Logicless Logic

simplicity made difficult.

Take a look at the picture above. The caption says "The simplest solutions are often the cleverest. They are also usually wrong." The key word here is usually. Usually wrong does not mean always wrong. So does a risk of doing something wrongly deter one from doing it?

Sometimes it does. But take a look at the first part of the caption. The simplest solutions indeed do seem the most practical and effective, even though as seen in the picture and second part, might be wrong. However, they also have a chance of being correct, thus making the task to be completed much more easily.

One example was one of our games in TBTL, where we were split into groups of 5-6. We were given a bottle, comms cord, chopsticks and a set of pipes of 3 different sizes to "airlift" a cup with a ping pong ball inside out of a boundary. And talking was not allowed when the ping pong ball remained in the cup. Different teams tried various methods, such as using the pipes to put water into the cup so they could get the ball out and talk(which was a waste of time since getting the cup out was much easier. Besides they failed miserably, succeeding in only wetting the floor and finishing last.) In the end, my team ignored all other equipment(more like distractions) and used only the comms cord to take the cup out.

Simple, yet how many people have actually thought of it? With the availability of so many tools, people tend to overcomplicate things that are actually so simple. The simplest solutions are usually the cleverest. And they might not be wrong.

justin.

posted by justin @ 9:23 PM