Stepping stones in possibility space An Article by Gordon Brander subconscious.substack.com If we try to cross this lake by following only the stepping stones that lead toward our objective, we’ll soon get stuck. But what if we let go of our objectives? What if we focused on trying to find new stepping stones instead? This is novelty search. Instead of looking for something specific, you look for something new. Novelty search isn’t just random, it’s chance plus memory. Together, these ingredients do something interesting. ...Stepping stones are also combinatorial. Each new stepping stone we discover expands our potential to find even more stepping stones. Collecting stepping stones is a luck maximization algorithm. By collecting and combining stepping stones, we might arrive at our destination by accident, or somewhere more interesting! chanceknowledgeprogressnoveltyevolutioninvention
When engineers refuse to leave well enough alone In a column entitled "March of the Engineers," the humorist and social critic Russell Baker lamented the complexity and sophistication of his office's new telephone system...Baker closed his column by defining the new telephone system as "another bleak example of the horrors created when engineers refuse to leave well enough alone." In The Design of Everyday Things, Donald Norman wrote that "new telephone systems have proven to be another excellent example of incomprehensible design." Henry Petroski, The Evolution of Useful Things The Design of Everyday Things uxfeatures