, and execution. These notes attempt to reason through some of these factors and draw understandings based on experience and observation as to how these factors can be minimized while maintaining a sense of self-checking decency and balance that corrects and improves a society over time.
Design
After capability is determined, solution designs are then created. In a group dynamic, many designs can be submitted for a single problem. Logically this has one of two outcomes: The group can decide on one and only one solution to implement, or they can decide on multiple solutions to implement, either in parallel or by designating additional solutions as contingencies.
Design is slowed then by two core factors (amongst many): Complexity in arriving at potential solutions (some problems are more difficult than others) and the review & refinement process itself to determine which, if any, solution(s) to implement.
Speaking for a moment about a single-minded dynamic- that is- a single person attempting to solve a problem rather than a group. Individuals also tend to create and review several potential solutions when approaching a problem. Certainly, some individuals seem wired to simply go with "the first thing that comes to mind", but it's important to note that the group dynamic is more than just the sum of its individual parts- each person represents an idea factory that is capable of quickly & subconsciously drawing upon many internal designs to arrive at solutions they deem viable. The benefit of a single-minded solution is speed of creation - each internally evaluated solution does not need to be expressed to a group to "bring them up to speed" or align thinking. The detriment and thus the lack of focus on this topic is that the presented solutions, no matter how internally refined, offer all the subjectivity and flaws inherent to a single consciousness (id, ego, technical expertise, etc).
Additionally, as complexity rises, the ability for a single mind to comprehend all the facets fully and arrive at a comprehensive solution or set of solutions decreases. Thus the phrase "two heads are better than one", or concepts like multi-threading, multi-core processing, or multi-channel throughputs exist in the computing world. We should always, then, strive for group-minded solutions when we approach problem solving.
Design.Complexity
Complexity is solved by adding more minds (multi-processing) or increasing the capabilities (via education, training, etc) of the minds already on hand. A group may quickly arrive at a solution if they happen to be fully trained on the subject matter and feel comfortable and confident in the design process, but the same group presented with a different scenario may fail to efficiently arrive at a design.
The potential failing point of Complexity then is directly related to the minds on hand that are attempting to resolve it. Technical gaps (I don't know how this works), lack of consequential evidence (I don't know what will happen if I/we try this), and lack of precedence (This has never been done before) are risks that must be accounted for, and should be taken with a high degree of responsibility and ownership.
In many cases, these failing points are socially excused- as it is human behavior that only some feel true regret and are compelled to resolve short-comings in a design while others attempt absolve responsibility. At its ugliest, this leads to concepts like plausible deniability and negligence which destroy progress by allowing solutions with dire consequences slip through into implementation. Without a sense of vested ownership, there decreases the chance that fallout or short comings will be addressed. A good expression of this concept is the Chicken and the Pig fable commonly mentioned in project management circles.
Finally, the assumption is that all the minds tasked are morally aligned to create solutions that drive for a genuine betterment of the system as it relates to the symbiotic whole. Failures of this can be as benign as technical gaps (understanding that gasoline can power an engine, but not understanding that the byproduct is harmful pollution) or as malicious as sabotage (proposing a solution you know will have ill effects but disguising it as being beneficial).
Both of these issues are related to education and transparency. Education is easily solved through the constant drive to observe and learn, and thus why all ideas and solutions should be considered emergent and not static- as what we learn tomorrow could greatly alter the design of what we know today. This too plays into uncovering the malicious intent of individuals who seek to exploit. In almost all cases short of overt coercion, the only thing separating the exploited from the exploiters is ignorance to some fundamental truth or understanding and a lack of transparency into their actions and intent. Complexity creates this uncertainty, especially in new realms of science, and it is usually these safeguarded secrets that are leveraged to gain control while the majority is still naive to its true nature.
Design.Review & Refinement
Like many animals, humans are capable of reflecting upon actions and reactions and using outcomes to adjust future ideas and behaviors. Unlike animals, however, humans display (almost) precognitive capabilities- or at least advanced reasoning capabilities that allow for design conclusions based on probability, experience, and forethought.
This valuable tool is sometimes misused, however, in the realm of problem solving. True precognition can only occur if you believe in clairvoyance, and even in a 99.9% probability scenario, there's still that 0.1% chance that can (and often will) manifest under the right conditions.
This is important when we talk about feasibility in later sections, but for the sake of refinement and review, sometimes we create a false sense of doubt by adhering too closely to deductive reasoning, or incorrectly applying weak inductive reasoning as a way to "shoot holes" in a design.
This can be done for a number of reasons that should be carefully avoided - passive/aggressive aspects of our personality may look to discredit an idea because it would require too much effort or stress, or our lack of understanding may draw naive conclusions (weak induction). In truth, all ideas are valid if they adhere to the genuine betterment of the system as it relates to the symbiotic whole. And even if some ideas appear to be less feasible than others, if they are at least within the realm of possibility and capability, they should be remembered and revisited at future states for re-rationalization just as the "winning" solution should be reviewed for consistency and relevance.
There also seems to be another slippery aspect I cannot personally identify in human behavior: When faced with a multitude of ideas to review, or a multitude of potential refinements to a particular idea, there often times grows an anxiety within some individuals during the process that creates a sense of exhaustion to additional ideas. You may have heard the phrases "We can play the what-if game all day long, but we aren't getting anywhere" or "I don't really care anymore, just pick one and let’s move on.” I'm noting this here even though it seems to overlap with the concept of Immediacy because I have observed this phenomenon even in situations where there was no outside pressure or urgency to quickly arrive at a solution. There simply seems to be a threshold within each person, at various breaking points, that can only stand to carry out or undertake so many iterations of review and refinement.
This is, sadly, dangerous to the ideal emergence and transparency necessary to create a self-checking system by which problems are solved, solutions are revisited for improvements, and potential exploitation is kept to an absolute minimum. Examples of this are constantly expressed in software development. Be it banking software or video games, testing of the product is limited only by the capability of the testers (reviewers) and the developers (creators/refiners) over the duration, creativity, and tenacity of the tests performed (what-if scenarios). No amount of review is ever sufficient to claim a solution to be perfectly holistic. Testing and refinement of code only creates an illusion of confidence that the system will behave properly. Once this confidence level hits a certain threshold, the solution and product are deemed "sound", and usually no new forms of testing are created, only existing methods of regression testing occur to ensure "nothing breaks" during other development.
This is the realm where exploitation lives - if the designers don't play the "what-if" game, someone else will, and they will invariably discover gaps in the solution either accidentally or purposely through their own methods of testing or vulnerability probing. At that point your design is subject to the will and morality of the individual- will they approach the solution creators and alarm them to the potential problem so that it can be solved? Or will they keep these vulnerabilities secret and attempt to leverage them for personal gain/control?
Logic should, of course, be to assume the worst as it is within the realm of possibilities, and why a constant, ongoing review and refinement process is necessary to (hopefully) prevent or uncover design short-comings before they are leveraged. Creative examples of this in the real world are situations where computer hackers are caught and, rather than punished, are actually employed by security firms to safely and purposely help them test the systems and uncover vulnerabilities.
I say then, with every fiber of my being, that one of the cornerstones of a society that attempts to solution any problem, or aspire any feat, be them technological, social, spiritual or otherwise, do so under the constant and unhindered, uncensored moral and technical scrutiny that its citizenship can offer through emergent, strongly inductive and existential review.
Finally, during these processes, rationalization should be kept to a minimum, as it tends to cloud affairs with inconsequential excuses for why rather than root-causing the gap. Identify the root, determine the gap (education/understanding/technical) and progress to refinement.
Feasibility
Feasibility is the weak force that, like gravity, pulls the other factors together. Once problem solving creates potential designs, feasibility is then weighed (often closely with immediacy) as one of the determining factors for which design to implement. Say the problem is determining the best way to cross a river. One person may propose bridge be built using lumber from nearby trees. Another may suggest sending a strong swimmer across with a long rope to secure to the other end, allowing the rest of the people to cross using the guide.
Both ideas are feasible, so the process of evaluation begins. Is sending someone across safe? Will using the rope be safe for the others? Do we have the tools to create a bridge? Does anyone know how? Does the way across need to be maintained for future crossings?
The answers to these questions begin to rank the feasibility of the presented solutions, either actively or subconsciously, and the group (or those in charge of deciding) begins to gravitate towards one solution over the others.
If the perceived feasibility of one solution seems to greatly outweigh the others by high margin, the other solutions may be scrapped completely within retention or further discussion. If two or more solutions seem marginally similar, both may be attempted to determine which will be the ‘official’ solution as they near completion. Finally, one solution may only be more lucrative than the others because it circumvents or alleviates one of the core design hurdles (and usually at the expense of some accepted risk). In this situation, the less-popular “wishful” solution may be attempted while making the dominant solution the contingency should the wishful attempt fail.
In any regard, it is the manner and outcome of this ranking which introduces the first key level of negative human behavior in a group dynamic: Pride. Sometimes, the passion and originality that goes into a plan brings with it personal attachment to the idea. If the idea “wins”, this elevates to a heightened need to rationalize and defend the idea from scrutiny and reform.
There are countless examples dating back through all of history that illustrate this. One that stands out is China’s Great Leap Forward. One aspect, the advent of the backyard furnace, was put forth by Mao (without a metallurgy background or support) to boost China’s industrialization through the production of steel from scrap metal.
This solution was implemented, and a large scale effort was carried forth to install these steel furnaces throughout the communes, and production began. The result was mass production of pig iron, not steel, which was hardly suitable for construction and low value to export. How did it get that far? Pride, and Censorship. Mao distrusted intellectuals and often carried out movements without the input of trained engineers (many of were killed off anyways during the Hundred Flowers Campaign). It didn’t stop at the failure to produce steel, either. Admitting that it was a terrible idea to the masses would diminish their support, so instead the project was only quietly abandoned after some time.
Personal attachment to an idea or design goes the other way, too. The rejection of one’s submitted idea can prompt resentment, depression, or aggression which negatively impacts the measure of a design’s feasibility. They may immediately scrap support of their idea at the first sign of opposition or scrutiny “It’s fine, it’s a stupid idea anyway” or feel as though they are being personally attacked – “I was just trying to help...”
As sympathetic as a group could aspire to be to the feelings of those who contribute, it should be the personal goal and development of each and every contributor to set aside their personal attachments, pride, and insecurities in lieu of objectively reviewing ideas.
It will be natural that some people will contribute more feasibly sound ideas than others- these people aren’t to be shunned as “know it all’s” but should be kept in check to make sure they don’t try to dominate the design sessions simply for the sake of vanity or over-achieving . It will be natural that some people are better at pointing out vulnerabilities in plans, but not necessarily as capable in formulating their own concepts- these individuals should be valued as safe-guarders of quality, not “negative” influencers or opposition.
Put plainly, there is no room for a sense of direct, human competition amongst the people for feasibility of ideas. Each idea must be weighed of its own merit, in relation to the ideas before it, the other ideas being weighed, and the symbiotic consequences it holds in relation to all things affected by its implementation.
An example to illustrate this concept of direct and indirect competition could be this: If I write a computer program today that calculates a large sum of items in the span of 30 seconds, tomorrow there could exist a computer program that can do the same calculation in only 10 seconds. Whether it is that I created the new program or if another person or entity created it is irrelevant, the fact remains that an improvement was made and should therefore be considered.
Evaluating the change itself reveals that the new program does not feel a sense of direct competition with the old program, as neither is determined capable of feeling “competition”.
My language is carefully chosen because there exists a gray area as we as a species continue to weave the notion of unconscious, unfeeling automation into our daily lives. The factory worker, the telephone operator, the elevator man, the mechanic, the gardener, the photo developer, the accountant, the banker, the line judge- as new designs look to make human labor obsolete, greater care must be taken to evaluate not only the emotional attachment to the idea itself, but the attachment the idea itself may contain when faced with feasibility ranking.
As a humanitarian, I believe much of this can be avoided with some simple, general acts of sympathy that is not beyond the realm of effective problem solving. We incorporate many of these aspects already- be it thanking someone for their contribution or proactively calling out the benefits ones ideas provide even if it is not the candidate for implementation. I believe also that designs that don’t make it to implementation should be retained indefinitely as a historical marking of other paths considered, something that hasn’t happened nearly enough in the history of the world. The truth is, in the realm of anything being possible, sometimes an idea that is not feasible today, even an idea that seems completely irrational, can take on a completely new form in the future as our thought processes, technologies, and evolutions continue.
Thus, if everyone who contributes ideas feels that they can freely do so- and if everyone works towards becoming self-confident enough to discuss those ideas and refine them in the face of criticism, and if people pause to do so in a generally positive way with a degree of patience and understanding, you can then unlock the truly explosive, renaissance potential that is human ingenuity.
Immediacy
Earlier I mentioned immediacy in relation to the review and refinement process. Time is always a factor, but sometimes our perception of its passing skews the objective conclusions we should be drawing about when certain things should occur. In short: the time element of all emergent systems must be weighed objectively and cannot be subject to the typically impatient will of man.
Is the problem at hand dire? Are we avoiding procrastination or are we simply impatient? Are we frustrated that there are no solutions yet? Frustrated that there are too many solutions and we can’t seem to agree upon one?
All of these factors play in, and much like the personal growth required to correctly weigh feasibility, I feel we must also constantly strive to correctly identify immediacy objectively.
If the situation is dire – a life is at stake with only moments, seconds, or minutes to react, this will obviously affect the problem solving process and there may not be ample time (if any) to create multiple solutions, review them, refine them, and then carry a one out. In many cases, even in a group dynamic, the entire process may only even occur as a single-minded process as each individual instinctively “reacts” to the situation. Emergency situations are a topic for another time- for now I’ll focus on strategic problem solving in situations that aren’t quite so immediate.
Peace, love, and understanding is all well and good- but stress, urgency and imposition can also create advancement though pressure-based ingenuity, right? Wrong. Behavioral psychology has shown time and time again that creating pressure-based immediacy for no real reason is actually detrimental to progress, yet somewhere within us, again unclear to me, there exists that conditioned threshold I spoke of earlier where, for no other sake than progress itself, we create timelines and deadlines and other artificial forms of immediacy when solving problems.
To some, the perception that no actual, tangible work is being done towards the goal, so the elapsed time is perceived as time wasted or laziness, or procrastination- perfectly viable explanations for the anger or anxiety that comes with envisioning or planning to solve a complex problem. Laziness and procrastination are also topics for another time, as I’ve always wanted to investigate the group dynamic as it relates to motivation and participation in the individual. Suffice to say that personal development in the areas of patience should be applied to correctly separate truly negative “lack of urgency” situations from the benign “lack of necessity” situations.
Some immediacy, valid immediacy, can be determined from objective sources. Perhaps shelter needs to be resolved before nightfall because of the cold, or food harvesting and storage needs to be completed before the winter. Perhaps a particular resource is becoming scarce, or a particular solution of old has now been found to be affecting the positive symbiotic whole in an adverse way… these considerations, again tempered by feasibility, can have an effect on group problem solving in somewhat of a “positive” light (for lack of a better term) by providing external observations… consequences, reactions, which bring about change.
Three ways that can positively affect Immediacy is forethought (preparation), available options (technology), and experience. Experience, being, the least quantifiable as many (but not all) theories can be practiced ad nauseum, but usually differ in their actual occurrences.. thus many experiences cannot be expressed and therefore instantly and intimately understood, they must be experienced.
Forethought and having available options are things that we can directly affect and plan for. Pursuing several solutions for power generation as opposed to one gives us options if one or more individual options become unviable. Creating a new “hovering” prototype vehicle that has never been driven but taking the time to add safety features which prevent crashes or protects the passengers in different ways traditionally found in ground-based vehicles shows forethought in planning which indirectly saves the potential immediacy having to recall the vehicle because it is unsafe.
It can be said that many of these aspects evolve rapidly over time as we perfect the art of creation or expand our knowledge and technologies which increases our capability. Coupling this capability with a constant re-evaluation process and the retention of other design solutions poises us to make less near-sighted decisions along the way, avoiding the pit-falls that come with rushed design.
Execution aka “The best laid schemes o' mice an' men.. “
At long last, the plan for action has been decided upon, and it’s time to implement the culmination of all the review and brain power. People eagerly work on their parts, the prototype is built and… nothing happens.
Failure, as we all have hopefully learned by now, is an inevitable outcome in this the world we live in. We can count on one hand the number of times our designs have worked flawlessly out of the gate, and we have, at least once in our lives, abandoned a perfectly sound idea or endeavor simply because we were not successful at it the first time we tried.
Execution plays on two key elements in human behavior: Fear of failure, and perception of competence. Internally, we want to present ideas and perform actions correctly (unless we are maliciously motivated to do the opposite). When our attempt fails, the reaction dives into a number of negative behavior patterns more suitable for other discussions (perfectionism, self-deprecation, anxiety, depression, stress, OCD, etc), but it can also prompts various other positive responses (optimism of progress, furthering knowledge, gaining understanding of the nature and interdependence of things, motivation to continue)
As with all the other aspects covered here, there is again personal growth that is necessary to cultivate the positive motivators in trial and error while reducing the negative anxieties which can hinder refinement and ultimately progress.
Edison said it best: "If I find 10,000 ways something won't work, I haven't failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward".
Execution drives of all the theorizing and all the “what if’s” that occurred before it to refine a solution to its elevated states via observation of failure. While I mentioned this should not be something that is feared, care is needed to evaluate the actual cost of each attempt as it relates to everyone and everything else. Failure to do this, in the blind name of scientific progress, is in part what leads to things like devalued perception of life (mass scale animal testing), un-necessary depletion of resources, or unknown, permanent damage to the environment or ourselves (nuclear testing).
The final, and often overlooked, portion of execution is the feedback cycle or the self-reflection cycle. So many problems in our current society exist only because there is no “closed loop” in the cycle by which the outcomes of implemented ideas are evaluated against the source for a root cause.
Instead, we ignore these cause and effect relationships, treat them as inherent “cost” for operating the solution, and begin to develop new ideas to serve as workarounds for the flaws inherent to the original system. Sometimes this is unavoidable, but often, these workarounds or band-aids are rarely removed at a future date for a better original design without scrapping the entire project or going with a completely different solution.
It is important that we are constantly reviewing already implemented solutions and comparing the results to the original intent and design and determining if either is inherently flawed or has become flawed. This is how we end up with “Frankenstein” processes and legacy systems that get to a point where no one is left that even remembers how they work or what the original intent was, but they cannot be so much as touched for fear that they will irrevocably break.
Bringing it all together
• The ability for a single mind to comprehend all the facets fully and arrive at a comprehensive solution or set of solutions decreases. Thus the phrase "two heads are better than one", or concepts like multi-threading, multi-core processing, or multi-channel throughputs exist in the computing world. We should always, then, strive for group-minded solutions when we approach problem solving.
• All ideas and solutions should be considered emergent and not static- as what we learn tomorrow could greatly alter the design of what we know today. This too plays into uncovering the malicious intent of individuals who seek to exploit. In almost all cases short of overt coercion, the only thing separating the exploited from the exploiters is ignorance to some fundamental truth or understanding and a lack of transparency into their actions and intent. Complexity creates this uncertainty, especially in new realms of science, and it is usually these safeguarded secrets that are leveraged to gain control while the majority is still naive to its true nature.
• It is human behavior that only some feel true regret and are compelled to resolve short-comings in a design while others attempt to absolve responsibility. At its ugliest, this leads to concepts like plausible deniability and negligence which destroy progress by allowing solutions with dire consequences slip through into implementation. Without a sense of vested ownership, there decreases the chance that fallout or short comings will be addressed.¬
• One of the cornerstones of a society that exists to solution any problem, or aspire any feat, be them technological, social, spiritual or otherwise, do so under the constant and unhindered, uncensored moral and technical scrutiny that its citizenship can offer through emergent, strongly inductive and existential review.
• During refinement, rationalization should be kept to a minimum, as it tends to cloud affairs with inconsequential excuses for why rather than root-causing the gap. Identify the root, determine the gap (education/understanding/technical) and progress to refinement.
• As sympathetic as a group could aspire to be to the feelings of those who contribute, it should be the personal goal and development of each and every contributor to set aside their personal attachments, pride, and insecurities in lieu of objectively reviewing ideas.
• There is no room for a sense of direct, human competition amongst the people for feasibility of ideas. Each idea must be weighed of its own merit, in relation to the ideas before it, the other ideas being weighed, and the symbiotic consequences it holds in relation to all things affected by its implementation.
• Designs that don’t make it to implementation should be retained indefinitely as a historical marking of other paths considered, something that hasn’t happened nearly enough in the history of the world. The truth is, in the realm of anything being possible, sometimes an idea that is not feasible today, even an idea that seems completely irrational, can take on a completely new form in the future as our thought processes, technologies, and evolutions continue.
• If everyone who contributes ideas feels that they can freely do so- and if everyone works towards becoming self-confident enough to discuss those ideas and refine them in the face of criticism, and if people pause to do so in a generally positive way with a degree of patience and understanding, you can then unlock the truly explosive, renaissance potential that is human ingenuity.
• Time is always a factor, but sometimes our perception of its passing skews the objective conclusions we should be drawing about when certain things should occur. In short: the time element of all emergent systems must be weighed objectively and cannot be subject to the typically impatient will of man.
• Three ways that can positively affect Immediacy is forethought (preparation), available options (technology), and experience.
• Execution drives of all the theorizing and all the “what if’s” that occurred before it to refine a solution to its elevated states via observation of failure. While I mentioned this should not be something that is feared, care is needed to evaluate the actual cost of each attempt as it relates to everyone and everything else.
• It is important that we are constantly reviewing already implemented solutions and comparing the results to the original intent and design and determining if either is inherently flawed or has become flawed.
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