Different Flavors of Problems
From threats to trivialities.
According to Karl Popper, problems are the starting point for progress. All life is problem-solving. What differentiates humans from other known life forms is in how we solve our problems: through conjecture and criticism.
But what counts as a problem?
Your house being on fire is a problem. Whether to have Italian or Indian for dinner is also a problem. Obviously, the two differ greatly in magnitude.
A house on fire is a risk-of-ruin kind of problem. What to have for dinner is a first world problem.
When thinking about problem solving and knowledge creation, I find it useful to categorize problems based on the consequences of failing to solve them.
Here’s a tentative taxonomy:
Threats
Challenges
Puzzles
Choices
Trivialities
On one end, we have threats. These are problems that, if not solved, will have catastrophic consequences.
After threats we have challenges. Solving these problems brings an improvement, but, unlike threats, failing to solve them won’t be devastating. Examples of challenges include learning new skills, getting a promotion, and improving as an athlete.
Next, we have puzzles. These are gaps in one’s understanding, the “that’s funny” moments when reality doesn’t match your expectations and you want to know why. For a scientist, this could be the need to explain experimental results that don’t match the most advanced theory.
Choices are problems with more than one possible solution. The task is to find the best solution in context or create an entirely new and better one.
Finally, we have trivialities. A fly buzzing around your desk, cold coffee in your mug, a flat phone battery, these are examples of trivial problems with inconsequential solutions.
The categorization is somewhat subjective. The problem of the buzzing fly might be trivial for me, with my noise-canceling headphones, but far more serious for someone taking an exam who is distracted by the noise.
Of course, classifying problems this way does little in the way of solving them.
But my hope is that a richer vocabulary can be a helpful tool for prioritization and introducing novices to problem-solving via conjecture and criticism.