The monk sat meditating. Alone atop a sparsely vegetated outcrop, all external stimulus infusing psychic energy within his calm, receptive mind. Distractions merely added to his trance, assisting the meditative state to deepen and intensify. Without warning, the experience culminated unexpectedly with a fluttering of eyelids. The monk stood, content and empowered with newfound knowledge. He has achieved pure insight…
The term ‘insight’ is often attributed to such vivid descriptions of meditation and religious devotion. More specifically, religions such as Buddhism promote the concept of insight (vipassana) as a vital prerequisite for spiritual nirvana, or transcendence of the mind to a higher plane of existence. But does insight exist for the everyday folk of the world? Are the momentary flashes of inspiration and creativity part and parcel of the same phenomenon or are we missing out on something much more worthwhile? What neurological basis does this mental state have and how can its materialisation be ensured? These are the questions I would like to explore in this article.
Insight can be defined as the mental state whereby confusion and uncertainty are replaced with certainty, direction and confidence. It has many alternative meanings and contexts regarding its use, ranging from a piece of obtained information to the psychological capacity to introspect objectively (as according to some external judge – introspection is by its very name subjective in nature). Perhaps the most fascinating and generally applicable context is one which can be described as ‘an instantaneous flash of brilliance’ or ‘a sudden clearing of murky intellect and intense feelings of accomplishment’. In short, insight (in the context which I am interested) is one which can be attributed to the genius’ of society, those that seemingly bring together tiny shreds of information and piece them together to solve a particularly challenging problem.
Archimedes is perhaps the most widely cited example of human insight. As the story goes, Archimedes was inspired by the displacement of water in his bathtub to formulate a theory of calculating the volume of an irregular object. This technique was of great empirical importance as it allowed a reliable measure of density (referred to as ‘purity’ in those ancient times, and arising from a more fiscal motivation such as gold purity). The climax of the story describes a naked Archimedes running wildly through the streets unable to control his excitement at this ‘Eureka’ moment. Whether the story is actually true or not has little bearing on the force of the argument presented; all of us have most likely experienced this moment at one point in our lives, and is best summarised by the overcoming of seemingly insurmountable odds to conquer a difficult obstacle or problem.
But where does this inspiration come from? It almost seems as though the ‘insightee’ is unaware of the mental efforts to arrive at a solution, perhaps feeling a little defeated after a day spent in vain. Insight then appears at an unexpected moment, almost as though the mind is working unconsciously and without direction, and offers a brilliant method for victory. The mind must have some unconscious ability to process and connect information regardless of our directed attention to achieve moments such as this. Seemingly unconnected pieces of information are re-routed and brought to our attention in the context of the previous problem. Thus could there be a neurobiological basis for insight? One that is able to facilitate a behind-the-scenes process?
Perhaps insight is encouraged by the physical storage and structure of neural networks. In the case of Archimedes, the solution was prompted by the mundane task of taking a bath; superficially unrelated to the problem, however the value of its properties inflated by a common neural pathway (low bathwater – insert leg – raised bathwater similar to volumes and matter in general). That is, the neural pathways activated by taking a bath are somehow similar to those activated by the rumination of the problem at hand. Alternatively, the unconscious mind may be able to draw basic cause and effect conclusions which are then boosted to the forefront of our minds if they are deemed to be useful (ie: are they immediately relevant to the task being performed). Whatever the case may be, it seems that at times, our unconscious minds are smarter than our conscious attention.
The real question is whether insight is an intangible state of mind (ala ‘getting into the zone’) that can be turned on and off (thus making it useful for extending humanity’s mental capabilities), or whether it is just a mental byproduct from overcoming a challenge (hormonal response designed to encourage such thinking in the future). Can the psychological concept of insight be applied via a manipulation of the subject’s composition (neuronally) and environmental characteristics (conductive to achieving insight), or is it merely an evolved response that serves a (behaviourally) reinforcing purpose?
Undoutedly the agent’s environment plays a part in determining the likelihood of insight occurring. Taking into account personal preferences (does the person prefer quite spaces for thinking?) the characteristics of the environment could serve to hamper the induction of such a mental state if it is sufficiently irritating to the individual. Insight may also be closely linked with intelligence, and depending on your personal conception of this, neurological structure (if one purports a strictly biological basis of intelligence). If this postulate is taken at face value, we have the conclusion that the degree of intelligence is directly related to the likelihood of insight, and perhaps also to the ‘quality’ of the insightful event (ie: a measure of its brilliance in comparison to inputs such as the level of available information and difficulty of the problem).
But what of day to day insight, it seems to crop up in all sorts of situations. In this context, insight might require a grading scale as to its level of brilliance if its use is to be justified in more menial situations and circumstances. Think of that moment when you forget a particular word, and try as you might, cannot remember it for the life of you. Recall also that flash of insight where the answer is simply handed to you on a platter without any conscious need to retrieve it. Paradoxically, it seems that the harder we try to solve the problem, the more difficult it becomes. However, is this due to efficiency problems such as ‘bottlenecking’ of information transfer, personality traits such as performance anxiety/frustration or some underlying and unconscious process that is able to retrieve information without conscious direction?
Whatever the case may be, our scientific knowledge on the subject is distinctly lacking, therefore an empirical inquiry into the matter is more than warranted (if it hasn’t already been commissioned). Psychologically, the concept of insight could be tested experimentally by providing subjects with a problem to solve and manipulating the level of information (eg ‘clues’) and its relatedness to the problem (with consideration taken to intelligence, perhaps two groups, high and low intelligence). This may help to uncover whether insight is a factor to do with information processing or something deeper. If science can learn how to artificially induce a mental state akin to insight, the benefits for a positive-futurist society would be grand indeed.
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18 March, 2008 at 2:05 am
DENNIS QUINE
V:
I think I am on-board with most of the points you make in this essay, but some aspects of “insight” remain puzzling to me. The first is the relationship (as human capabilities) between what we call “insight” and what we call “creativity”. They seem to be partially overlapping circles in a Venn diagram. One credits Picasso, for instance, with “creativity” in seeing the world differently, and providing the rest of us a different perception of reality via his art.
But we credit Darwin with “insight” in seeing how the finches he observed on different islands during his visit to the Galapagos led to questions about how the breeds got started and gradually evolved. He didn’t create the theory of evolution (it was already in the intellectual air of Europe in the 19th century). What Darwin contributed was the “insight“ to see how things already in front of him could be understood as manifestations of this overall theory. Picasso, in contrast, is credited with bringing something fundamentally new into the world, so he was “creative”, not “insightful”.
As psychological acts, however, it seems the processes may be very similar. Certainly both seem to arise out of subconscious mental operations, not wholly under our control. The best thing you can do to solve a problem that has been befuddling, is to take a nap. And so, did Einstein display creativity in inventing Special Relativity, or merely insight because he already had the Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction, and the Michelson-Morely experiments on invariant light velocity to build on?
The other issue that seems puzzling regarding “insight” is its undeniable association with intelligence. Even as far back as Maslow’s work in the 1960s, he found positive correlations between intelligence and “creativity” among his high achievers operating at the top of the motivation pyramid. Smart people seem to be more adept at finding creative solutions (manifesting insight?) to problems. However, there is no factor in intelligence tests that is called “insight” or “creativity”. In fact, completely different tests are used for “intelligence” testing and “creativity” testing. However, if you have ever taken the Graduate Record Exam, you will agree that “insight” (i.e.; seeing quickly how to attack a problem) is an essential skill at getting through the math test, at least, and maybe also the synonyms and others.
So, how do “intelligence”, “creativity”, and “insight” all roll together? Three overlapping Venn circles with a light bulb in the center overlapping region.
Happy Cogitating,
DHQ
27 March, 2008 at 8:24 pm
vulcanis
There does seem to be some division in meaning between creativity, intelligence and insight. I guess the main question for myself is whether these three mental capacities are mutually dependent upon one another, ie insight cannot exist without intelligence, which inn turn cannnot exist without creativity. Insight seems to bring our creative and rational sides together, as if they are acting in tandem for once instead of opposition.
Perhaps insight occurs only when we aren’t acutely aware of the moving cogs that are turning within our minds. In other words, its nothing special, just a word upon which humans have lumped meaning to describe an underlying process we don’t know much about. Insight could merely be a descriptive term that outlines a mental state or efficient combination of insight and creativity. Then again, it could also be taken to mean an action (verb) which describes the way a particular problem is handled.
Like most topics in psychology, we need to investigate and understand the underlying features of the brain before we can pass serious judgment on the nature of insight.
11 May, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Roswell
there is only one thing: the truth is out there.., best regards
12 May, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Dennis Quine
V/Roswell:
I know the comment here was intended just as a “hello”, and not a serious philosophical riposte, but it does raise an issue that has been in the back of my mind for some years. If one accepts the correspondence theory of what we mean by “truth”,then “truth”, “falsity”, “indeterminant”, and related partially true designations (probability statements from surveys, etc.) are designations that we apply to propositions (e.g., statements).
“Truth” or “falsity” are (as a matter of definition), properties of statements we (or someone) make about the world, or our own mental states. We can not make such statements until we look at the data or observe our own feelings. Then we can say, “yes, I see that it is true that …”.
So it is not the case that the “truth is out there”. The assessment of whether a statement is “T”, “F”, “I” etc. is one we make after assessing the data from out there. Thus, what is “out there” is data, which we observe and translate into meaningful statements. We then assess whether the statements constitute a correct description of what is going on (correspondence theory), and ascribe to the statements the appelations “truthful”, “false, etc.
So what we really have “out there” is just the world, “a blooming buzzing confusion”. Truth is literally “in here” (inside us) as we seek to formulate correct statements about what we observe.
But I know, “the truth is is in there” would not be as pithy an expression for a TV series. Sounds more like some Zen koan.
Hang in there,
DHQ
13 May, 2008 at 7:49 am
vulcanis
Very interesting point DHQ, I have also wondered about the nature of truth; a challenging philosophical problem if I remember some of my readings correctly.
So are you proposing that truth is totally subjective? I would tend to agree in that we do interpret our environment in unique ways. But what of conformity in truths? Take scientific theory for example. Some would argue that quantum physics undoubtedly touches on some notion of objective truth; indeed if such theories did not have an objective sense of truth they would be totally useless in acting as descriptors of our physical reality.
Certainly truth is very much subjective, but I do think there are some universal principles that are objective in nature, and hold true values. Failing that, perhaps the notion of truth and falsity is not applicable; such phenomena that exist outside of and independently of human inquiry should not be subjected to the banality of truth. Take the fundamental physical numbers for instance; G, Plank’s constant, the speed of light in a vacuum et al. Are these values ‘true’ or simply ‘out there’? Perhaps they are false in the respect that the actual value can never be fully described with total accuracy.
Actually DHQ, I think you are right; truth is totally subjective!
Haha, until next time.
13 May, 2008 at 1:53 pm
Dennis Quine
V:
I’ve spent a lot of time, as I’m sure you have, trying to understand the nature of the “TRUE”. Without much progress. Then several years ago I ran across some essay by Bertrand Russell where he simply said that “truth” or “falsity” are simply properties we ascribe to propositions (statements) about the world (including our own internal states which we can observe as part of the world).
There is no mystical capital “T-R-U-T-H” out there that we are somehow seeking (as a Platonic Ideal). Just us dumb animals looking at things and making statements about the world we experience, and assessing whether the statements correspond with what we observe, or not.
It was a point that really clarified my thinking. “Truth” or “Falsity” is a matter of statements, and our assessment of whether they match our observations (correspondence theory) or not. Leaves out a lot of discussion of how we make statements meaningful so that we can understand what is being asserted by a proposition, leaves out the nature of perception and how we are active in constructing “the world” that we sense, leaves out questions of the nature of mathematical “truths”, and a lot of other important issues.
But Russell’s attitude does seem to clear the air and pull us away from thinking there is some mystical source of all “TRUTH” just waiting out there to be discovered.
His attitude closes off conversation about faith-derived statements (e.g., “Jesus saves”). Statements of that sort are seen by correspondence theory not to be about the world, but about internal states of feeling (that are real to us as individuals), but unobservable to others. Its like you telling me you have a stomach ache. Unless there is some observable external indicator (like a knife sticking out of your abdomen), I simply have to accept your report, and have no other source of confirmation that you are telling me something that is true about the world (namely, your feelings).
The thing about religious assertions (except when they deal with issues of historical fact) is that they deal with what people feel and believe, but believers think the statements are about external realities rather than internal feelings. So there is a disconnect between my sense of what is a truthful statement (based on external observations) and what a believer “knows” to be true based on his feelings. “And the two shall never meet’. Reason we have arguments: believers and non-believers are using different standards of how we establish the truth or falisity of a statement.
Anyway, books have been written about the subject, so its hard to have the last word. But I agree with you, “the truth is in you”, in the sense that you are the one who decides whether some statement is accurate or not (true or false).
Take care,
DHQ