Conceptual Blending is a scenario where we can discover what an answer is from an unrelated story.
- The key element is a willingness to consider information and ideas that don’t seem worth considering.
- Instead of concentrating on the details of the problem, we should free our minds to search for distantly related analogies.
You’re doctor faced with a patient with a malignant tumor in his stomach.
- It is impossible to operate on this patient but, unless the tumor is destroyed, the patient will die.
- There is a kind of ray machine, that can be used to shoot at and destroy the tumor.
- If the rays reach the tumor all at once, at sufficiently high intensity, the tumor can be destroyed.
- Unfortunately at this intensity, the healthy tissue that the rays pass through on the way to the tumor will also be destroyed.
- At lower intensities, the rays are harmless to healthy tissue, but they will not affect the tumor either.
What type of procedure might be used to destroy the tumor with the rays and at the same time avoid destroying the healthy tissue?
- More than 90% of people conclude that the problem is impossible.
Re-source: Relate
make or show a connection between
Telling a story that seems entirely unrelated…
- A fortress was located in the center of the country. Many roads radiated out from the fortress.
- A general wanted to capture the fortress with his army.
- He also wanted to keep mines on the road from destroying his army and neighboring villages.
- As a result the entire army could not go down one road to attack the fortress.
- However the entire army was needed to capture the fortress.
- An attack by one small group could not succeed.
- The general therefore divided his army into several small groups.
- He position the small groups at an equal distance from the fortress along different roads.
- The small groups simultaneously converged on the fortress. In this way, the army captured the fortress.
More than 70% were able to come up with the previous solution when told this seemingly unrelated tale.
- Because the subjects were able to see what the different stories had in common, they generated a moment of insight.
- The answer emerged from the analogy.
Answer: Mount ten separate ray guns around the patient. And then set each of them to deliver 10% of the necessary radiation. When all the ray machines are all focused on the stomach, there is enough radiation to destroy the tumor while preserving the surrounding tissue.
craving and resource from “Imagine” – How Creativity works – by Jonah Lehrer
