Solving problems is easier when you aren't solving problems
Interesting article about how gamers figured out protein structures as well as or better than the computer.
This matches a compelling thought I've tossed around for years. That for many problems, there is probably an some data presentation format which allows the data to be analyzed intuitively rather than requiring intellectual analysis by an SME. Just as solutions often rise up out of dreams instead of yielding to the full-on concentration of the daytime, the mind may act perfectly well at a symbolic level if it presents the problem closely enough.
A similar item - I don't recall if I've blogged about it before - someone quite brilliantly turned aiming a gun into letting the eye guide familiar geometric patterns into place. It takes advantage of all that baked-in geometric goodness which, to crib from Neal Stephenson, we get by virtue of being conscious.
The challenge, then, becomes determining a reasonably interesting intuitive problem to translate the intellectual problem into. I'd like to believe there is an intuitive presentation that's beneficial for every intellectual problem. I realize that there probably isn't, but it's nice to dream.
Currently Reading
2nd in a series; the story itself isn't fabulous, but this is one of those series where you read them to hear more about the protagonist. Uthred is a Saxon raised by Danes, so of course he doesn't fit neatly into either society, and what does a Viking do when he doesn't fit? He fights.