Diuretic
Permanently confused
I see what you are saying and agree. I guess in using the word "inspiration" I do think we can have inspiration through thinking things through logically as well. It just seems to me that there is great potential in receiving "inspiration" about something when logic is not involved and we should not just ignore this potential for gaining knowledge from an individual perspective.
I'm not an adherent of the view that we can be "inspired" by divine revelation. I do think that we possess a brain sufficiently effective that it can produce "solutions" to problems but only based on what is stored in the individual's memory or what the individual can absorb from another source (eg a book).
Your first sentence is where we differ. I believe we can be inspired by divine revelation, because of my own personal experiences.
Differing is fine of course. I have never had a personal experience anywhere near what might be called inspiration from a divine source, I suppose that's because I don't believe there is a creator so I'm not predisposed to owning up to having had a "eureka!" moment inspired by such a being.
But what are your views on the idea that we have innate knowledge that can be drawn out of us by careful questioning? Socrates I think was perhaps the first known thinker to have that approach. I forget the technical word but there's a sort of metaphor that's used to describe this approach as a "midwifery" approach to helping the individual learn, the questioning brings out pre-existing knowledge. I disagree with that view though. I think it belongs in the same category as the one where the ancient thinkers thought there was once an original human language that we all knew but which was lost in antiquity.
And then there's the tabula rasa idea. I'm more comfortable with that than I am with the Socratic.