Why does the solution to a problem you’ve been stuck with, sometimes come to mind all of a sudden? Is my mind working on it “behind the scenes” without me “knowing”?

Question

I like to develop games as a hobby, and therefore usually encounter a lot of programming challenges, in other words: features i want to implement but dont really know how.

Ocasionally i spend a lot of time try to solve it, without success, and then, usually in the next couple of days, the thought containing the correct solution will suddenly appear in my mind, without me consciously focusing or even thinking about that topic.

What happened? Did my mind keep working on it, without me even “knowing” and then presented the solution?

Thanks!

In: Biology

Answer 1

The brain is a bayesian machine that builds hypothesis about the world around you. When you aren’t faced immediately with a problem you e worked on, you still ruminate on it, and you still build hypothesis about it trying to fit to reality. That’s what your brain does. Just about it’s entire purpose boils down to that.

After a break you reset the neural paths being used, the train of thought is derailed, and you begin building the model anew from different perspective.