Problems
December 13th, 2023 (10 months ago) • 2 minutes
Intelligence reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending our surroundings-“catching on,” “making sense” of things, or “figuring out” what to do […]
We generally attribute smart people to those with high IQs (or people in exclusive clubs like Mensa or Prometheus), and to those who perform exceptionally well in specific topics. They are people who solve complex problems, win Nobel Prizes, and build large startups, etc. For me, I like to categorize these individuals as smart people who solve well-defined problems.
Well-defined problems are characterized by:
- Stable relationships between the variables.
- No disagreement about whether the problems are problems, or whether they’ve been solved.
- Clear boundaries; there is a finite amount of relevant information and possible actions.
- Repeatability. Although the details may change, the process for solving the problems does not.
On the other hand, there are also smart people who solve poorly-defined problems. For example:
- How do I live the life I like?
- How can I be more efficient at work?
- How do I find my passion?
These problems typically do not have clear choices and thus no straightforward answers. This is why they are difficult. Even AI cannot answer them, since to get AI to solve problem, we need to give it data, and picking data requires us to define the problem.
We should value the ability to solve these problems and seek out people who have these abilities.