How do you set your prior for initial sampling? This seems like the fundamental problem to me (with regards to creativity). Suppose I want to brainstorm about a scientific problem. I don’t want to start with “cars have square wheels” because that has nothing to do with my problem. But, if I start with a statement of the problem, I have already “primed” myself in a certain direction, even if I just negate the problem statement.
I guess the analogy breaks down a little. For SA, I would use a uniform prior, and I’m guaranteed eventually to explore every part of the space. Idea space is too big for that. On the other hand, the trade-off is similar: more random starting points that are random, or fewer random starting points using a better prior.
Isn’t that the purpose of the 5 provocation techniques? You pick a few statements which are taken for granted related to the area of the problem, and then reverse/negate/distort them in some way. This isn’t a uniform distribution over idea space, since the taken-for-granted statements are related to the problem area.
How do you set your prior for initial sampling? This seems like the fundamental problem to me (with regards to creativity). Suppose I want to brainstorm about a scientific problem. I don’t want to start with “cars have square wheels” because that has nothing to do with my problem. But, if I start with a statement of the problem, I have already “primed” myself in a certain direction, even if I just negate the problem statement. I guess the analogy breaks down a little. For SA, I would use a uniform prior, and I’m guaranteed eventually to explore every part of the space. Idea space is too big for that. On the other hand, the trade-off is similar: more random starting points that are random, or fewer random starting points using a better prior.
Isn’t that the purpose of the 5 provocation techniques? You pick a few statements which are taken for granted related to the area of the problem, and then reverse/negate/distort them in some way. This isn’t a uniform distribution over idea space, since the taken-for-granted statements are related to the problem area.