Education: heuristic, part 0

Self-tutoring about thinking and learning: the tutor mentions the term heuristic, used as a noun.

One of the smartest people I’ve met was a head waiter. Once he showed me proper placement of cutlery on a table, and called it the “rule-of-thumb.”

Years later a comp-sci professor brought up the term “rule-of-thumb”, but in a different context. He said a heuristic is a rule-of-thumb, and gave this example: “If you wear a raincoat to work because you see the streets are wet, that’s a heuristic for deciding whether to wear your raincoat.”

Indeed, one meaning of heuristic is “a rule-of-thumb.” It’s not a perfect method for deciding, but (ideally) virtually effortless, and won’t give a catastrophic result, even when it doesn’t give the optimal one.

Source:

verywellmind.com