G'day G'day Folks,

Many people are aware of a puzzle where 12 numbered balls are otherwise identical but one of them is either lighter or heavier by an amount detectable only by an uncalibrated balance. The balance pans will each take up to 6 balls. The puzzle is to determine which is the odd ball and whether it is lighter or heavier in just three weighings.

What could this possibly have to do with nlp? Well it occurred to me that there are certain presuppositions in nlp that are useful in solving puzzles.

For myself I dreamed certain stratagems for solving the puzzle then typed up a solution when I awoke. After typing up the solution I proof read it and noticed that I had lost ball 7. The dream solution wasn't perfect but the tools were. I reworked one section somehow knowing that my stratagems would work and they did. To be sure, I added an audit trail of declarations at each step. Typing separated me from the original visual-vestibular state that allowed me to track the validity of each step.

I presented my solution to a checker and was surprised to find my solution was different from the standard textbook answer. There is a temptation to believe that if something is regarded as difficult there is only one solution. Well it ain't so. What fascinated me here is the degree of change used. It was a though I introduced more change than the conventional solution. I think of it as following the path of maximum evolution, ie one step back from chaos. It requires confidence. IMHO, the conservative pattern is more like two steps back from chaos, introducing just sufficient change to reach the answer.

Friends tackled the puzzle and solved part of it in simpler fashion than I did. I felt quite humble. Their solution was so easy to perform and explain. Then I noticed something I hadn't anticipated. IMHO, they fell into what I call the intelligence trap. Their initial success conditioned them to keep applying their "successful" pattern as though they knew it all. We are talking super intelligent people here. Yet, their difficulty was obvious. I was amazed that they even claimed solutions that sometimes worked in three steps but sometimes took four. Steadfastly they failed to generate options. It was like Mark Twain's famous observation that one of the worst fates that can befall a person is to win a large a large amount of money on a horse at a young age.

For me, I find looking at simple puzzles like this creates certain beliefs about the efficacy of particular strategies. In this example, it has strengthened my belief in the importance of creating three rather than two options. If I had to name it, I'd call it the tri-partition principle.

If in any way I could choose what happens to this post, it would be this. Solving the puzzle isn't important. Observing how people solve puzzles will open up whole fields for thinking about metaprograms, etc So don't bother telling me what you think, tell me what you discover that you didn't already know.

Share your experience.

More posts and stories

Return to our home page