Dimreeper,

 

Give me the context of the problem, and I can give you a suggestion as to how you might go about deconstructing the situation and solving the components.

 

The most intelligent man I ever knew was a Dr. Wolfgang Zucker, a philosophy professor at the small defunct college I attended. He would solve integral calculus problems for relaxation and amusement like others might do crossword puzzles. I am sure he would not have been able to do those problems without others, especially Leibniz.

 

Regards, TAR

(and he would solve those problems WHILE he was discussing deep philosophical topics, sitting around his house with students and friends.)

Dimreeper,

 

I actually was an expert troubleshooter and problem solver for my company, concerning fax machines, printers, wideformat copiers, color copiers, digital duplicators, and scanners. I could solve problems the best trained techs were having trouble with. But it was because I knew what the machines were designed to do, and how they accomplished the task. I had a simple rule, if the machine was not working right, it had to be something. Either something was not designed correctly, or something had failed or some environmental condition or some individual's actions were preventing it from working. It had to be something.

 

Regards, TAR

(or the salesman promised the machine would do something it was not designed to do}

So basically, if you have an ill-defined problem without any expected solutions, or path to solution or goal or whatever, you look for an analog, something similar, and that might give you a way forward. And you use your experience, or the experience of others in similar situations to find the solution. You learn from the past.

Edited August 31, 20169 yr by tar

I really can't be bothered with this; if/when you construct a reasonable argument, let me know.

dimreepr,

 

"Please suggest a way an ill-defined problem can be learned."

 

I suppose you meant to ask me how one could learn from others how the solution to an ill-defined problem can be arrived at?

 

I gave some examples.

 

I also asked you to give me the context of a problem to where I could show you we can learn from others how to go about solving the thing.

 

Regards, TAR