The Simplest Solution

Last week my headphones started misbehaving in a very annoying way. I could only hear sound out of the right earphone. I tried debugging it with my standard options for fixing all things computer: reset stuff. First the headphones, several times off, and then on. Disconnect bluetooth, reconnect. Reset my computer, then try all the things again. Nothing worked. Feeling fairly sure of myself, I logged onto the website of the headphone maker, and began looking into the warranty. Turns out I was within the warranty period.

All of this happened over a few days between things.

Today I had gotten my communication with the manufacturer all lined up – Account created, check. Headphones registered, check. Issue is within the terms of the warranty, check.

Then I had this strange idea – have I checked if my computer’s Left/Right sound balance was off? This seemed very improbable, since it would have meant i had to do it myself, and I knew for sure I had not done this.

First thing I did was test it the issue was isolated to the computer. If it didn’t do the same thing on my phone, it would clearly be an issue on my computer. Obviously this should have been the first thing I did.

Works great on my phone, so into the settings I go, looking for the sound output settings.

And there it was. The balance was all the way to the right.

Reflecting on this humiliating debacle, I remembered Occam’s Razor. The simplest answer is often the correct answer.

Occam’s razor says that when presented with competing hypotheses that make the same predictions, one should select the solution with the fewest assumptions”

Wikipedia

I’m not sure if my headphone issue really fits into this very well, but I think it’s a fascinating way to evaluate plausible explanations for things. At the beginning I knew two things: 1. the left ear wasn’t working over bluetooth on the computer. 2. The left ear speaker could make sound, because when it turned off, the “off” announcement announced in both ears, as did the “connected” announcement. By the time I arrived at the correct answer, here were my possible explanations I had come up with for why my headphones weren’t working:

• The bluetooth module in my headphones had broken, and was only receiving sound for one ear
• There was a bug in my operating system that was making it only output sound to the right channel, over bluetooth (this was the one I thought for sure was it)
• The L/R balance had gotten changed on my computer.

So in an effort to try out this “razor” I want to list out the assumptions required for each hypothesis to be true:

The bluetooth module in my headphones had broken, and was only receiving sound for one ear:

• Its possible for a bluetooth module to break in such a way that it affects only one ear
• It could have shorted out, or had something go bad without any major trauma (no drops, or anything)
• It would have happened when I wasn’t using the headphones – so when they were powered off, or charging.

There was a bug in my operating system that was making it only output sound to the right channel, over bluetooth (this was the one I thought for sure was it)

• somehow a bug in the sound system hardware, or software is capable of malfunctioning in such a way that only one channel of sound is affected
• This affect would be apparent over bluetooth only.
• It would probably be Boom 2, which I use as my system wide EQ, even though Boom doesn’t have L/R balance settings

The L/R balance had gotten changed on my computer.

• Something could have changed the L/R balance without my involvement

I think these sets of assumptions are a good first crack at deciphering my assumptions for each hypothesis. My feelings tell me I haven’t done a great job of analyzing my assumptions, and I think it will take a few more attempts with other examples to really figure out what “Assumptions” are behind an every day problem’s hypothesis.

So next time your’e struggling with a piece of technology, pause for a second and think through the assumptions, and what the least-assumption, simplest explanation would be. It might just be right.

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