ABSTRACT
Currently most scientific models of the mind are essentially two-dimensional. As set forth, for instance, in the Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman’s highly successful popular book Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011), it is commonly being taken more or less for granted that the human brain has two major ways of thinking about things and events—modes that Kahneman and others identify as “System 1” (fast, instinctive, and emotional), and “System 2” (slower, more deliberative, and more logical). Unfortunately, such models easily underestimate what many of us would see as so richly characteristic of human thought, namely its creativity. We offer the reader a three-dimensional model of the mind incorporating creativity as perhaps its most decisive—and unfortunately, its most unpredictable—mode. What kind of a model are we proposing? One we hope the reader will find useful. Whenever we think about how mysterious are the workings of the human brain, we find ourselves thinking about the three famous fictional characters named Mr. Sherlock Holmes, Professor George Challenger, and a young girl named Alice who went off on her own to explore a remarkable place called Wonderland.
