There's a problem in all human understanding - knowing when, and knowing when not to apply pre-existing knowledge to a problem.
Have we been grinding away in the right direction and are only moments away from cracking the problem, or should we drop everything and try something completely new because we've obviously not found the solution in the direction we were heading.
To put it into a CS type context - Should we be using a DFS or BFS search for the solution, because we don't have knowledge of future cost (so UCS/Djikstra's is out) nor do we know where the solution lies in general (so A* is out, even if you ignore the UCS component)
Have we been grinding away in the right direction and are only moments away from cracking the problem, or should we drop everything and try something completely new because we've obviously not found the solution in the direction we were heading.
To put it into a CS type context - Should we be using a DFS or BFS search for the solution, because we don't have knowledge of future cost (so UCS/Djikstra's is out) nor do we know where the solution lies in general (so A* is out, even if you ignore the UCS component)