Page 104 - Deep Learning

4

Creative Insight: The Redistribution Theory

… under the stress of our wish to solve a certain problem – and after our thorough
consideration of various parts of the given material – sometimes brain processes
tend to assume new forms or structures which, when reflected in our minds,
suddenly make us see new relations and thus give us new insights which tend to
bring about the solution.
Wolfgang Köhler 1

An inventor, scientist or artist might work on one and the same project for a
day, a week, a month, a year or many years. The thought processes associated
2
with such extended activities are not equally creative throughout. Even when
the work results in a creative product, much of what occurs along the way is
analytical thinking or even habitual or routine behavior. What distinguishes
creative from analytical processes is that the former are punctuated by insights,
mental events in which new ideas come to mind. An extended project is likely
to require more than one insight before completion. Projects vary with respect
to the density of insight events, but each such event is of short duration com-
pared to the duration of the project as a whole. I call this the Raisins in the
Dough Principle.
To explain creativity is therefore to carry out three theoretical
tasks: Describe analytical thinking, explain what happens in moments of
insight and clarify how insight expands the power of analytical thinking. To
explain insight is, in turn, to decompose insight events into processes that are
so simple that we feel no need to decompose them further, and to show how
those simple processes combine to produce mental events in which new ideas
come to mind. The purpose of the present chapter is to propose such a theory,
the first of the three micro-theories that are the technical contributions of this
book. The first step in developing the theory is to specify which aspects of
insight need to be explained. A second preparation is to formulate a theory

87