[marlag]

I strive to have one idea in my head, because having one idea feels like being on a motor-way and visiting one of many ideas feels like being on a small road. When I'm coding in a new domain or field I am sometimes flooded with options and I reach cognitive dissonance and my pace takes a halt, for minutes, hours, sometimes months, because of this dissonance, until one idea has become more like a high-way an the journey proceeds. I feel that because I'm a programmer I have to deal with and have achieved a quite healthy approach to what is cognitive dissonance, a state that outside of work sometimes makes me feel a bit schizofrenic.

[dancompton]

You should take value from those options rather than letting any one of them define value. Then trust yourself to move forward. Software is writ in water.

[marlag]

I do often continue working but then with a nagging sensation of not executing a task in the most optimal of ways, which is what I meant by having a healthy approach to cognitive dissonance, performing a task in a way you know or feel is not optimal but not being confused by feelings of cognitive dissonance, instead just see it as part of the learning process. In the end, the dissonance dissapear as soon as the learning process has finished, and I'm no longer anxious about that option.

[marlag]

Which in itself is not very interesting but might be in the context of building an AI. Apart from a NN, what else do you need for an AI? Perhaps you need mechanisms such as "cognitive dissonance" in order to acheive "effective learning" through coping with that dissonance. What we have today are clever NNs. Nothing close to a talking bear (you know, the one from A.I. Artificial Intelligence).