When I am trying to figure out the answer to a problem, what causes that spark that makes me realize what the answer is? And where are these sparks, or thoughts, stored?

Peace.

The spark or sudden inspiration is (if anyone is into neuroscience, please correct me if i'm wrong here) is your brain finding the correct pathway to retrieve the required information from where it's being stored. As for that - i know it involves electrochemical processes that serve to exchange signals between the neurons in your brain, beyond that you're going to have to ask google.

Psionicist has the right idea. Different information is stored in different parts of the brain. Spatial memory, visual memory, auditory memory, whatever. It depends on the question. Retrieval of information can be a slow and incomplete process, you need to bring information out of your long-term memory and into your working memory. Long-term memory has a large storage capacity but can't be immediately accessed. Working memory deals with what you're currently focusing on. It's got a limited capacity and you don't hold things in it for very long. You need to correlate the new information (the problem) with stored information (from your long-term memory). Once you get a match, you can accept the answer into your memory without a logical conflict and you've solved the problem. That's why your problem-solving skills increase with practise (less chance of making a 'false' match and arriving at the wrong conclusion), and why some people are just plain better at problem-solving than others (greater working memory capacity, better long-term memory retrieval).

That's a kind of layman's terms explanation, hopefully it makes sense. As to what actually causes 'thoughts' in the sense that we're thinking now, I don't know. On the biochemical level it's just interacting neurons, but it gives rise to something greater than the sum of their parts.

This is more of a Mad Scientists question than SotD.

thoughts come from the mental sphere duh

Psionicist has the right idea. Different information is stored in different parts of the brain. Spatial memory, visual memory, auditory memory, whatever. It depends on the question. Retrieval of information can be a slow and incomplete process, you need to bring information out of your long-term memory and into your working memory. Long-term memory has a large storage capacity but can't be immediately accessed. Working memory deals with what you're currently focusing on. It's got a limited capacity and you don't hold things in it for very long. You need to correlate the new information (the problem) with stored information (from your long-term memory). Once you get a match, you can accept the answer into your memory without a logical conflict and you've solved the problem. That's why your problem-solving skills increase with practise (less chance of making a 'false' match and arriving at the wrong conclusion), and why some people are just plain better at problem-solving than others (greater working memory capacity, better long-term memory retrieval).

I call bullshit.
That's a kind of layman's terms explanation, hopefully it makes sense. As to what actually causes 'thoughts' in the sense that we're thinking now, I don't know. On the biochemical level it's just interacting neurons, but it gives rise to something greater than the sum of their parts.

This is more of a Mad Scientists question than SotD.

I call bullshit. I am constantly surrounded by spirits that give me inspiration.

Uranus
mmha... mmmha.. ha.. ha

Seriously though... the fact that we have a limited understanding of human though does not disprove the existence of spirits. Keep an open mind.

It's a miracle, ask any real research neurophysicist, the closer they come to the question the further they get from the answer.

When I am trying to figure out the answer to a problem, what causes that spark that makes me realize what the answer is?

I read the following in "The Portable Neitzeshe", he was talking about something else, but I believe it can be applied to what yr talking about as well.

-- as if a blind hunter fired hundreds of times in vain and finally, by sheer accident, hit a bird. A result at last, he says to himself, and goes on firing.--

What causes omnidirectional firing, and the something that could be thought of as a hit or an aim? The answer is the same as the answer to yr next question.

And where are these sparks, or thoughts, stored?
Akasha