I think the reason this sort of thinking works is that it's an effective way to perform exhaustive search in idea space where metrics may be hard to define, bas

I think the reason this sort of thinking works is that it's an effective way to perform exhaustive search in idea space where metrics may be hard to define, based on combinatorics. A very early example of such an approach was Ramon Llull's Ars Magna (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramon_Llull#Llull's_Art_(Ars_Magna) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramon_Llull#Llull's_Art_(Ars_M...).