I don’t have much help on the neuro end, but my go-to explanation of this hasn’t been assigning tasks to the homunculus, so here’s what inspiration feels like to me, and if you can draw anything useful out of it, mazel tov!
The kinds of problems that feel like they are frequently resolved in this way for me include math proofs (esp linear algebra, topology, fractal geometry, for reasons that may become obvious), theses, and speeches I give or blog posts I write. In college, I was part of a philosophical debating group, and I pretty much never wrote speeches in advance. I’d think about the topic during the week, listen to speeches during the debate, and then have some BLAM moment during the debate, where I suddenly could feel the logic of my speech, and had a sense of the shape of it and where certain quotes/anecdotes/studies would fit in. Then I was ready to take the floor.
Here’s what my mental map of this process is: I start thinking about a problem by thinking intensively about particular aspects of it—these are nodes. I start building up references, linked ideas, objections, difficulties around each of these nodes. So, basically, each node starts becoming a more densely connected subgraph of (what will hopefully be) an eventual solution graph. During my active thinking, I keep taking walks in my mindspace from these nodes, hoping to find a path to link up these subgraphs. Sometimes things resolve here.
When they don’t, when the problem isn’t actively before me, I think of the subgraphs as still accreting ideas and connections. But now it’s more of a random walk than when I’m directing it and looking for a particular connection. I imagine that when I call up some specific idea (a song lyric, a subgraph for a different problem, a passage in a book) the near connections of it are weakly activated, and, if they’re close enough to one of the subgraphs I’ve been thinking about recently, they get aggregated on, and extend the graphs out in serendipitous ways. If the new thing I’m thinking about (or any of the things it’s weakly linked to) links up two subgraphs, or puts me near enough to spot the connection, that’s what inspiration feels like.
And sometimes, a weakly lit up idea prompts inspiration by being grotesque. (By grotesque, I mean close-but-not-close-enough to the right thing to give you a wiggins, and draw your attention to the particular way it falls short of what you need). The uncanny valley is for more than just robots!
Here are some examples from fiction that feel similar to my subjective experience of inspiration, at least in some particular:
Lyra’s use of the alethiometer
Miranda thinking in strings that loop around and connect up in Beggars in Spain
This scene from the Hound of the Baskervilles episode in Sherlock
Nita and Kit opening a gap in their shield and waiting for something the right shape to fall in in So You Want to Be a Wizard
The sound design and stage directions for Kid Simple: A Radio Play in the Flesh
Basically, thinking about a problem is building a big graph, but interacting with any of the other graph-thoughts I think about in day to day life might light up a connection to a node of interest. I find the more SNS-kinda mode more helpful here (I’m in the same kind of mood at debate as I am at improv, resting lightly on things, curious about where they’ll go).
I don’t have much help on the neuro end, but my go-to explanation of this hasn’t been assigning tasks to the homunculus, so here’s what inspiration feels like to me, and if you can draw anything useful out of it, mazel tov!
The kinds of problems that feel like they are frequently resolved in this way for me include math proofs (esp linear algebra, topology, fractal geometry, for reasons that may become obvious), theses, and speeches I give or blog posts I write. In college, I was part of a philosophical debating group, and I pretty much never wrote speeches in advance. I’d think about the topic during the week, listen to speeches during the debate, and then have some BLAM moment during the debate, where I suddenly could feel the logic of my speech, and had a sense of the shape of it and where certain quotes/anecdotes/studies would fit in. Then I was ready to take the floor.
Here’s what my mental map of this process is: I start thinking about a problem by thinking intensively about particular aspects of it—these are nodes. I start building up references, linked ideas, objections, difficulties around each of these nodes. So, basically, each node starts becoming a more densely connected subgraph of (what will hopefully be) an eventual solution graph. During my active thinking, I keep taking walks in my mindspace from these nodes, hoping to find a path to link up these subgraphs. Sometimes things resolve here.
When they don’t, when the problem isn’t actively before me, I think of the subgraphs as still accreting ideas and connections. But now it’s more of a random walk than when I’m directing it and looking for a particular connection. I imagine that when I call up some specific idea (a song lyric, a subgraph for a different problem, a passage in a book) the near connections of it are weakly activated, and, if they’re close enough to one of the subgraphs I’ve been thinking about recently, they get aggregated on, and extend the graphs out in serendipitous ways. If the new thing I’m thinking about (or any of the things it’s weakly linked to) links up two subgraphs, or puts me near enough to spot the connection, that’s what inspiration feels like.
And sometimes, a weakly lit up idea prompts inspiration by being grotesque. (By grotesque, I mean close-but-not-close-enough to the right thing to give you a wiggins, and draw your attention to the particular way it falls short of what you need). The uncanny valley is for more than just robots!
Here are some examples from fiction that feel similar to my subjective experience of inspiration, at least in some particular:
Lyra’s use of the alethiometer
Miranda thinking in strings that loop around and connect up in Beggars in Spain
This scene from the Hound of the Baskervilles episode in Sherlock
Nita and Kit opening a gap in their shield and waiting for something the right shape to fall in in So You Want to Be a Wizard
The sound design and stage directions for Kid Simple: A Radio Play in the Flesh
Basically, thinking about a problem is building a big graph, but interacting with any of the other graph-thoughts I think about in day to day life might light up a connection to a node of interest. I find the more SNS-kinda mode more helpful here (I’m in the same kind of mood at debate as I am at improv, resting lightly on things, curious about where they’ll go).