Insight: the other side of thinking

A nifty article in the New Yorker ("The Eureka Hunt", 07/28/08) investigates those insightful moments when we hatch and recognize an inspired idea that we "know" is right. It appears it's a brain hemisphere thing: the left side managing "denotation" with the right side excelling at "connotation": a more direct hot-wiring of connectivity. A key is a kind of relaxation:

The insight process is an act of cognitive deliberation ... We must concentrate, but we must concentrate on letting the mind wander...

While it's commonly assumed that the best way to solve a difficult problem is to focus, minimize distractions, and pay attention only to relevant detils, this clenched state of mind may inhibit the sort of creative connections that lead to sudden breakthroughs.

This idea kind of pans out if you look at the preceding issue of the New Yorker where they have an article about Garret Lisi, the free-spirited, unaligned, snow-boarding scientist whose E8-inspired "Theory of Everything" was hatched outside the strictures of academia.