example:
Today I had to replace four parts. I chose a numerical order, and the part that fixed the problem was of the highest numerical order. Had I chosen randomly or reverse numerical order the answer would not have been the last option.
so the question is, do we intentionally avoid looking where we expect to find something to delay the outcome?
Not unless you’re a weirdo.
We sometimes just forget where we last were, that’s all.
I think you got the feeling of ‘finding things in the last place we look’. When you look for things and find them in a sec, it doesn’t bothers. But the few occasions you look for something real long, and finally find them in place so obvious you haven’t looked, that event will be remembered.
Now the deeper meaning of this topic. Yes, there is maybe a subconscious which prohibited you find that thing you need. Why? Thats speculation, won’t get into that 
. Maybe it’s like thistopic’ but a bit more complex then you or ‘something else above’ making you to not solve that problem directly.
Don’t we always find things in the last place we look? You don’t keep searching for things once you have found them, therefore the place you found them is the last place you looked.
The number of places you look will change depending on your recollection of the place where you left the thing you are looking for, or by the effectiveness of your searching pattern. I don’t think there is anything more to it than that, unless you are attempting to procrastinate on purpose. Your parts example sounds like a coincidental, 1 in 4 chance of placing the part that fixes the problem as the one with the highest numerical order.
I like your answer better as mine, NoelyG .
Joke i heard, why do people always find something and say ‘‘it’s always in the last place you look’’. Well, you’re not gonna find it and think ‘‘Oh hang on, i’ll keep looking anyway’’. That’s all there is to it.
Is this an extreme case of determinism or lack of free will?
We find things in the last place we look because we can’t look for it after we have already found it, there is no need to keep looking.
Its because once we find it we stop looking!
anti determinstic lack of free will.
I think it’s a self imposed problem when we find something at the last minute and spend forever looking for it. Our mind knows where it is, but refuses to divulge that information.
really?
I was talking about when you had a set of four choices, one of them being right.
do we “instinctively know” the answer and on occasion our subconcious will let us choose the right answer because it won’t “harm” us? and in the other cases does it not give us the information for the right choice, because either it doesn’t want to hurry, or it feels the outcome will be detrimental?
and yes I’m saying that by and large our subconcious controls our actions. it “forgets” memories intentionally. it chooses to remember the most annoying loops from songs, to remind you not to listen to such drivel again.
This is entirely superstitious, but as I have learned from computer technicians: computers hate computer technicians. Likewise I have learned from my uncle that cars hate mechanics. It is as if the complex machines we build resist being tinkered with. You can imagine a willpower in objects that shifts the problems into the last possible solution.
I can remember years ago fighting for hours with installing CDROM drives in DOS systems. I always had to run through every possible IRQ setting to get the damned things to operate. I imagined that the machine was acting to frustrate my ambitions.
Err, I think NoelyG, Visereth and INoNothing provided the answer.
The question is then: why do people continue providing alternative, poorer, answers?
I think the simple answer to this query and all of Murphy’s laws is, our body tries its best to keep all the body chemicals in order. That is why on some days things frustrate us more than on other days. Even if we chose the highest number first, the number that fixed the problem would change and so we would still be successful only with the last attempt in this case.