In this multipart article I will talk in depth about epiphanies – the sudden, profound insights that often seemingly come out of nowhere.

This first part will examine epiphanies from the standpoint of what is happening when we have one. Subsequent parts will focus on the introspective nature of epiphany, the appreciation of epiphany as an ongoing process, why they feel so profound, how to have more of them, and the connection between epiphany and enlightenment.

Part 1 – the nature of epiphany

Chances are, you’ve heard the famous question “what is the sound of one hand clapping?” This is perhaps the most well-known Zen koan. A koan is a story-telling tool used in the practice of Zen Buddhism and is often structured in terms of one who is unenlightened receiving a surprising nugget of wisdom from one who is enlightened.

Here is another example of a koan:

Two monks were arguing about a flag. One said: `The flag is moving.’

The other said: `The wind is moving.’

The sixth patriach happened to be passing by. He told them: `Not the wind, not the flag; mind is moving.’

The zen master’s answer is often absurd or nonsensical on its face, unless one has already had the insight that renders meaning to it. Trying to find meaning in a koan can usefully challenge one’s mental models, or taken-for-granted ways of making sense of the world. Often, koans end with an unenlightened monk becoming enlightened as a result of hearing the master’s response. This sudden moment of enlightenment is an epiphany.

Epiphanies are sudden profound insights, reflecting large-scale transformations of our mental models. Such radical cognitive restructuring is a necessary part of the organic process that leads to enlightenment, because enlightenment entails radical changes to the way we relate to the world.

Mental Models

Before we can get into what the nature of epiphany is, we need to look at what it means to have “taken-for-granted ways of making sense of the world”, or mental models.

Mental models are patterns in our mind that help us navigate and derive meaning from our world. If you can navigate your house blindfolded, that is because you have a well-developed model of your house in your mind. You can imagine walking through it. Any act of imagination, in fact, entails the use of a mental model.

Our mental models are representations of our world that allow us to predict what will happen as we go about our day. When you cross a busy intersection, you employ your model of a traffic light, plus behavioral models of how people will behave as they drive, bike, and walk through it. Your models give you the confidence to cross the street without getting hit by a bus. The usefulness of these models lies in how they make the world predictable, and how they allow for our actions to become automatic, freeing up mental resources for more important problems. We can cross that intersection while thinking about an upcoming exam or presentation, even as vehicles weighing several thousand pounds are speeding by you.

As you learn new skills and knowledge, you are developing your mental models. When you learn how to drive a car, for example, you are developing several models at once. First, you develop your model of how a car is operated. As you do this, you must concentrate your full awareness on the mechanics of driving. Soon, however, the process becomes automatic. Your model has become developed enough to free your mind for developing other models, such as learning how to drive with other people on the road. Your mental models are considered to be well developed when they are automatic. That is, you are not devoting any significant mental energy to using them – you are not even aware of doing so.

But no matter how well developed your models are, they are wrong to some degree, because they always simplify what they model. Models abstract away details. In my shower, for instance, the fixture that controls the temperature of the water is a single handle that you rotate. My mental model of that fixture is devoted to quickly finding that hair’s-width range between screaming hot and bone-chilling cold. My model could include how the fixture actually mixes the hot and cold water sources together, but it doesn’t. I don’t really care. It’s an important point: all models are wrong, even if they work.

Of course, sometimes models can be very, very wrong. When I was a little boy I thought that traffic lights worked because little mice inside the traffic light held up colored sponges at the appropriate times. Now I know better… the mice switch on colored lights, not sponges.

But seriously, my flawed traffic light model shows how models must be brought into agreement with other models. As my mental model of a mouse became more sophisticated, I would have realized that they are simple animals that would not be able to carry out the important task of synchronizing traffic at an intersection. Not to mention, how would you keep them alive in there for any length of time? The mouse theory of traffic lights is easy for you to demolish, but only because you already have sophisticated mental models that allow you to find flaws with it.

So as we go about our lives, we are, mostly unconsciously, employing and improving a vast network of interconnected mental models. If our models are good, we do not need to waste our mental resources on simple tasks like driving or brushing teeth. We easily grasp situations we are familiar with and can make effective plans to accomplish goals. If they are not so good, we are more likely to see the world as confusing, unpredictable, and threatening. It is hard to act effectively when our models are not good.

Epiphanies and Mental Models

Epiphanies ultimately spring out of what happens when our mental models are wrong or inadequate, and we make an effort to improve them. The understanding that comes with an epiphany reflects that we have found a superior way of modeling the world.

There are several basic ways we can change our mental models, but only one corresponds with epiphanies. We can get rid of old models that don’t work (“Oh, I thought ‘string theory’ was about how to tie knots”); we can get add to or improve existing models (“Wow, I didn’t realize Ralph had a prosthetic leg”); and we create new models as we learn altogether new things.

But there is a special kind of transformation that underlies epiphanies – the joining of two separate models. This transformation is what I refer to as a “map-congealing moment”:

Imagine you have moved to a new town, and though you’ve been there for a little while, you are still getting to know the area. One day you are going further down one street than you normally go, only to suddenly realize you have arrived at an unexpectedly familiar place. You didn’t realize, until just then, that that street takes you to that place. A-ha! You have just had a “map-congealing moment”. You had two maps – one that included the familiar street, and one that included the familiar place – and suddenly, those two maps fused into one. They were separate before, and now they have become joined. They have congealed.

The a-ha! of that experience is rooted in the surprise of the two maps being connected in a way that we didn’t see before. It is inherently rewarding to join maps, in the same way it is rewarding to solve a jigsaw puzzle. Beyond that inherent satisfaction, there is the reward of simplifying our maps. It makes life easier when we can use one map instead of two.

This kind of transformation doesn’t just occur with spatial maps. It actually happens all the time. Anytime we “put the pieces together” and figure something out, we are joining mental models together. Here are some examples:

1. you figure out how you know some familiar person you just bumped into
2. you realize that the burger you’re eating came from a real live cow
3. you realize that you eat too much because it covers up feelings of emotional distress

In the first example, you run into someone and it’s obvious to both of you that you know each other, but you cannot remember how. Suddenly one of you makes the connection, a-ha! It’s a tiny version of an epiphany, but you make the connection between the mental model of the person standing in front of you, and the model of that person you already had, prior to running into them. They become one and the same model. If you have the misfortune of not realizing how you know the person, you will probably devote significant effort to figuring it out, even after you part company.

The second example may seem completely obvious, but probably most of us can relate to a sense of realization at some point in our lives that the meat we consume has to be grown in the form of living animals. In this example, our model of the food we eat joins with the model we have of cows, chickens, and so on, in a way they weren’t connected before. That realization turns some people into vegetarians – and we would not be surprised to hear such folks describe this as an epiphany.

In the third example, an introspective insight connects a model of one’s behavior as an undisciplined eater with a model of how one deals with anxiety. This troubling aspect of one’s behavior (“I don’t understand why I can’t stop myself”) is rendered predictable and less mysterious, once one connects the dots. Two maps become one.

The word epiphany is usually reserved for profound, even life-altering insights. In future installments, we will examine the process that leads to epiphany, and see why we experience epiphanies as sudden and dramatic. We will see how we can increase the likelihood of having an epiphany, and how they relate to enlightenment.

Post by Terren Suydam.