Figuring Things Out

I tend to divide this into:


 * Figuring out what to do
 * Figuring out what is true

Though note that the two are not so different from each other:

The equivalence of decision-making and figuring out what is true

 * Decision-making/problem solving is just figuring out what is true:
 * What is the goal to achieve, or problem to solve?  What do you want?
 * What options are available?
 * How do things work?
 * What will the actual effects of a choice be?
 * Which option best satisfies what you wanted to achieve? (Choose that one)
 * Did it work?
 * Figuring Out What Is True is just decision-making/problem solving:
 * deciding which things to investigate/research, calculate, think through, or test
 * figuring out how to investigate/research, calculate, think through, or test them

Of course these labels and phrases are used for different things (like, generally, "decision-making" means there is an action at the end that needs to be done outside of your head, while "figuring out what's true" might just update your internal beliefs regardless of whether a specific use for that information is known yet).

See also: methodology, in Theoretical Knowledge.