This looked like a puzzle I had seen before, so I assumed this was the case (testing a few sequences just to verify) and turned out right. I guess the conclusi

This looked like a puzzle I had seen before, so I assumed this was the case (testing a few sequences just to verify) and turned out right. I guess the conclusion is that if a problem looks suspiciously like one you've encountered before, there's a good chance that they are the same or similar. The world is self-organizing, not completely random where you must obsessively second-guess your accumulated wisdom.