If someone gave me a pile of money and asked me to figure out what conditions best promote insights, what would I do? I might start by recruiting a bunch of mathematicians and scientists to regularly report on their conditions along a bunch of axes: how long they slept, their stress level, etc. (I’d probably want to figure out some axes worth studying that we don’t already know much about, since we know that conditions (like sleep quality) do affect cognitive capacity.) Also have them report whenever they make some sort of breakthrough. If we collect enough high-quality data, we should be able to figure out what conditions work best, and disambiguate between factors that help provide insights and factors that “merely” increase cognitive capacity.
If you want high quality data, maybe start with video?
If you want high quality data, maybe start with video?