John Kounios

”Eureka!”*
-- Archimedes
*Greek for “I have found it!”

I'm fascinated with insight and moments of awareness and have been thrilled by occurrences of it in my life. So I was interested to see this book-length work on the science of "what happens in the brain at the instant when a person solves a problem with a flash of insight," and am happy to report that it's both informative and enjoyable.

The authors describe insight, an unconscious thought process of quantum leaps that deliver a revolutionary idea in abrupt clarity, and contrast it with the conscious, deliberate, evolutionary process of analysis. They discuss the problem-solving styles of "insightfuls" and "analysts" (and the errors of omission and commission that they make when they run out of time when working out a problem; the insightfuls offering no solutions and the analysts offering half-baked solutions), and use EEG and fMRI data to describe what's going on in the brain and where.

Then they devote perhaps half of the book to methods that increase insight, for example, getting as much life experience as possible (so as to better recognize patterns), taking a break/taking a nap (your unconscious will keep working the problem), scheduling your creative work for when you're typically tired (i.e. your censoring analyst is tired, allowing insights to bubble up), and further reducing the censor by developing a positive mindset and an unconstrained, long-term outlook.

It's fascinating and a lot of fun to read.

(Review based on an advance reading copy provided by the publisher.)… (más)