Also, the second section makes an argument in favor of backchaining. But that seems to contradict the first section, in which people tried to backchain and it went badly.
This didn’t come across in the post, but – I think people in the experiment were mostly doing things closer to (simulated) forward chaining, and then getting stuck, and then generating the questionable assumptions. (which is also what I tended to do when I first started this experiment).
An interesting thing I learned is that “look at the board and think without fiddling around” is actually a useful skill to have even when I’m doing the more openended “solve it however seems best.” It’s easier to notice now when I’m fiddling around pointlessly instead of actually doing useful cognitive work.
This didn’t come across in the post, but – I think people in the experiment were mostly doing things closer to (simulated) forward chaining, and then getting stuck, and then generating the questionable assumptions. (which is also what I tended to do when I first started this experiment).
An interesting thing I learned is that “look at the board and think without fiddling around” is actually a useful skill to have even when I’m doing the more openended “solve it however seems best.” It’s easier to notice now when I’m fiddling around pointlessly instead of actually doing useful cognitive work.