Brainstorming (or babbling) is not random. Nor would we want it to be truly random in most cases. Whether we are operating in a creative space like lyric writing or prose, or writing a pedagogical analogy, or doing practical problem solving on concrete issues. We don’t actually want true randomness, but have certain intentions or ideas about what kind of ideas we’d like to generate. What we really want is to avoid clichés or instinctual answers – like the comic trope of someone trying to come up with a pseudonym, seeing a Helmet in their line of sight and introducing themselves as “Hal Mett”.
Based on my own personal experience [1]this is what happens when I allow myself to free-associate, and write down the first thing that comes to mind. There is a propensity to think about whatever one has been thinking about recently, unless one manage to trigger something that causes one to recall something deep and specific in memory. Recalling the right thing at the right time is hard though.
What I (and I suspect most of us) are better served by isn’t free-association, but to think consciously and make a decision about what ‘anchors’ I’ll use to cause those deep specific recalls from memory, or to observe our current sensory field. (i.e. looking around my room the first thing I see is ‘coffee mug’ - not the most exotic thing, but the first thing I can free-associate if I don’t apply any filters)
Free Association probably works much better in group environments, because everybody has their own train of thought, and even their line of sights will be different depending on if they are on the north or south side of a room. From the pulpit of a church, you may get “Hugh Tibble” as a fake name from seeing the Pew and the Vestibule; while from the Pews you might offer up “Paul Pitt”. This is to say noting of Sonder and the individuality of consciousness.
When I start thinking of brainstorming anchors as decisions (specifically: a decision about how to search through memory or your current sensory experience), just like I would any other decision – where I need to make a decision about what model I use. It suddenly becomes a lot less mysterious and I become emboldened and excited about how I can aim for higher quality rather than quantity by thinking about my decision making model.
Note, this is a sample of 1, or more correctly a highly biased sample of several dozen brainstorming exercises I have actually taken the effort to record in detail the manner in which I did them. But being my experience all standard caveats apply about how well it will generalize.
Brainstorming (or babbling) is not random. Nor would we want it to be truly random in most cases. Whether we are operating in a creative space like lyric writing or prose, or writing a pedagogical analogy, or doing practical problem solving on concrete issues. We don’t actually want true randomness, but have certain intentions or ideas about what kind of ideas we’d like to generate. What we really want is to avoid clichés or instinctual answers – like the comic trope of someone trying to come up with a pseudonym, seeing a Helmet in their line of sight and introducing themselves as “Hal Mett”.
Based on my own personal experience [1]this is what happens when I allow myself to free-associate, and write down the first thing that comes to mind. There is a propensity to think about whatever one has been thinking about recently, unless one manage to trigger something that causes one to recall something deep and specific in memory. Recalling the right thing at the right time is hard though.
What I (and I suspect most of us) are better served by isn’t free-association, but to think consciously and make a decision about what ‘anchors’ I’ll use to cause those deep specific recalls from memory, or to observe our current sensory field. (i.e. looking around my room the first thing I see is ‘coffee mug’ - not the most exotic thing, but the first thing I can free-associate if I don’t apply any filters)
Free Association probably works much better in group environments, because everybody has their own train of thought, and even their line of sights will be different depending on if they are on the north or south side of a room. From the pulpit of a church, you may get “Hugh Tibble” as a fake name from seeing the Pew and the Vestibule; while from the Pews you might offer up “Paul Pitt”. This is to say noting of Sonder and the individuality of consciousness.
When I start thinking of brainstorming anchors as decisions (specifically: a decision about how to search through memory or your current sensory experience), just like I would any other decision – where I need to make a decision about what model I use. It suddenly becomes a lot less mysterious and I become emboldened and excited about how I can aim for higher quality rather than quantity by thinking about my decision making model.
Note, this is a sample of 1, or more correctly a highly biased sample of several dozen brainstorming exercises I have actually taken the effort to record in detail the manner in which I did them. But being my experience all standard caveats apply about how well it will generalize.