If you take people of average smartness.

And they talk to each other.

And by talking to each other they combine their minds.

Is that combined mind/person smarter?

Not necessary, but it's true that some people work better in couples.

One would hope, but in practice almost never.

I feel like that depends on the specific issue and social dynamic between the individuals. e.g. two people can talk each other into getting really fucking drunk or do a stupid dare. People might pretend to know more than they do, refuse to back down on a point because of pride, reach a compromise that's worse than what either of the two think/do would do on their own.

If they can mostly avoid these, they can absolutely become smarter than either of them alone by combining their knowledge, thinking things through that they otherwise wouldn't etc.

Personally, when it comes to artistic endeavors, I work way more efficiently when I'm working with others instead of alone. Similar dynamic can emerge when you're discussing some kind of issue.

In my experience, as long as both people are working toward a shared goal and are acting in good faith, two heads is almost always better than one. Every person has a completely unique library of knowledge that can result in large differences in how different people approach the same situation. Our greatest strength as humans is our ability to share knowledge and quickly adapt to new information. Working together for a better outcome is pretty much biologically hardwired into us.

I think about the problem of (and pardon me) "dumb people".

If you make a system where dumb people can talk to each other and have really good conversations, are you really achieving anything? I mean, they're dumb. Polish a turd and it's still a turd.

Or, maybe if two dumb people talk together really really well, they combine to make a smart person. Maybe that's real.

Science is that. Right?

A really careful, formal way to talk about what you see. A really careful, formal way for us to talk about that with each other.

And combined into a society of scientists that way, we overcome our individual limitations to achieve something superior.

Maybe the ideal forum software would be a kind of mechanized science.

That makes sense. One forgets that such a thing is possible here in the wilds of the internet.

I'd say that 4 eyes are better than 2, rather than 2 heads when referring to problem solving. It's pretty common to get stuck down one train of thought and miss an obvious solution, which is where a different perspective can help.

If they’re working on a problem that can be broken into multiple loosely-coupled parts, or that requires exploring a very large conceptual space.

The hard part is attaching the 2nd head to the first body. I haven't been able to perform the surgery before the head dies. Any tips?

I've had some coworkers where working with them was like working alone, but harder

Yeah, the Internet can be a very uncooperative place. People are much better IRL since you don't end up with such a high concentration of the most obnoxious individuals

Yes, until you start factoring in communication overhead/data loss. That's why throwing more people at a problem will only help up to a certain point.

More people only improve on a problem when they can effectively communicate. At some point time spent making sure everyone is looped in on the plan exceeds the time saved by one more problem solver.

So to circle back to your actual question: Two heads will most likely be smarter than one, unless they spend more than half the time bickering in disagreement and misunderstanding.

One path to a better merged head would be better communication tools. Even a whole rule-system governing how to communicate (like we have in science).

True. But I guess in the hypothetical scenario where one literally add another head, the technology to facilitate perfect communication would also be available.

I was talking more about the figurative speech of "more heads and hands" from a project management perspective.

Ok.

Yes. One of the interesting findings of cognitive science is the human brain effectively uses an interlocutor as part of itself. This is why rubber ducky debugging works, and why people often use an internal version of the process when thinking through problems. Having a second point of view also helps prevent 'lock in' because the other person can notice things which are not perceived by the first.

Holy shit, these type of people are the worst. My narcissistic mother is like this. Constantly asking for guidance for literally everything "grab me half a bulb of garlic" "how much is half?". Then afterwards blaming you for giving her such a complicated task, and goes on and on about how the way you work is sooooo backwards, and that if she just did everything herself it'd be sooooo much simpler (she says as the dissects the garlic clove by clove, weighing each one as she gets the closest possible value to half the total weight).

Maybe you can help me out, the heads still alive but the bodies keep dieing and the kindergarten is starting to ask questions.

The 2 heads thing is often not even from getting any input from the other person, it's through having to explain your own idea that you reflect on it.

I kinda remember a coding(or process) method where you explain your idea to a plant or chair, to aid with idea refinement.

Yes, a pair is far easier to keep balanced in my pack.

I'd say they're twice as experienced, and will be able to examine possibilities twice as fast. It's still possible they just can't do whatever thing, like speak Klingon or solve a Clay problem, though. Basically, 0+0=0.

A pair generally is fine, but as you add more you start getting problems with overhead and miscommunication, and more and more things will start to scale sublinearly. And, if it's something where broad agreement is important, more people is often worse.

Rubber duck programming

Yes, that's it. I saw after, that u/sunsofold mentioned it also.

What skills and experience do they have? Is it in any way related to what they are trying to achieve?

If you select two average people with relevant skills and experiences you'll most likely get a better result.

Two random people not so much. One person will probably do all the work, like group projects in school.

nope, also the potential for medical complications, if one head gets a disease and the other one doesnt, and you are sharing organs to. and the other head individual wants to do thier own thing.

Not only that, but a lot of constructive thinking goes in to just formulating thoughts so they can be communicated. We've all had that sense of "that sounds stupid when I say it out loud", for example.

I guess you are envisioning some sort of Sci fi scenario with the combining thing.

In a real world practical approach, my wife and I have been so much more successful because or our partnership.

Do they have to agree on the answer?

If not, then you can add their experiences. They'll share some but it's a net plus.

If they do have to agree, then they can only answer when they have shared experiences, in which case it'd be a net negative.

It's basically two arrays of binary numbers, either they know something or they don't, and then you can do boolean algebra to get the kind of answer you want.

In reality you will encounter both situations, and by using dialogue, you can sort out the differences and achieve a higher rate of correct answers.

This way, two idiots can indeed answer more correctly than one expert. However it's required that the idiots are aware of their own shortcomings.

I don't think their intelligence would increase but their knowledge might.

In highschool, a friend and I once took the same chemistry test and each got 80%. We each got right the questions the other got wrong. So, if we had been allowed to work together, it's likely we would have gotten 100%. On the other hand, we might have convinced each other of the wrong answers and lowered our scores to 60%. The knowledge we had in common made up 60% of the test.

When two people share knowledge, they may increase each other's knowledge. The amount it increases depends on how much of the knowledge they already had in common and how much they each have that the other doesn't.

I once was assigned a group project with some other students in my sociology class. They forced me to change a correct answer to a wrong answer despite my vehement protests to the contrary.