We don't know enough about the brain/mind to give anything like a measurable answer to this. It's all speculation. However something rings true about the conce

We don't know enough about the brain/mind to give anything like a measurable answer to this. It's all speculation. However something rings true about the concept of analogies being instructive in idea formation. I often think about it as adjusting the assumptions that the mind uses when planning. In that sense, it looks just like improvisation or what we call exploration in Reinforcement Learning. Good mental models of the world will result in more accurate simulations when you mix and match the assumptions/starting points. Some of those simulations might not be extant and you can take action to test whether they work in the real world. If they do, then boom you've got an idea made real.