Through evolution our brains have developed to recognise and assimilate patterns as shorthand for dealing with what we perceive as reality. As we go through life our experiences are hardwired as knowledge to allow us to react to external happenings without having to rethink our responses to every similar event which we have already have experienced.
Innovation requires us to forget, in a sense, what we know and look at problem solving from a new and fresh perspective. This is similar to children who are ‘unencumbered’ by the hardwired and previously assimilated responses which often prevent us from identifying or appreciating novel innovative solutions.
Zaheer Ismail
Originally published: 11 Jan 2015 @ 15:00