Predictive Processing of A-Ha! Moments at the Edge-of-Chaos: Integrating Wallas’s Illumination and Openness into Neuroscience

The current conceptual paper presented a part of the creativity-development frameworks, The 7 muses of the neuro-creative cycle, which redefines Wallas’s preparation, imagination, and verification by integrating them into neuroscience. This paper discussed three steps occurring before, at, and during illumination: (a) switching attention inward to maximize top-down prediction precision and minimize bottom-up prediction error; (b) bottom-up excitatory prediction error exceeding top-down inhibitory habitual thoughts and goal/outcome-fixation to allow surprise; and (c) integrating prior knowledge into a novel association and updating the prediction at the edge-of-chaos. When excitatory neuronal activity optimally exceeds inhibitory activity at the edge-of-chaos, a-Ha! and/or trance states’ therapeutic effects occur. Hyper-excitation with hypo-inhibition pushing surprise beyond the edge-of-chaos produces hyper-surprise events, like seizures, whereas hyper-inhibition with hypo-excitation below the edge-of-chaos produces no-surprise, resulting in apathy and static beliefs, like schizophrenia. Accurate interoception is necessary for healthy emotional, cognitive, and behavioral functions, including illumination. Illumination requires openness to unknown possibilities to balance inhibition–excitation, which serves as preconditions for verification.