[scarab92]

Very rarely is it appropriate to brainstorm widely.

You want to start with a high level of discernment, focusing on the most plausible theories first, then broadening only if necessary.

If someone started out with crazy low-discernment ideas, I’d probably ask them to leave to stop distracting everyone else.

[tremon]

You really do want breadth-first exploration, because once a group has identified and explored a few scenarios of high likelihood, the brain is already biased towards those events and more exotic scenarios are less likely to be imagined.

Only after that first exploration should you narrow it down according to likelihood. Then, if those likely scenarios appear to be dead ends, you can circle back to the earlier less likely scenarios. But trying to come up with less likely scenarios after your brain has already explored a different scenario in-depth takes a lot more effort.

> If someone started out with crazy low-discernment ideas, I’d probably ask them to leave to stop distracting everyone else.

Then you'd be doing it wrong. Valuing an idea (i.e. rating it in terms of relevance, likelihood, discernment, whatever you want to call it) is not part of the brainstorm, it's part of the post-brainstorm evaluation. Creativity and logic exercise the brain differently, trying to do both at the same time does not give the best results.

[scarab92]

Not convinced.

Creativity is much easier than reasoning and discernment.

Rarely do I need people to be more creative when problem solving, what I need is better judgement.