Also, let’s be honest: House’s routine epiphanies are no more out of the blue than a random miracle would be...
No. They are not random. That is the result of continuous subconscious processing. Completely realistic and familiar for anyone working on hard problems.
I would not mind some random miracles, but in the last episodes of the show highly improbable miracles became the rule rather than exception. The first few seasons were quite different.
No. They are not random. That is the result of continuous subconscious processing. Completely realistic and familiar for anyone working on hard problems.
And anyone working on hard problems would also solve some of them during the straightforward, logical deductions phase.
(Ironically, this particular aspect of the show is arguably an anti-rational message, since the straightforward expertise and logical thinking of all the doctors (House included, except for his occasional work in the clinic) always makes things worse instead of better.)
There have been a lot of simpler problems that House solved immediately by ingenious but conscious deduction.
I agree that it is not realistic that House regularly has his flashes of insights always triggered by some seemingly irrelevant discussion with James. Still It is a dramatic vehicle that entertains me, simply because I know this kind of flashes very well and I can identify with them. I’d say this is the definition of a hard problem, that one needs some epiphany to solve them. Mathematicians usually label everything that can be solved by straightforward deduction “trivial”, even if the deduction is long-winding or elaborate.
I don’t agree that this aspect is anti-rational. Intuition is not at all irrational: once you had the flash, you get a completely rational insight. Even if the invention process is (practically) impossible to explain, the result should be fully rational (and rationally checkable) otherwise it is useless. It is an extremely common experience: everyone who works on non-trivial or problems gets used to using his brain in a very intuitive manner: moving from vague shadows to well defined contours, not on a crystal clear linear path.
I also don’t agree that the message is that the logical thinking and expertise of the doctors in the episodes is useless. It is important to cut of the irrelevant branches. After everything seems to be ruled out, House’s even greater expertise is needed to solve the case, but this solution is based on ruling out the higher probability branches first.
No. They are not random. That is the result of continuous subconscious processing. Completely realistic and familiar for anyone working on hard problems.
I would not mind some random miracles, but in the last episodes of the show highly improbable miracles became the rule rather than exception. The first few seasons were quite different.
And anyone working on hard problems would also solve some of them during the straightforward, logical deductions phase.
(Ironically, this particular aspect of the show is arguably an anti-rational message, since the straightforward expertise and logical thinking of all the doctors (House included, except for his occasional work in the clinic) always makes things worse instead of better.)
There have been a lot of simpler problems that House solved immediately by ingenious but conscious deduction.
I agree that it is not realistic that House regularly has his flashes of insights always triggered by some seemingly irrelevant discussion with James. Still It is a dramatic vehicle that entertains me, simply because I know this kind of flashes very well and I can identify with them. I’d say this is the definition of a hard problem, that one needs some epiphany to solve them. Mathematicians usually label everything that can be solved by straightforward deduction “trivial”, even if the deduction is long-winding or elaborate.
I don’t agree that this aspect is anti-rational. Intuition is not at all irrational: once you had the flash, you get a completely rational insight. Even if the invention process is (practically) impossible to explain, the result should be fully rational (and rationally checkable) otherwise it is useless. It is an extremely common experience: everyone who works on non-trivial or problems gets used to using his brain in a very intuitive manner: moving from vague shadows to well defined contours, not on a crystal clear linear path.
I also don’t agree that the message is that the logical thinking and expertise of the doctors in the episodes is useless. It is important to cut of the irrelevant branches. After everything seems to be ruled out, House’s even greater expertise is needed to solve the case, but this solution is based on ruling out the higher probability branches first.