“Elastic thinking” is the name he gives to the way new and creative ideas pop up into the conscious mind in moments of insight. Elastic thinking generates a lot of rubbish as well as a few gems; the job of analytic thinking is to sift for the diamonds in the rough and then polish them. A new scientific idea, for instance, is generated through elastic thinking, but then must be tested and worked out fully with the analytic mind. But most people could do with a larger proportion of elastic thinking. Facebook Twitter Pinterest We have been able to program computers to emulate analytic thinking in specific domains such as chess.

Source: The Guardian April 18, 2018 07:52 UTC