I am surprised this book is not mentioned. Talks about how optimization doesn't lead to optimal goals in complex environments (e.g. life).

https://www.amazon.com/Why-Greatness-Cannot-Planned-Objectiv...

This is a good book on the subject: "Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned: The Myth of the Objective" https://www.amazon.com/Why-Greatness-Cannot-Planned-Objectiv...

There's an interesting book on the topic discussed in these emails, entitled "Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned":

http://amzn.to/2CtIrRR

There's a YouTube talk by the author on the subject here:

https://youtu.be/dXQPL9GooyI

The rough idea is this:

- creativity often arises by stumbling around in a problem space, or in operating "randomly" under an artificially-imposed constraint

- modern life is obsessed with metrics and goal-setting, and this has extended into creative pursuits including science, research, and business

- sometimes, short-term focus on the goal defeats the goal-given aims (see e.g. shareholder value focus)

- the authors point out that when they were researching artificial intelligence, they discovered that systems that focused too much on an explicitly-coded "objective" would end up producing lackluster results, but systems that did more "playful" exploration within a problem space produced more creative results

- using this backdrop, the authors suggest perhaps innovation is not driven by narrowly focused heroic effort and is instead driven by serendipitous discovery and playful creativity

I found the ideas compelling, as I do find Kay's description of the "art" behind research.

The kindle version on Amazon [0] is slightly cheaper at $16.19.

[0] http://www.amazon.com/Why-Greatness-Cannot-Planned-Objective...