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Understanding the three methods that modern man uses to solve problems is easier when we think of them as three stores where the brain can shop.

In one store, the products are neatly lined on shelves alphabetically by size, color, and category. The aisles are all clearly labeled and organized in a neat, systematic way. This is the analytical left side of our brain.

When we use the left brain to tackle a problem, we collect data, organize it, and eliminate solutions one by one as we sequentially narrow our options. Then we choose a solution. The left brain uses a traceable process of analysis and deconstruction based on logic. This is how we teach children, animals, computers, and robots to think.

In the second store instead of neat, organized rows, the products are artistically arranged in showrooms. A couch sits beside a table with a lamp across from two side chairs and a painting.  There's also a coffee table with magazines, a candy dish, and a vase with flowers. This is the creative right side of our brain. It contains the same products as our left brain but is organized with flair.

The right side of the brain specializes in synthesis, working with implied information. The job of the right side is to interpret subtle clues and make creative connections between what we observe and what we know. In additions to left-brain logic, synthesis played an important role in the survival of our ancestors. As a result, our ability to process implicit information and make nonlinear conclusions has also grown very efficient. For example, the right side of the brain is extremely clever at spotting cheaters.

Why?

In prehistoric times, the ability to detect cheaters was crucial to our existence. Cheaters would steal food, lie about performing work, hoard, and hide things. These types of subversive behaviors put the rest of the tribe's ability to survive at risk. So, for many generations, the human organism has been perfecting its ability to "sense" a cheater. Even though we may not be able to articulate or justify suspicious feelings toward a stranger, our inherited instincts quickly interpret a plethora of physical clues, including gesturing, eye movement, tone in the voice, pupil dilation, and perspiration, when we encounter a cheater. These subtle signs are synthesized by the right side of the brain, immediately generating uneasy and distrustful feelings.

But let's say we catch a cheater in the act and have to determine a punishment.

Chances are we will deploy the rational, analytical left side of our brain to determine and appropriate penalty. We collect information about the law, study the facts in the case, weigh the pros and cons, and eventually narrow the options. Then we choose.

In other words, identifying a cheater may involve the synthesis of many obscure clues by the right side of the brain, but when it comes to determining justice, we often deploy the logical left brain: two different problems, two different ways our brain goes about solving them.

But what happens when the brain goes shopping and can't find an answer in either store? When a problem is too complicated for everyday left- and right-brain problem solving?

That's where the third store comes in. It has no products on the shelves, no organized departments, no artistically arranged showrooms—Just a giant empty building. In this store, we simple imagine the characteristics of the product we want, and then — presto! —It appears. This is how insight works.

When we use insight, we begin with an idea of what we are looking for and then allow our minds to wander—sometimes for a very brief period of time and sometimes much longer. Then, in a flash, the brain navigates through a mountain of data and scenarios and BAM! We make connections that previously eluded us, and the precise answer we were searching for appears, only better.

This excerpt is from Rebecca's book, The Watchman's Rattle - for more information, click here