annals of science The Eureka Hunt

Why do good ideas come to us when they do? By Jonah Lehrer

he summer of 1949 was long and dry So Dodge stopped running. The deci- in Montana. On the afternoon of sion wasn’t as suicidal as it appeared: in a TAugust 5th—the hottest day ever re- moment of desperate insight, he had de- corded in the state—a lightning fire was vised an escape plan. He lit a match and spotted in a remote area of pine forest. A ignited the ground in front of him, the parachute brigade of fifteen firefighters flames quickly moving up the grassy slope. known as smoke jumpers was dispatched Then Dodge stepped into the shadow of to put out the blaze; the man in charge his fire, so that he was surrounded by a was named Wag Dodge. When the buffer of burned land. He wet his hand- jumpers left Missoula, in a C-47 cargo kerchief with water from his canteen, plane, they were told that the fire was clutched the cloth to his mouth, and small, just a few burning acres in the lay down on the smoldering embers. Mann Gulch. He closed his eyes and tried to inhale Mann Gulch, nearly three miles long, the thin layer of oxygen clinging to the is a site of geological transition, where ground. Then he waited for the fire to the Great Plains meet the Rocky Moun- pass over him. tains, pine trees give way to tall grasses, Thirteen smoke jumpers died in the and steep cliffs loom over the steppes of Mann Gulch fire. White crosses below the Midwest. The fire began in the trees the ridge still mark the spots where the on one side of the gulch. By the time the men died. But after several terrifying min- firefighters arrived, the blaze was already utes Dodge emerged from the ashes, vir- out of control. Dodge moved his men tually unscathed. along the other side of the gulch and told them to head downhill, toward the here is something inherently myste- water. rious about moments of insight. When the smoke jumpers started WagT Dodge, for instance, could never ex- down the gulch, a breeze was blowing the plain where his idea for the escape fire flames away from them. Suddenly, the came from. (“It just seemed the logical wind reversed, and Dodge watched the thing to do” was all he could muster.) His fire leap across the gulch and spark the improbable survival has become one of grass on his side. He and his men were those legendary stories of insight, like Ar- only a quarter mile uphill. An updraft chimedes shouting “Eureka!” when he began, and fierce winds howled through saw his bathwater rise, or Isaac Newton the canyon as the fire sucked in the sur- watching an apple fall from a tree and rounding air. Dodge was suddenly staring then formulating his theory of gravity. at a wall of flame fifty feet tall and three Such tales all share a few essential features, hundred feet deep. In a matter of seconds, which psychologists and neuroscientists the fire began to devour the grass, hurtling use to define “the insight experience.” The toward the smoke jumpers at seven hun- first of these is the impasse: before there dred feet a minute. can be a breakthrough, there has to be a Dodge screamed at his men to retreat. mental block. Wag Dodge spent min- They dropped their gear and started run- utes running from the fire, although he ning up the steep canyon walls, trying to was convinced that doing so was futile. reach the top of the ridge. After a few Then, when the insight arrived, Dodge minutes, Dodge glanced over his shoulder immediately realized that the problem and saw that the fire was less than fifty was solved. This is another key feature of yards away. He realized that the blaze insight: the feeling of certainty that ac- couldn’t be outrun; the gulch was too companies the idea. Dodge didn’t have steep, the flames too fast. time to think about whether his plan

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TNY—2008_07_28—PAGE 40—133SC. would work. He simply knew that it sphere is what helps you see the forest.” that insight could be a really interesting would. It wasn’t clear how to pinpoint these way to look at all these skills the right Mark Jung-Beeman, a cognitive neu- nuanced aspects of cognition, because hemisphere excelled at,” he said. “I guess roscientist at Northwestern University, the results of right-hemisphere damage I had an insight about insight.” has spent the past fifteen years trying to were harder to spot than those of left- Jung-Beeman began searching in the figure out what happens inside the brain hemisphere damage. But in 1993 Jung- right hemisphere for the source of insight when people have an insight. “It’s one Beeman heard a talk by the psychologist in the brain. He decided to compare puz- of those defining features of the human Jonathan Schooler on moments of in- zles solved in moments of insight with mind, and yet we have no idea how or sight. Schooler had demonstrated that it those solved by methodical testing of po- why it happens,” he told me. Insights have was possible to interfere with insight by tential solutions, in which people could often been attributed to divine interven- tion, but, by mapping the epiphany as a journey between cortical circuits, Jung- Beeman wants to purge the insight expe- rience of its mystery. Jung-Beeman has a tense smile, a receding hairline, and the wiry build of a long-distance runner. He qualified for the 1988 and 1992 Olympic trials in the fifteen hundred metres, al- though he gave up competitive running after, as he puts it, “everything below the hips started to fall apart.” He now subsists on long walks and manic foot tapping. When Jung-Beeman gets excited about an idea—be it the cellular properties of pyramidal neurons or his new treadmill— his speech accelerates, and he starts to draw pictures on whatever paper is nearby. It’s as if his mind were sprinting ahead of his mouth. Jung-Beeman became interested in the nature of insight in the early nineteen- nineties, while researching the right hemi- sphere of the brain. At the time, he was studying patients who had peculiar pat- terns of brain damage. “We had a number of patients with impaired right hemi- spheres,” he said. “And the doctors would always say, ‘Wow, you’re lucky—it got the right hemisphere. That’s the minor hemi- sphere. It doesn’t do much, and it doesn’t do anything with language.’ ” But it grad- ually became clear to Jung-Beeman that these patients did have serious cognitive problems after all, particularly with un- derstanding linguistic nuance, and he began to suspect that the talents of the right hemisphere had been overlooked. If the left hemisphere excelled at denota- making people explain their thought pro- accurately trace their thought process and tion—storing the primary meaning of a cess while trying to solve a puzzle—a phe- had no sense of surprise when the answer word—Jung-Beeman suspected that the nomenon he called “verbal overshadow- came. Unfortunately, all the classic puz- right hemisphere dealt with connotation, ing.” This made sense to Jung-Beeman, zles developed by scientists to study in- everything that gets left out of a diction- since the act of verbal explanation would sight required insight; if subjects didn’t ary definition, such as the emotional naturally shift activity to the left hemi- solve them in a sudden “Aha!” moment, charge in a sentence or a metaphor. “Lan- sphere, causing people to ignore the more they didn’t solve them at all. In a popular guage is so complex that the brain has to subtle associations coming from the right puzzle known as “the candle problem,” for process it in two different ways at the side of the brain. “That’s when I realized instance, subjects are given a cardboard same time,” he said. “It needs to see the BRUCE ERIC KAPLAN forest and the trees. The right hemi- Brain-imaging techniques are revealing how our minds produce insight.

TNY—2008_07_28—PAGE 41—133SC.—live art r17357 box containing a few thumbtacks, a book that can be combined with all three—in sumed to be gradual. Kounios, a man of matches, and a candle. They are told to this case, “apple” (“pineapple,” “crab with a shock of unruly wavy hair and an attach the candle to a piece of corkboard apple,” “apple sauce”). The subjects have affinity for rumpled button-up vests, had so that it can burn properly. Nearly ninety up to thirty seconds to solve the puzzle. been working with electroencephalogra- per cent of people pursue the same two If they come up with an answer, they phy, or EEG, which measures the waves strategies. They try to tack the candle di- press the space bar on the keyboard and of electricity produced by the brain by rectly to the board, which causes the can- say whether the answer arrived via in- means of a nylon hat filled with greased dle wax to shatter. Or they try melting the sight or analysis. When I participated in electrodes. (The device looks like a bulky candle with the matches, so that it sticks the experiment in Jung-Beeman’s lab, I shower cap.) Because there is no time to the board; but the wax doesn’t hold and found that it was surprisingly easy to delay with EEG, Kounios thought it the candle falls. Only four per cent of peo- differentiate between the two cognitive could be useful for investigating the ple manage to come up with the solution, paths. When I solved puzzles with anal- fleeting process of insight. Unfortu- which involves attaching the candle to the ysis, I tended to sound out each possible nately, the waves of electricity can’t be cardboard box and tacking the cardboard word combination, cycling through all traced back to their precise source, but box to the corkboard. the words that went with “pine” and then Kounios and Jung-Beeman saw that To isolate the brain activity that de- seeing if they also worked with “crab” or combining EEG with fMRI might fined the insight process, Jung-Beeman “sauce.” If I worked toward a solution, I allow them to construct a precise map, needed to develop a set of puzzles that always double-checked it before pressing both in time and space, of the insight could be solved either by insight or by the space bar. An insight, on the other process. analysis. Doing so was a puzzle in itself. hand, felt instantaneous: the answer ar- The resulting studies, published in “It can get pretty frustrating trying to find rived like a revelation. 2004 and 2006, found that people who an experimentally valid brainteaser,” Jung-Beeman initially asked his sub- solved puzzles with insight activated a Jung-Beeman said. “The puzzles can’t be jects to solve the puzzles while inside an specific subset of cortical areas. Although too hard or too easy, and you need to be fMRI machine, a brain scanner that the answer seemed to appear out of no- able to generate lots of them.” He even- monitors neural activity by tracking where, the mind was carefully preparing tually settled on a series of verbal puzzles, changes in blood flow. But fMRI has a itself for the breakthrough. The first based on ones used by a psychologist three-to-five-second delay, as the blood areas activated during the problem- in the early nineteen-sixties, which he diffuses across the cortex. “Insights hap- solving process were those involved with named the Compound Remote Associ- pen too fast for fMRI,” Jung-Beeman executive control, like the prefrontal cor- ate Problems, or CRAP. (The joke is be- said. “The data was just too messy.” tex and the anterior cingulate cortex. The ginning to get old, and in his scientific pa- Around this time, he teamed up with scientists refer to this as the “preparatory pers Jung-Beeman decorously leaves off John Kounios, a cognitive neuroscientist phase,” since the brain is devoting its the final “P.”) at Drexel University, who was interested considerable computational power to the In a C.R.A. word puzzle, a subject is in insight largely because it seemed to problem. The various sensory areas, like given three words, such as “pine,” “crab,” contradict the classic model of learning, the visual cortex, go silent as the brain and “sauce,” and asked to think of a word in which the learning process was as- suppresses possible distractions. “The cortex does this for the same reason we close our eyes when we’re trying to think,” Jung-Beeman said. “Focus is all about blocking stuff out.” What happens next is the “search phase,” as the brain starts looking for an- swers in all the relevant places. Because Jung-Beeman and Kounios were giving people word puzzles, they saw addi- tional activity in areas related to speech and language. The search can quickly get frustrating, and it takes only a few seconds before people say that they’ve reached an impasse, that they can’t think of the right word. “Almost all of the possibilities your brain comes up with are going to be wrong,” Jung-Beeman said. “And it’s up to the executive- control areas to keep on searching or, if necessary, change strategies and start searching somewhere else.” But sometimes, just when the brain is “Lawn care has been good to us, Ed.” about to give up, an insight appears.

TNY—2008_07_28—PAGE 42—133SC.—live art a13455 “You’ll see people bolt up in their chair nected.” When the brain is searching for actually prevent the insight. While it’s and their eyes go all wide,” Ezra Weg- an insight, these are the cells that are commonly assumed that the best way to breit, a graduate student in the Jung-Bee- most likely to produce it. solve a difficult problem is to focus, mini- man lab who often administers the C.R.A. mize distractions, and pay attention only test, said. “Sometimes they even say ‘Aha!’ he insight process, as sketched by to the relevant details, this clenched state before they blurt out the answer.” The Jung-Beeman and Kounios, is a del- of mind may inhibit the sort of creative suddenness of the insight comes with a Ticate mental balancing act. At first, the connections that lead to sudden break- burst of brain activity. Three hundred brain lavishes the scarce resource of atten- throughs. We suppress the very type of milliseconds before a participant commu- tion on a single problem. But, once the brain activity that we should be encourag- nicates the answer, the EEG registers a brain is sufficiently focussed, the cortex ing. Jonathan Schooler has recently dem- spike of gamma rhythm, which is the needs to relax in order to seek out the more onstrated that making people focus on the highest electrical frequency generated remote association in the right hemi- details of a visual scene, as opposed to the by the brain. Gamma rhythm is thought sphere, which will provide the insight. big picture, can significantly disrupt the to come from the “binding” of neurons, “The relaxation phase is crucial,” Jung- insight process. “It doesn’t take much to as cells distributed across the cortex Beeman said. “That’s why so many in- shift the brain into left-hemisphere mode,” draw themselves together into a new net- sights happen during warm showers.” An- he said. “That’s when you stop paying at- work, which is then able to enter con- other ideal moment for insights, according tention to those more holistic associations sciousness. It’s as if the insight had gone to the scientists, is the early morning, right coming in from the right hemisphere.” incandescent. after we wake up. The drowsy brain is Meanwhile, in a study published last year, Jung-Beeman and Kounios went unwound and disorganized, open to all German researchers found that people back and analyzed the information from sorts of unconventional ideas. The right with schizotypy—a mental condition that the fMRI experiment to see what was hemisphere is also unusually active. Jung- resembles schizophrenia, albeit with far happening inside the brain in the sec- Beeman said, “The problem with the less severe symptoms—were significantly onds before the gamma burst. “My big- morning, though, is that we’re always so better at solving insight problems than a gest worry was that we would find noth- rushed. We’ve got to get the kids ready for control group. Schizotypal subjects have ing,” Kounios said. “I thought there was school, so we leap out of bed and never give enhanced right-hemisphere function and a good possibility that whatever we ourselves a chance to think.” He recom- tend to score above average on measures of found on the EEG wouldn’t show up on mends that, if we’re stuck on a difficult creativity and associative thinking. the brain imaging.” When the scientists problem, it’s better to set the alarm clock a Schooler’s research has also led him to looked at the data, however, they saw few minutes early so that we have time to reconsider the bad reputation of letting that a small fold of tissue on the surface lie in bed and ruminate. We do some of our one’s mind wander. Although we often of the right hemisphere, the anterior su- best thinking when we’re still half asleep. complain that the brain is too easily dis- perior temporal gyrus (aSTG), became As Jung-Beeman and Kounios see it, tracted, Schooler believes that letting the unusually active in the second before the the insight process is an act of cognitive mind wander is essential. “Just look at the insight. The activation was sudden and deliberation—the brain must be focussed history of science,” he said. “The big ideas intense, a surge of electricity leading to a on the task at hand—transformed by ac- seem to always come when people are rush of blood. Although the function of cidental, serendipitous connections. We sidetracked, when they’re doing some- the aSTG remains mostly a mystery— must concentrate, but we must concen- thing that has nothing to do with their re- the brain is stuffed with obscurities— trate on letting the mind wander. The search.” He cites the example of Henri Jung-Beeman wasn’t surprised to see it patterns of brain activity that define this Poincaré, the nineteenth-century mathe- involved with the insight process. A few particular style of thought have recently matician, whose seminal insight into non- previous studies had linked the area to been studied by Joy Bhattacharya, a psy- Euclidean geometry arrived while he was aspects of language comprehension, chologist at Goldsmiths, University of boarding a bus. “At the moment when I such as the detection of literary themes London. Using EEG, he has found that put my foot on the step,” Poincaré wrote, and the interpretation of metaphors. (A he can tell which subjects will solve insight “the idea came to me, without anything related area was implicated in the pro- puzzles up to eight seconds before the in- in my former thoughts seeming to have cessing of jokes.) Jung-Beeman argues sight actually arrives. One of the key pre- paved the way for it. . . . I did not verify that these linguistic skills, like insight, dictive signals is a steady rhythm of alpha the idea; I should not have had the time, require the brain to make a set of dis- waves emanating from the right hemi- as, upon taking my seat in the omnibus, I tant and unprecedented connections. He sphere. Alpha waves typically correlate went on with the conversation already cites studies showing that cells in the with a state of relaxation, and Bhattacharya­ commenced, but I felt a perfect certainty.” right hemisphere are more “broadly believes that such activity makes the brain Poincaré credited his sudden mathemati- tuned” than cells in the left hemisphere, more receptive to new and unusual ideas. cal insight to “unconscious work,” an abil- with longer branches and more den- He has also found that unless subjects ity to mull over the mathematics while he dritic spines. “What this means is that have sufficient alpha-wave activity they was preoccupied with unrelated activities, neurons in the right hemisphere are col- won’t be able to make use of hints the re- like talking to a friend on the bus. In his lecting information from a larger area searchers give them. 1908 essay “Mathematical Creation,” of cortical space,” Jung-Beeman said. One of the surprising lessons of this re- Poincaré insisted that the best way to “They are less precise but better con- search is that trying to force an insight can think about complex problems is to im-

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TNY—2008_07_28—PAGE 43—133SC. merse yourself in the problem until you For now, though, the science of pro- which lights up whenever people are hit an impasse. Then, when it seems that moting insight remains rooted in anecdote, shown the right answer—even if they “nothing good is accomplished,” you in stories of people, like Poincaré, who haven’t come up with the answer them- should find a way to distract yourself, were able to consistently induce the neces- selves. Pressed tight against the bones of preferably by going on a “walk or a jour- sary state of mind. Kounios tells a story the forehead, the prefrontal cortex has ney.” The answer will arrive when you about an expert Zen meditator who took undergone a dramatic expansion during least expect it. Richard Feynman, the part in one of the C.R.A. insight experi- human evolution, so that it now represents Nobel Prize-winning physicist, preferred ments. At first, the meditator couldn’t solve nearly a third of the brain. While this area the relaxed atmosphere of a topless bar, any of the insight problems. “This Zen guy is often associated with the most special- where he would sip 7 UP, “watch the en- went through thirty or so of the verbal puz- ized aspects of human cognition, such as tertainment,” and, if inspiration struck, zles and just drew a blank,” Kounios said. abstract reasoning, it also plays a critical scribble equations on cocktail napkins. “He was used to being very focussed, but role in the insight process. Hallucinogenic you can’t solve these problems if you’re too drugs are thought to work largely by mod- ounios and Jung-Beeman aren’t quite focussed.” Then, just as he was about to ulating the prefrontal cortex, tricking the ready to offer extensive practical ad- give up, he started solving one puzzle after brain into believing that its sensory delu- vice,K but, when pressed, they often sound another, until, by the end of the experi- sions are revelations. People have the feel- like Poincaré. “You’ve got to know when ment, he was getting them all right. It was ing of an insight but without the content. to step back,” Kounios said. “If you’re in an unprecedented streak. “Normally, peo- Understanding how this happens—how a an environment that forces you to pro- ple don’t get better as the task goes along,” circuit of cells can identify an idea as an in- duce and produce, and you feel very Kounios said. “If anything, they get a little sight, even if the idea has yet to enter stressed, then you’re not going to have any bored.” Kounios believes that the dramatic awareness—requires an extremely precise insights.” Many stimulants, like caffeine, improvement of the Zen meditator came level of investigation. The rhythms of Adderall, and Ritalin, are taken to in- from his paradoxical ability to focus on not brain waves and the properties of blood crease focus—one recent poll found that being focussed, so that he could pay atten- can’t answer the question. Instead, it’s nec- nearly twenty per cent of scientists and re- tion to those remote associations in the essary to study the brain at its most basic searchers regularly took prescription drugs right hemisphere. “He had the cognitive level, as a loom of electrical cells. to “enhance concentration”—but, accord- control to let go,” Kounios said. “He be- Earl Miller is a neuroscientist at M.I.T. ing to Jung-Beeman and Kounios, drugs came an insight machine.” who has devoted his career to understand- may actually make insights less likely, by ing the prefrontal cortex. He has a shiny sharpening the spotlight of attention and he most mysterious aspect of insight shaved head and a silver goatee. His cor- discouraging mental rambles. Concentra- is not the revelation itself but what ner office in the gleaming Picower Insti- tion, it seems, comes with the hidden cost Thappens next. The brain is an infinite li- tute is cantilevered over a railroad track, of diminished creativity. “There’s a good brary of associations, a cacophony of com- and every afternoon the quiet hum of the reason Google puts Ping-Pong tables in peting ideas, and yet, as soon as the right lab is interrupted by the rattle of a freight their headquarters,” Kounios said. “If you association appears, we know. The new train. Miller’s favorite word is “exactly”— want to encourage insights, then you’ve thought, which is represented by that rush it’s the adverb that modifies everything, so got to also encourage people to relax.” of gamma waves in the right hemisphere, that a hypothesis is “exactly right,” or an Jung-Beeman’s latest paper investigates immediately grabs our attention. There is experiment was “exactly done”—and that why people who are in a good mood are something paradoxical and bizarre about emphasis on precision has defined his ca- so much better at solving insight puzzles. this. On the one hand, an epiphany is a reer. His first major scientific advance was (On average, they solve nearly twenty per surprising event; we are startled by what a by-product of necessity. It was 1995, and cent more C.R.A. problems.) we’ve just discovered. Some part of our Miller had just started his lab at M.I.T. Last year, Kounios and Jung-Beeman brain, however, clearly isn’t surprised at His research involved recording directly were invited to present their findings to all, which is why we are able to instantly from neurons in the monkey brain, mon- DARPA, the central research agency of the recognize the insight. “As soon as the in- itoring the flux of voltage within an indi- Department of Defense. (“It was quite sight happens, it just seems so obvious,” vidual cell as the animals performed vari- strange,” Kounios recalls. “I never thought Schooler said. “People can’t believe they ous tasks. “There were machines that I’d be talking about creativity to national- didn’t see it before.” allowed you to record from eight or nine security officials.”) DARPA was interested The brain area responsible for this act at the same time, but they were very ex- in finding ways to encourage insights amid of recognition is the prefrontal cortex, pensive,” Miller said. “I still had no grants, the stress of war, fostering creativity on the and there was no way I could afford one.” battlefield. The scientists are convinced So Miller began inventing his own appa- that it’s only a matter of time before it be- ratus in his spare time. After a few months comes possible to “up-regulate” insight. of patient tinkering, he constructed a “This could be a drug or technology or just messy tangle of wires, steel screws, and a new way to structure our environment,” electrodes that could simultaneously re- Jung-Beeman said. “I think we’ll soon get cord from numerous cells, distributed to the point where we can do more than across the brain. “It worked even better tell people to take lots of showers.” than the expensive machine,” Miller said.

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TNY—2008_07_28—PAGE 44—133SC.—live spot art r17574A—please inspect and report on quality. This methodological advance—it’s known as multiple electrode recording— allowed Miller to ask a completely new kind of scientific question. For the first time, it was possible to see how cells in different brain areas interacted. Miller was most interested in the interactions of the prefrontal cortex. “You name the brain area, and the prefrontal cortex is almost certainly linked to it,” he said. It took more than five years of painstaking prob- ing, as Miller recorded from cells in the monkey brain, but he was eventually able to show that the prefrontal cortex wasn’t simply an aggregator of information. In- stead, it was like the conductor of an or- chestra, waving its baton and directing the players. This is known as “top-down pro- cessing,” since the prefrontal cortex (the “top” of the brain) is directly modulat- ing the activity of other areas. This is why, during the focussing phase of the “When you head off to camp, your parents will insight process, Jung-Beeman and want to see some separation anxiety.” Kounios saw activity in the prefrontal cortex and the neighboring anterior cin- gulate cortex. They were watching the •• conductor at work. In 2001, Miller and Jonathan Cohen, into awareness. We suddenly notice the to study,” Jung-Beeman said. “At a certain a neuroscientist at Princeton, published music that has been playing all along. point, you just have to admit that your an influential paper that laid out their the- Because Miller can eavesdrop on neu- brain knows much more than you do.” An ory of how, exactly, the prefrontal cortex rons, he’s been able to see how these in- insight is a fleeting glimpse of the brain’s controls the rest of the brain. According sights operate at the cellular level. One of huge store of unknown knowledge. The to Miller and Cohen, this brain area is re- his current experiments involves showing cortex is sharing one of its secrets. sponsible not only for focussing on the monkeys different arrangements of dots So it was for Wag Dodge. After the task at hand but for figuring out what and asking them to sort the arrangements fire crossed the river, all the other smoke other areas need to be engaged in order to into various categories that they have been jumpers were fixated on reaching the solve a problem. One implication of this taught. The monkeys guess randomly at ridge. Panic had narrowed their thoughts, is that if we’re trying to solve a verbal puz- first, learning from trial and error. “But so that beating the flames up the slope was zle the prefrontal cortex will selectively ac- then, at a certain point, the monkey just their sole goal. But, because Dodge real- tivate the specific brain areas involved gets it,” Miller said. “They just start being ized that the fire would beat them to the with verbal processing. If it decides to turn able to categorize arrangements of dots top, his prefrontal cortex started franti- on parts of the right hemisphere, then we that they’ve never seen before. That’s the cally searching for an alternative. It was might end up with an insight; if it decides moment of categorical insight.” This pri- able to look past his fear and expand the to restrict its search to the left hemisphere, mate epiphany registers as a new pattern possibilities of his thought process, as he we’ll probably arrive at a solution incre- of neural activity in the prefrontal cortex. considered remote mental associations mentally or not at all. The brain cells have been altered by the that he’d never contemplated before. (As This “integrative” theory of the pre- breakthrough. “An insight is a restructur- Miller says, “That Dodge guy had some frontal cortex suggests why we can in- ing of information—it’s seeing the same really high prefrontal function.”) And stantly recognize the insight, even when it old thing in a completely new way,” Miller then, just as the blaze started to suck the seems surprising: the brain has been con- said. “Once that restructuring occurs, you oxygen out of the air, some remote bit of certedly pursuing the answer; we just never go back.” his brain realized that he could cheat didn’t know it. “Your consciousness is very And yet even this detailed explanation death by starting his own fire. This un- limited in capacity,” Miller said, “and doesn’t fully demystify insight. It remains precedented idea, a flicker of electricity that’s why your prefrontal cortex makes all unclear how simple cells recognize what somewhere in the right hemisphere, was these plans without telling you about it.” the conscious mind cannot, or how they immediately recognized as the solution When that obscure circuit in the right are able to filter through the chaos of bad the prefrontal cortex had been searching hemisphere finally generates the necessary ideas to produce the epiphany. “This for. And so Dodge stopped running. association, the prefrontal cortex is able to mental process will always be a little un- He stood still as the wall of flame raced identify it instantly, and the insight erupts knowable, which is why it’s so interesting toward him. Then he lit the match. 

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