> the difference between brute forcing and cognition
There’s not really a clear distinction between these things, in my opinion. Problem solving (and intelligence?) is a mix of search and compression. We like solutions that are elegant (high compression, simple search). But often what appears elegant to some is harder to appreciate for those without the same background knowledge or even the same amount of mental bandwidth (if you’ve ever worked with someone simply much, much smarter than you, you may intuit this!).
There’s not really a clear distinction between these things, in my opinion. Problem solving (and intelligence?) is a mix of search and compression. We like solutions that are elegant (high compression, simple search). But often what appears elegant to some is harder to appreciate for those without the same background knowledge or even the same amount of mental bandwidth (if you’ve ever worked with someone simply much, much smarter than you, you may intuit this!).