Hmm. I’m a fan of examining repeated interactions, and of trading off explore/exploit time and energy, for thinking about improvements to things that are most valuable to improve.
But I’m curious about the game example. Presumably there are LOTS of changes you could make to increase success chance here (including just using the default settings, or uninstalling the app and choosing an easier one). Why was your friend’s change (in some framings, “cheat” would be an appropriate term) surprisingly effective?
(including just using the default settings, or uninstalling the app and choosing an easier one).
I feel like this was meant to be in jest, but if you were serious: my goal was to beat the stage with certain self-imposed constraints, so relaxing those constraints would’ve defeated the purpose of the exercise.
Anyways, it wasn’t my friend’s specific change that was surprising, it was the fact that he had come up with an optimization at all. My strategy was technically viable but incredibly tedious, and even though I knew it was tedious I was planning on trying it as-is anyways. It was like I was committed to eating a bowl of soup with a fork and my friend pointed out the existence of spoons. The big realization was that I had a dumb strategy that I (on some level) knew was dumb, but I didn’t have the “obvious” next thought of trying to make it better.
It was jest-ish. Reductio ad absurdum. Your friend found a setting that made your chosen difficulty level less difficult. I’m not sure how different that is from just playing an easier game.
For activities where you care about the result, not about the activity itself, it makes tons of sense to change the approach to be more successful with less effort. For games where you’re specifically challenging yourself more than necessary, I think the case is a lot weaker about how to optimize.
Hmm. I’m a fan of examining repeated interactions, and of trading off explore/exploit time and energy, for thinking about improvements to things that are most valuable to improve.
But I’m curious about the game example. Presumably there are LOTS of changes you could make to increase success chance here (including just using the default settings, or uninstalling the app and choosing an easier one). Why was your friend’s change (in some framings, “cheat” would be an appropriate term) surprisingly effective?
I feel like this was meant to be in jest, but if you were serious: my goal was to beat the stage with certain self-imposed constraints, so relaxing those constraints would’ve defeated the purpose of the exercise.
Anyways, it wasn’t my friend’s specific change that was surprising, it was the fact that he had come up with an optimization at all. My strategy was technically viable but incredibly tedious, and even though I knew it was tedious I was planning on trying it as-is anyways. It was like I was committed to eating a bowl of soup with a fork and my friend pointed out the existence of spoons. The big realization was that I had a dumb strategy that I (on some level) knew was dumb, but I didn’t have the “obvious” next thought of trying to make it better.
It was jest-ish. Reductio ad absurdum. Your friend found a setting that made your chosen difficulty level less difficult. I’m not sure how different that is from just playing an easier game.
For activities where you care about the result, not about the activity itself, it makes tons of sense to change the approach to be more successful with less effort. For games where you’re specifically challenging yourself more than necessary, I think the case is a lot weaker about how to optimize.