Why Is Getting An Insight So Hard?
Edition #159
Introduction
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Take a journey to www.contraminds.com. Listen and watch some great minds talking to us about their journey of discovery of what went into making them craftsmen of their profession to drive peak performance.
What Happens In Your Mind When Insight Strikes?
This article in Scientific American provides some profound insights into how a new idea or perspective arrives abruptly, often bursting into an ongoing stream of thought. The article also brings out emphatically that decades of research have now found how this ‘aha’ moment happens in the brain and the factors determining its high likelihood of occurrence.
Here are some key thoughts from the article:
In the 1910s, Gestalt psychologists were the first to demonstrate that insight is driven by unconscious processes.
A study found that insightful thinking happens during the ‘resting state’ of the brain. When a person relaxes with no task to perform or is filled with no expectations about what is to come, insight happens!
When you are relaxed, your anterior cingulate cortex in the brain can better detect the presence of an alternative to the most apparent and curious questions. Thereby, create an ‘aha’ moment.
Anxiety and sleep deprivation can also affect the brain and therefore getting an insight, if not addressed at the right time.
You can read the entire article here.
AI’s Real Risk To Wages: Andrew Berg and Maryam Vaziri, IMF Institute Of Capacity Development.
In this IMF Podcast, Andrew Berg and Maryam Vaziri ask, ‘When machines take over, how will people make a living?’ and ‘How will AI change the skill demand, and what skills should people prepare themselves for?’. The most important takeaway is things are pretty unclear, and being comfortable going through this phase of uncertainty, ambiguity, and change is vital.
Here are some key thoughts shared by them in this podcast:
The acceleration of the rapid change due to AI is mindboggling as the time for transformation has shrunk drastically - ‘Experts in AI surveyed by McKinsey in 2019 expected computers to be able to write at the level of the top 25 per cent of humans by 2050 and perform human-level creative tasks by 2055. However, they have revised their estimates to 2024 and 2028, respectively.’
‘Once GPT is introduced into the work environment, about 20 per cent of workers could see at least half of their tasks affected. GPT seems to increase productivity in more creative tasks, such as writing, legal analysis, and programming.’
‘Developing economies may benefit from AI as a tireless universal tutor and expert programming assistant that strengthens their workforces. Conversely, limited access to data and expertise and technological gaps could widen divergence.’
‘AI helps the least skilled….. And so, in that at least narrow way, it could be equalizing rather than skill promoting.’
AI is a tremendous opportunity for people around the world to get access to patient, knowledgeable, tutors on every possible topic…. if you're a less productive programmer, you benefit more. So this logic could easily extend across countries.’
‘It's an old story in technology that the new tools don't help much until you really change how you work.’
‘Economics as a field generally in the past few years has been becoming more interdisciplinary.. but certainly, with AI development, there will be an even higher need to keep these conversations open and interesting.’
You can also listen to the entire episode on:
Microsoft's Topological Quantum Computer Explained.
Last week, Microsoft announced a breakthrough in their pursuit of building quantum computers. Microsoft announced that it had introduced Majorana 1, the world’s first quantum chip powered by a new Topological Core architecture, which it expected would help build quantum computers capable of solving meaningful, industrial-scale problems in years, not decades.
So, what does all this mean? Dominic Walliman, a YouTuber, Science writer, and Physicist, explains this breakthrough in this video, which includes incredible animations and explanations.
Here are some key learnings and reasons to explore more about quantum computing:
Mckinsey provides a great definition and perspective on quantum computing - “Flip a coin. Heads or tails, right? Sure, once we see how the coin lands. But while the coin is still spinning in the air, it’s neither heads nor tails. It’s some probability of both. This gray area is the simplified foundation of quantum computing.”
What are the practical, real-world applications of quantum computing? Drug development, financial forecasting, new encryption algorithms for cybersecurity, supply chain optimisation, weather forecasting, overcoming computational limitations in today's machine learning, healthcare-medical imaging, streamlining genomic data sets, etc.
You can watch the entire video by clicking on the above link.
Why Is Getting An Insight So Hard?
We live in a society that believes you can achieve things only if you move rapidly and do things at breakneck speed. We are often asked, ‘Do you have the first mover advantage?’ To top it, you are further obsessed with aiming for productivity in everything you do. Hence, simultaneously aiming for speed and productivity probably leaves you with little time to get genuine insights.
Insight is the act of having a holistic and deep understanding of something or a clear understanding of a situation or problem. Sometimes, the words ‘Insight’ and ‘Understanding’ are used interchangeably. We often have an ‘understanding’ of a problem or an occurrence, which is not necessarily an insight. Understanding is more about having a basic grasp of a situation or a context. But to gain insight, you must go deeper, analyse the underlying patterns, question why something is happening, and develop your own interpretations and reasoning of the results you see or get. Insight is about discovering an ‘un-apparent’, ‘apparent’. Hence, insight is much more nuanced than merely understanding an issue or a problem.
Therefore, to gain insight, one must engage in behaviours, practices, and routines that are vastly different from those seen from the periphery. So, what does it take to get there?
Try to restructure or redefine the understanding and learn to see problems differently. This means spending time defining and redefining the hypothesis and arguments till you can see things from a new perspective.
Understand and appreciate that insight happens in an unconscious process. Therefore, don’t belabour thinking about the problem too much and seek a solution quickly. Instead, allow it to remain at the back of your mind or brain.
Find ways to integrate and connect concepts that may at first seem unrelated. But they may give you a new solution to an unsolved old problem.
Practice the art of thinking about a problem visually rather than by putting down mere questions to seek some answers.
Relax and forget about the problem you are trying to solve. Leave your brain in a ‘suspended or resting state’—Take your mind off it. This can help an insight emerge.
Set yourself up in an environment that provides the tone and mood for exploration and enables your imagination to travel without constraints.
Move away from the idea of money and payoffs as it inhibits creative thoughts.
Finally, find ways to get time for yourself where you are not anxious, being always preoccupied or rushed.
Learn to find a lot of mental space and time if you want to develop breakthrough insights.
Some of the lessons we learnt from this week’s mission:
Know and start to appreciate the difference between understanding and insight.
Future of Work is about having the skills to handle uncertainty, ambiguity and continuous change.
The recent breakthrough in quantum computer chips is expected to accelerate the development of quantum computers that can solve massively complicated problems at orders of magnitude faster than modern machines.