[mattmcdonnell]

This reminds me of the I Ching (of Man In The High Castle fame, plus y'know, 3000 years of history) approach to decisions, where you ask a question and then receive a random hexagram with a collection of general wisdom. It stimulates thinking around the subject, surprisingly effectively.

Both that and the card deck have a lack of causal connection that works in favour of creativity.

Brian Eno's Visual Music, which I think shows the problem solving card deck, amongst many other artistic experiments, is also supposed to be good.

[richard_todd]

Any divination strategy with a rich semantic palette will work like this (tarot is my personal favorite), and besides that it’s fun.

There was also a guy that derived a set of problem-solving principles based on a study of patents (TRIZ), where you try to apply innovation principles, such as “does it help if you can you make one thing do the work of two things?” And if you think abstractly enough it’s kind of the same oblique process, just starting from a more empirical basis. I wish more people tried it!

[mattmcdonnell]

Sounds interesting, it looks practical but perhaps less immediate than the card/hexagram based solution, which might be limiting its uptake (not necessarily fairly). Do you use it regularly?

[richard_todd]

I don’t use the triz stuff often but sometimes if a design issue is vexing I will look through the 40 principles (and software-engineering variants of them) for inspiration. Mostly I apply cards to everyday issues for fun and for the immediacy you mentioned. It only takes a minute and sometimes I free-associate my way into an interesting idea.

[chuckblake]

I recall reading about some other musicians that used I Ching - I think John Cage was one of them.

[novosel]

Leonard Cohen was also using it at a time.

(as seen in Ladies and Gentlemen... Mr. Leonard Cohen)

[mattmcdonnell]

Philip Dick was supposed to have used it to guide his writing and i'd imagine other creatives have also