New Thoughts Can Surprise

the exact structure of this information had ‘emerged during the process of drawing’; written diagrams like this one facilitated complex, abstract thinking. These new abstract thoughts could surprise the thinker, who accommodates them wherever possible by sketching the diagram. Even-Ezra suggests that the horizontal-tree format made concepts ‘easier to manipulate’, abstracting them from the linearity of language. Filling out the many branches of these diagrams ‘paved the way for new questions’.

We’ve always been distracted, or at least worried that we are | Aeon Essays