Solved Conversations

Aaron Z. Lewis riffs on game theory's notion of a "solved game" (Nine Men's Morris, checkers, simple tic-tac-toe) to ask how many of our everyday conversations are similarly pre-determined — script-driven exchanges where both parties already know each move's response. He argues that the most intellectually satisfying conversations are the unsolved ones: open, exploratory, where neither participant knows what they'll think by the end. A short, playful 2014 post on conversational quality as a function of genuine epistemic openness.