

Functional Fixedness - dedalus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_fixedness

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TeMPOraL
Good to know the name for the phenomenon. It's incredibly common among people
and it seriously infects thinking, to the point some seem to believe objects
have little tags attached to atoms that say "this can be used only for X", and
they'll act as if you're breaking the laws of nature if you use the object for
something else than its "intended purpose".

Current society itself also seems to encourage functional fixedness. Whenever
there's a problem, there's always a _dedicated_ tool to solve it, marketed for
a particular purpose. Like e.g. various safety razors for different sexes and
body parts that are all basically the same, sans color and packaging. Or
cleaning tools that are just cheap rolls of tape wound backwards. People learn
to solve their problems by mindlessly throwing money at prepackaged solutions
instead of realizing they could reuse something they already use to solve a
different problem.

~~~
copsarebastards
It's worth noting that the opposite problem exists, and is frequently
referenced in sayings such as "having a hammer and seeing everything as a
nail" and "using nukes to kill ants". Or as my father said: "A knife is the
most expensive pry-bar you'll ever break". I have a very well-stocked toolbox
and I can't explain how much of a pleasure it is to use the right tool for a
job. Specialized tools exist for a reason, and repurposing things is often a
bad decision.

I see this in pop psychology a lot: people find a few cases where a common
human heuristic fails, and assume that the heuristic must be bad, when all
they've proven is that it's _flawed_. Of course it's flawed: it's an evolved
behavior and evolution is essentially a hack that solves problems it doesn't
really understand. But these heuristics evolved for a reason: at least at one
time, they solved more problems than they caused. It's worth understanding
where common heuristics fail, but be careful not to throw the baby out with
the bathwater.

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bbcbasic
I thought this was going to be about the "fix" function in Haskell.

~~~
wz1000
Also known as the Y Combinator :P

~~~
pflanze
The Haskell implementation is not the Y combinator. But it's one way to
implement the fixed-point combinator (and it is functionally equivalent):

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed-
point_combinator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed-point_combinator)

Edit: The difference is that the Haskell implementation
([http://hackage.haskell.org/package/base-4.8.1.0/docs/src/Dat...](http://hackage.haskell.org/package/base-4.8.1.0/docs/src/Data.Function.html#fix)):

    
    
       fix f = let x = f x in x
    

relies on recursive let. The Y combinator instead works in the lambda calculus
which does not have recursion, and it instead relies on recombining the
function for each application.

~~~
agumonkey
I am fascinated by fixed points and quines and their relationships.

~~~
pflanze
Interesting, I didn't think of quines since I learned about and played with
the fixed-point combinators. I never wrote a quine, I guess that's why. I'll
try some time.

~~~
agumonkey
Articles about derivation of quines and fixed points often start with their
infinite expansion nature, and then imagine a way to build a meta level
replicator. The Y combinator is mostly that, duplicates the function to make
recursive, with a functional parameter protocol to pass it to its sibling
self. Only my newb view.

------
jfoster
Can process overcome this?

For example, if the first step in attempting to solve a physical problem like
the candle/wall/box problem is to take itinerary of your tools, it might
become more apparent to the problem solver that they could use the box.

Not sure how well that approach would work if the problem were less physical,
but I think there might be an equivalent.

~~~
vm
Process can overcome this. "Systematic Inventive Thinking" is a methodology
which does just that.

I took a crash course with the company that created it. The repeatability of
the process impressed me, especially across different groups and problems. You
can boil it down to a checklist, (though it's still a meaningful time
commitment).

More on the company here: [http://www.sitsite.com/](http://www.sitsite.com/)
Unfortunately I don't see much on their site about explaining their process,
but a lot of "Design Thinking" courses cover similar approaches. Stanford's
d.school has an intro here:
[http://dschool.stanford.edu/dgift/](http://dschool.stanford.edu/dgift/)

------
deutronium
This reminds me of J.P. Guilford's Alternative Uses Test,

the aim being to find as many uses as possible of every day objects such as a
brick etc.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Back when I didn't have a day job and had some free time to spend outside, I
took it as a point of honor to always fix everything with duct tape and
whatever I could find on the spot. This was a conscious exercise to make sure
I don't get that "functional fixedness" (I didn't knew the name back then).

Needless to say, my mother wasn't always satisfied with the alternative
applications I came up with.

By the way, this is how I think a lot of people become functionally fixated -
unfortunately the typical parent's reaction to child's creativity is "WTF did
you do? Please put it back the way it was before.". By the time they reach
maturity, improvisation skills get beaten out of them.

~~~
srtjstjsj
Engineering flowchart for fixing machines:

[https://s-media-cache-
ak0.pinimg.com/736x/70/b5/11/70b511ecc...](https://s-media-cache-
ak0.pinimg.com/736x/70/b5/11/70b511ecc607f60fc6224917448633fc.jpg)

If you need it to start moving: WD-40

If you need it to stop moving: duct tape

~~~
TeMPOraL
I tend to carry both in my backpack everywhere :).

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spullara
These examples appear to be little more than riddles.

~~~
tgb
Yes, and there's good reason why people wouldn't think to tack a tack box to
the wall just to hold a candle. The box is holding the tacks already, so
you've just replaced one problem with a different one. We don't pull all stops
out to solve problems because usually doing so makes more problems. One time I
had to take the bottom panel on my fridge off to switch how the door hinged. I
couldn't find the last screw that was holding it in place, so I couldn't get
it off. If all I cared about was 'solving the problem' I'd have taken out my
tools and broken the plastic panel off and switched the door. But then I'd
have a broken panel... so I kept looking and eventually found how to actually
remove it.

~~~
jschwartzi
True, but in the case that a small child or animal was trapped under that
panel your priorities would change significantly. That's actually a pretty
strong argument for many of the "functional fixedness tests" to be invalid,
because they don't account for peoples' priorities.

For example, with the tack box in the candle problem, I think people don't
empty the box because they don't want to scatter the tacks all over
everything, so it's not really testing functional fixedness but rather
peoples' willingness to break something to accomplish their goals.

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ggchappell
Interesting.

I wonder if this phenomenon might at least partially explain the repeated
misguided calls we see for encryption software to have back doors for law-
enforcement use. Roughly speaking, people might be thinking that such a back
door would not be used for nefarious purposes, because that is not what it is
_for_.

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srtjstjsj
This is the obverse of "when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a
nail." This is "when you have a nail, nothing looks like a hammer."

