Why creative solutions can elude us

joe russo
joe russo
Jul 27, 2017 · 3 min read

A few years ago I was exposed to a way or process for creative thinking and it was a powerful concept, something that has stayed with me and fuels my every day work and life. I want to share this with you.

This process is built on a model of how your brain works, something I also have been fond of learning — and a few entries back I used this model (something I’ve pulled together — Joe’s mashup of mental models if you will). I don’t want to dive completely into it again, but you can read about that model here, “How I think about Cognitive Computing”.

In summary, our brains have multiple levels, top most is where we are actively engaged, as you go down these levels, things become more and more “automatic”. And we collect information and create patterns and push that information (and relationships) down, it’s so we can focus on one thing while doing many things (like chewing gum, driving a car, singing along to a song).

It makes us very good at this kind of juggle of lots of external stimuli, but it’s also something that “hides” creative ideas from us. Ask yourself this, how many times have you heard a puzzle that you just couldn’t wrap your head around, but when someone explained the solution, it all became almost obvious?

How many times have you had a problem you were struggling with, and you just couldn’t solve it, but then, at some point, almost seemingly randomly, a thought or idea popped into your head that turned out to be a way forward?

Those two patterns are the result of this really well organized brain. What happens is that, as we live and gain experience, our brain lays down complex patterns that connect these abstract ideas — and we do this so that later our brain can search and replay a pattern that matches some current stimuli. Often this pattern matching does not even require conscious thought on our part, we just instinctually play it out.

You can visualize this idea like this:

You’ve got these interconnected pathways that represent the patterns you’ve built up over time. You can imagine that over time, this really becomes quite a thick and dense web of interconnected things…but the more you add to these interconnected patterns, the more you find many patterns that can match a certain situation.

But then, when we’re confronted with a complex puzzle, and we try to solve it, often times the “innovative” solution eludes us. You can visualize it like this:

And since we don’t have any paths to that idea, it’s hidden from us. You just can’t imagine it.

What’s interesting is that, sometimes, in very young children, you can see this model in a new way. A small child can ask a question or present a new way to think about something, by interacting with it in an odd way — because they have no experience, they have not built up pathways, everything is new to them. Their brains look more like this:

Because of this, they are not locked into a set of thoughts — that occur instinctually. They have to apply focus and high level consideration more often in the way they interact with the world. But precisely because they have no patterns and because they have to deal in the highest level brain function…they often can see the solution that is otherwise hidden from us older folk.

Now, next time, I’ll talk about how we can use this model to help us get into that state that young children have, so it is much easier for us to find those creative solutions that are hiding in plain sight in our very interconnected brains.

joe russo
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