Solving and outgrowing problems

Beyond Problem Solving

We face problems in different ways. When faced with a physical threat, we run away. When faced with a problem that can be solved, we solve it. And when faced with a problem that cannot be solved, we outgrow it.

For example, when a tsunami comes, you run uphill. When you sit an exam doing algebra or geometry, you have to solve the problem.

Problem-solvers take pride in their skills and tricks. They see problems as opportunities to learn and grow. This is the Kaizen mindset: problems are treasures that can help us improve.

Kaizen's motto: "Problems are a mountain of treasure".

In the field of AI, problem-solving was studied as a way to automate it for programs. This would allow programs to solve search, optimization, matching, and other tasks. At one time, it was believed that a "General Problem Solver (GPS)" could be developed for programs to have general intelligence. However, most researchers later retreated from this position and turned to specific domain problem-solving.

An earlier and parallel development was in Logic and Mathematics. Kurt Gödel proved his incompleteness theorem: a logical system is either incomplete or inconsistent. The equivalent Turing theorem is: there are functions that can never be computed by a universal machine.

These results set limits on what can be solved by problem-solving algorithms. Later another practical constraint was discovered. Some problems are definitely solvable, but not in polynomial time in the size of the problem.

This means that they cannot practically be solved for large problems. As a result, people turned to approximate solutions using heuristics, which aim to find good solutions instead of optimal solutions.

Many years ago, I read "The Secret of the Golden Flower" by Richard Wilhelm, with commentary by C.G. Jung. Jung was the Swiss founder of the Jungian school of analytic psychology. Jung wrote:

"I had learned in the meanwhile that the greatest and most important problems of life are all in a certain sense insoluble. They must be so because they express the necessary polarity inherent in every self-regulating system. They can never be solved, but only outgrown."

I could not at first fully understand the sentence, but the more I read it, the more I was aware of the astonishing insight contained in the writing. Not only did Jung state the insolvability, but he gave reasons for it, and showed how one must outgrow fundamental problems.

The reason "They must be so because they express the necessary polarity inherent in every self-regulating system" sounds very modern. It can be appreciated if we read Fritjof Capra's "The Tao of Physics" and "The Web of Life".

The dynamic, ever-changing equilibrium of the forces of Yin and Yang is the inherent polarity, and self-regulating systems is a precursor of the idea of autopoiesis, the pattern or process of life. Hence the fundamental problems of life are insoluble.

Outgrowing a problem does not mean making the problem disappear, it is still there, but somehow its significance has diminished, mainly because we have changed ourselves.

In normal problem solving, the problem is thought to be there independent of us, the subject. But in outgrowing problems, we recognize that the problem and the subject are intricately connected.
The analogy is like between classical physics where something is observed objectively, and quantum physics, where any observation by the subject distorts the object of observation.

According to Jung, the key to outgrowing is letting go or letting things happen, or Wu Wei ("non-action"). Jung then continued with the interplay of the conscious and the unconscious, including the collective unconscious, and took us to his theories of psychology.

In Buddhism, "Mind harbors all" said the Dhammapada, therefore all problems are in our minds, created by our minds, and to be outgrown by our minds.
Another Buddhist term often used to describe outgrowing is spaciousness. For example, when meditating, we aim to be as spacious as possible.
Gil Fronsdal, give the following illustration of spaciousness: If we are in a small room, perhaps 2 by 2 meters, and there is a nail in the middle of the room, we have a problem of constantly watching not to step on it. If the room is the size of a big hall, the nail is still there, but it has become a minor problem.

In summary, we have problems that we can run away from, problems that can be solved rationally, and problems that need to be outgrown. It is the last category which is most important because those are the fundamental problems of life.

More Quotes:

• "Having a problem is no problem. It's denying you have it that creates the difficulty." - John Cleese

• "There is no problem so big it can't be run away from." - Charles Schultz

• "One of the nice things about problems is that a good many of them do not exist except in our imaginations." - Steve Allen

• "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." - Albert Einstein