Wuity as Higher Cognition Combining Intuitive andDeliberate Judgments for Creativity —Analyzing Elon
Musk’s Way to Innovate

1

Xin Wanga , Peter A. GloorbaBeijing Institute of Technology, wang_xin@bit.edu.cnb

MIT Center for Collective Intelligence Cambridge MA, pgloor@mit.edu

Abstracts Derived from unifying dual-process theories of cognitive psychology, we propose a newconcept of deliberate intuition as a construct of higher-level cognition that integrates intuitive anddeliberate judgments. We introduce “Wuity” cognition embedded into Chinese philosophy, medicine
and practices, which is defined by the capability of deliberate intuition and intuitive insights, based onimagery reasoning and non-dualistic thinking and manifested as mindful observation and visual
analogy. We develop a framework of three features of Wuity and six steps of Wuity-based innovation.
As a case study illustrating our method, we analyze Elon Musk‟s way to innovate and discuss common
aspects of Wuity as a higher cognition and creative thinking way of innovators in East and West.

1 Introduction
Psychological and cognitive theories and management science enjoy the longevity of William James‟ssuggestion that human reasoning involves two distinct processing systems: one that is quick, effortless,associative, and intuitive; the other that is slow, effortful, analytic, and deliberate (Alter et al., 2007).
Nisbett and his colleagues find that Westerners tend to engage in context-independent, analytic andconceptual processes by focusing on a salient object independently of its context, whereas Asians tend
to engage in context-dependent, holistic and intuitive perceptual processes by attending to therelationship between the object and the context in which the object is situated (Peng & Nisbett, 1999;
Nisbett, Peng, Choi, & Norenzayan, 2001).
A wealth of psychological and management research has been conducted in an effort to resolve
the debate whether those two systems obey dual-processes theories or whether there is an overall
framework of humans integrating the two conflicting ones. Bird (1988) claims that entrepreneurial
intentions are structured by both rational/analytic thinking (goal-directed behavior) andholistic/intuitive thinking (vision). Evan and Stanovich hold a default-interventionist and parallelcompetitive assumption, which means that intuitive (Type 1) answers are often prompted rapidly andwith little effort when people are confronted with novel problems. Where they lack relevant
experience, however, these answers may be biased, inappropriate and fail to meet the goals set. Thus
reflective (Type 2) reasoning intervenes and replaces default intuition slowly and delicately (Evan &Stanovich, 2013; Thompson, 2009; Thompson, Turner, & Pennycock, 2011). Sowden, Pringle andGabora (2015) propose that creative thinking may rest on the parallel and serial combination between
type 1 and type 2. (Kruglanski & Gigerenzer, 2011) provide convergent arguments away from dualprocesses theories and evidences for a unified theoretical approach to both intuitive and deliberative
judgments. They propose that the very same rules can underlie both intuitive and deliberate judgments,
and believe that deliberate judgments are not generally more accurate than intuitive judgments. Less
effort can lead to higher accuracy.
The conceptual and empirical difficulties entailed by the partition between intuitive and deliberate
judgments, and their alignment with multiple similar dichotomies have impeded a deeper examinationof the psychology of judgment, it is therefore time to move beyond imprecise dualisms and toward1specific models of the judgmental process (Kruglanski & Gigerenzer, 2011). In this paper, we
introduce a new concept which we term “Wuity” cognition, embedded into the context of Chinese
philosophy. “Wuity” is the capability of developing sensible intuition into intuitive insights throughimagining and reasoning based on imagery (image, mental imagery and natural/social phenomena)
rather than logic, rooted in a non-dualistic opposite view of Daoism and Zen culture. We integrate
research results in cognitive sciences to explore its role as a higher-level cognition to harmonize
intuitive and analytic processes. We also provide evidence how the higher-level wuity cognition
synthesizes deliberative intuition and visual analogy reasoning for creativity, through a six-step wuitybased innovation process model and a case study of Elon Musk‟s innovation process.

2 Related Work

2.1 Higher cognition
Cognition is the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought,
experience, and the senses (Oxford dictionary, 2016). It encompasses processes such as knowledge,
attention, memory and working memory, judgment and evaluation, reasoning and "computation",
problem solving and decision making, comprehension and production of language. Human cognition isconscious and unconscious, concrete and abstract, as well as intuitive and conceptual. Cognitive
processes use existing knowledge to generate new knowledge. A higher and creative cognition canbind and harmonize intuitive and delicate information processing, from a non-dualistic opposite view,
as is held by Daoism which believes that the true nature of reality is non-dual (yang and yin interact
with each other and create new insights), and all binary opposites are either unrealistic or inaccurate
descriptions. Kruglanski and Gigerenzer (2011) propose that deliberation can become intuitive(intuitive deliberation), for example a novice piano player engaged in ten thousand hours of training
would perform perfectly (assuming some talent). On the other hand, intuition can become deliberate(deliberate intuition), through training the mind to be attentive and through reasoning by imagery.

2.2 Deliberate Intuition
Francisco and Burnett (2008) propose deliberate intuition as the intentional engagement of intuitive
skills in service of uncovering hidden relationships, ideas and insights to harmonize intuitive anddeliberate information processing while generating creative changes. Here we would like to introduce
two kinds of reflective and deliberate intuition as examples, featured by imagery-based reasoning, one
is mindful observation and the other is visual analogy. Besides the two, there may be different types of
mixtures of intuitive and deliberative judgments.
2.2.1 Mindful Observation
Mindfulness is a state of mind that permits insight, presence, and reflection, in which one focuses on
experience in the present moment in a non-judgemental way (Kabat-Zinn, 1994; Marlatt & Kristeller,1999). A non-judgmental way means suspension of existing experience and knowledge on the impactof observation. Mindfulness includes both formal type meditation practice (e.g., sitting meditation,
walking meditation, and so on) and informal type mindful practice in everyday life (e.g., mindfulnessof eating, mindfulness of driving, and so forth) (Kabat-Zinn,1990). Dekeyser and colleagues (2008)
point out four aspects of mindfulness: mindful observation, non-aversion, non-judgment, and lettinggo; Epstein (2003) thinks mindful practice includes core features: attentive observation, criticalcuriosity, “beginner‟s mind” and presence. All descriptions of mindfulness emphasize the importanceof observing, noticing, or attending to a variety of stimuli, including internal phenomena, such as
bodily sensations, cognitions, and emotions, and external phenomena, such as sounds and smells(Dimidjian & Linehan, 2003b; Kabat-Zinn, 1990; Segal et al., 2002). Mindful observation meansobserving and seeing with awareness, which is the careful attending to internal and external
phenomena (e.g., thoughts, emotions, sounds, smells, or proprioceptive sensations) (Dimidjian &Linehan, 2003; Linehan, 1993). As Schwartz et al. (2005) state, „Perhaps the essential characteristic ofmindful observation is that you are just watching, observing all facts, both inner and outer, very calmly,
clearly and closely‟. This implies a detachment from the „things‟ being observed. Learning, therefore,
is not solely a matter of what one knows, but also of whom learners become (Borgo 2007; Pavlovich &Krahnke, 2012).
Scientific observation usually refers to the observation from binary opposing views, or outward
observation, in which subjective observers are separated from the object observed. The effects ofobservation depend on certain tools, such as eyes, telescopes or microscopes to observe the external
world. Observers have to maintain an objective attitude to avoid any personal subjective assumptions
affecting results. The limitation of this approach is that it can‟t apply to observing a person's mind andsub-consciousness. On the contrary, mindful observation is from the non-binary opposing view, also
known as inward observation in Daoism or Vipassana (Insight Meditation) in Buddhist tradition,emphasizing that the observer and the observed are whole or unified. There is no need to distinguishbetween subjects and objects, observers have to carefully perceive and scan what is observing or seeing
intuitively to keep a seamless observation and achieve deep understandings of relationships of overall
structure and detailed parts. The cognitive results depend on the status of the observer, just as revealedby the principle of physical uncertainty. So the observer makes himself/herself to be an accurate andreliable observation tool, just as a mirror, through training their mind, reflecting images or phenomena
or mental images by imagery-based thinking, and eliminating the influence of the subjective status.
Mindful observation is not against scientific observation, whose purpose is to find undiscovered parts
that have never been attended to with careful awareness and non-judgment. Rather it complements orhints at the findings of scientific observation.
2.2.2 Visual Analogy
Visual analogy is an analogical reasoning process based on the similarity and connection among
dynamic perceptual imagery and mental images. Visual mental images have led many people to liken it
to “seeing with the mind‟s eye” (Pylyshyn, 1973); however, for a long time researchers have failed toevidence its role in information processing and imagery-based reasoning, and hold an argument that allmental activity relies on symbolic, propositional representations, and the experience of imagery is like“the heat thrown off”. Based on new findings from neuroscience many researchers have revived theidea that mental imagery involves a special format of thought, one that is pictorial in nature (Pylyshyn,2003). In 2011, Lewis and his colleagues (2011) successfully integrated visual mental images andvisual percepts in two experiments, which provide new evidence for imagery-based thinking as
depictive representations. Goldschmidt (2001) proposes that the use of visual analogy in problem
solving is an example of similarity-based reasoning, cognitively facilitated by imagistic operations.
These findings provide evidence for the hypothesis that certain analogical reasoning processes can beimagery based. Wang and Lawson (2015) show a dual representation position that takes visual mental
imagery as a key representational format, suggesting complementary and integrating roles for verbal
and pictorial representations in accounting for certain cognitive phenomena.
A faculty for analogical reasoning is an innate part of human cognition, while the concept of asound, inferentially useful analogy is universal. Therefore visual analogy and metaphors have beenused at different points in the history of Western scientific thought (Gentner and Jeziorski, 1993). The
Chinese Daoism Schemas of Yin and Yang, Five Agents and Ba Gua are all visual analogies based on
non-dualistic thinking. Analogical reasoning can be used to classify two or more types of objects interms of structure, function, causality, symmetry, and model, among others. Analogical reasoning is akind of probabilistic reasoning, the similarity or connection between objects makes it possible to obtainthe correct conclusion while the difference between them leads to the conclusion with probabilities.
Normal analogy reasoning is a kind of reasoning method developed by conceptual logic, its
intermediary for reasoning is attributes, with strict connotation and extension. However theintermediary of visual analogy is images, including both images of objects or phenomena and mental
images. With multidimensional features and contents of images, contrary to a single attribute ofconceptual logic, connections between two analogical images are multidimensional, dynamic and easy
to imagine. Visual analogy is often applied to solve non-routine problems. The type of analogy is
known as „between-domain‟, where the analogical source, and the target problem belong to different
and distant domains. In cases in which source and target are embedded in the same or very close3

domain, the analogy is called „within-domain‟ (Casakin, 2004). Dejong (1989) claims that withindomain analogies are mainly based on surface similarities, and therefore are easier to establish.
Vosniadou (1989) proves that successful analogical reasoning can be employed between any two
objects that belong to the same domain provided it involves transferring an explanatory structure from
one item to the other. Visual displays belonging to a remote domain (between-domain sources).
Researchers such as Gentner (1989), Holyaok and Thagard (1989), and Keane (1988) have found that
novices and experts show different preference in establishing structural analogies, which lead todifferent results.

3 “Wuity” cognition
Informally, Wuity cognition is embedded into Chinese philosophy, medicine and practices, which isdefined by deliberate intuition and intuitive insights, based on imagery reasoning and non-dualistic
thinking, the core of which is the “Qu Xiang Bi Lei” cognitive model (Zhang & Chen, 1991; Fengli,
2010), which manifests as mindful observation and visual analogy.

3.1 Definition
Wuity (悟wù intuitive insights 性xì
ng nature) is the capability of developing sensible intuition into intuitive
insights based on non-binary opposing views and visual thinking, relative to achieving a deep
understanding, higher cognition and insights into essence through intuitive perceiving, observing withawareness, visual analyzing and knowing previously undiscovered relationships and opportunities in
the process of cognitive dynamics. It emphasizes returning to the heart, going back to the origin of the
problem and putting aside the dualistic opposition (for example yin and yang, black and white). It has
its base on intuition, imagination, metaphor, and analogy reasoning. Wuity cognition featured by the“Qu Xiang Bi Lei” cognitive model is the collective subconscious of Chinese people. It is rooted in the
traditional culture and religions of Daoism, Zen, and Confucianism, but it transcends the religious
meaning of mindfulness or Vipassana. It evolved into the “Qu Xiang Bi Lei” cognitive model and has
been applied to philosophy, literature, medicine, mathematics, engineering, agriculture and so on, since
Daoist philosopher Zhuangzi first mentioned Wuity 2000 years ago（Zhuangzi 21,Tianzifang, line 33).
Yang Yi believes that Wuity is the advantage of the Chinese traditional way of thinking; Oriental
Wuity and Western rationality are two important achievements in the history of human thought, they
can compare with and complement each other (Yang Yi, 2008).

3.2 Features of Wuity cognition
Based on earlier work, adopting the case study method of management science in the context of a
Chinese aerospace innovation team, we propose a framework of Wuity thinking consisting of four
elements and a Wuity-based innovation process with six specific steps. From a cognitive perspective,
we find that Wuity thinking helps innovators to distill insights into essence through the process ofentering the deliberate intuition thinking process after getting stuck in analytic thinking, and thus
gaining innovative solutions through rational reconstruction with a rigorous scientific methodology(Wang and Li, 2017).
Wuity cognition is composed of four characteristics, including zero mentality to put down thebound of previous experience and knowledge, the non-binary mindful observation method, between
domain inspiration by visual analogy and insights into essence. Mindful observation, and visual
analogy, as parts of “Qu Xiang Bi Lei” detailed above, are regarded as the core of Wuity cognition.
We now further describe the other two parts of Wuity thinking.
3.2.1 Zero Mentality

Letting go, or zero mentality or beginner‟s mind or "empty cup" mentality, is the most familiar andconvenient strategy to prepare the mind. It is the preparation for mindful observation. If an innovator isgetting stuck in the routine thinking model, past hurts and old injustices might prevent her/him fromobserving clearly and attentively, s/he would be unable to move forward or to experience joy. A let-go
attitude and behavior might lead to a radical reboot to get past yesterday‟s thinking (Smallwood andO'Connor, 2011; Smallwood et al., 2013).
3.2.2 “Qu Xiang Bi Lei” cognitive model"Qu Xiang Bi Lei " means adopting dynamic images and visual analogizing/metaphoring between
images of different domains. “Qu” means “adopting or selecting”; “Xiang”/ “象xiàng” is a generalterm for images, mental images, and phenomena, which means xiang-based thinking or imagery-based
thinking; “Bi Lei” means reasoning by visual analogy or natural metaphors (Wang, 1997). It is a kindof cognitive thinking model used by the ancient Chinese to study the laws of nature, which is based on
the similarity of different images and the leveraging of mindful observation and visual
analogy/metaphors. As a core feature of classical Chinese visual thinking, these images are dynamic
and changeable, resulting from mindful observation at different time points in the process of cognitive
dynamics. There is also a similar connection along the evolution of different images. These forms ofimages are not only the images of phenomena seen by the eye, but also the mental images that reflect
what is perceived, even a grand or whole image as a rule or law. The purpose of adopting dynamic
images is to realize the transformation from what has been seen to what is to be known, from thesurface to the nature. Visual analogizing is based on the dynamic images to illustrate not the superficial
association between two types of those images, but the deep level association or innate relationship,even if these connections or similarities are not off-the-shelf or ever used by others, but alien linkages
that have not been discovered or explored until now.
It was through the “Qu Xiang Bi Lei” cognitive model that China's ancient people mastered thelaws of nature, thus creating the important structural relationship diagram of the yin and yang, fiveagents, Ba Gua, and then applying them to multi-disciplines such as ancient literature, arts, Chinese
medicine, geography, mathematics, chemistry, engineering and other fields, embodied in the traditional
culture of Taoism, Confucianism and Zen culture and religions and Gong Fu such as Taiji. Once good
"Qu Xiang Bi Lei" is found, confusion and contradiction caused by superficial observation will be
swept away, and one will enter a “transparent” state with an enlightened mind. Its purpose is to realize
the transformation of something seen into something known, fuzzy intuitive insights into a clear
theoretical concept (Wang and Liu,1993).
3.2.3 Gaining insight
Gaining a clear and deep insight is the most productive result of Wuity thinking. Once good analogy
between different domains is found, confusion and contradiction caused by superficial observation will
be swept away, and one will enter a transparent state with a clear mind and insights into essence. The
study of insights started in the 1970s as a branch of cognitive psychology. Researchers pointed out thatpeople tend to encounter an obstacle, commonly known as “getting stuck” on their way to insight. At
the same time, insight is considered to be gained through a cognitive restructuring process, which is the
only way to the right answer (Epstein et al., 1984). We provide evidence that insights are gained
through putting full attention to the target, developing visual analogy, and mapping integration between
two domains: one domain is the resource domain, the other is the target domain, the relationshipbetween them is called within-domain or between-domain. If an innovator could find good analogies
from unrelated between-domain and build undiscovered relationships between them, the probability ofgaining sudden insight is much higher. Especially, innovators build visual analogies between theknowledge world and the action world.

3.3 Six Steps of Wuity-based innovation
We proposed the framework of the Wuity-based innovation process consisting six steps and adopted
the case study method to verify it on the team level in the China aerospace context (Wang and Li. ,2017). The six steps include: (1) getting stuck--in the thematic knowledge domain; (2) letting go-5

returning to the original source as the restarting point; (3) mindful observation--toward getting a whole
picture of the associated objects; (4) visual analogy-- triggering inspirations of the underlying link
between the two mapping domains; (5) gaining insight--clear and deep, into the complex context, and(6) implementing--obtaining innovative solutions based on rational reconstruction with a rigorous
scientific methodology (figure 1).
Fig.1. Six Steps of Wuity-based innovation

4. Case Study

4.1 Case Study Method
We illustrate the Wuity-based innovation method in a case study related to Western innovators. Our
goal is to verify the applicability of the theoretical model and provide a relevant competitive
interpretation through learning transfer theory (Simmons, 2016). Since the framework of Wuity
cognition is rooted in Eastern culture, we propose to make it clear in a case study to verify it in theWestern innovation context (Eisenhardt, 1989; Eisenhardt & Graebner, 2007). We chose the case of
Elon Musk, because it is highly enlightening and provides a rare opportunity to light up and expand therelation and logic between different constructs (Siggelkow, 2007). We provide self-sufficiency intheoretical elaboration to clarify all the constructs mentioned. At the same time, we select the data most
relevant to theoretical constructs in the case study and offer closely related details so as to provide
readers with a concrete and convincing example of every construct.

4.2 Data Sources
Elon Musk is known as a “real-world version of Iron Man”, the most innovative businessman after
Steve Jobs and a “Da Vinci style” Renaissance generalist. He is currently the CEO / Chairman of six
state-of-the-art technology companies such as Space X, Tesla electric vehicle, Solar City, Hyper Loop,
Open AI and Neurolink as well as Tesla's main product designer. His innovative history is of an

7“American dream”, illustrating an entrepreneur's adventurous spirit and the hard work of the engineer.
Our study is based on the following three kinds of data: (1) Interview videos. We watched many
interviews and selected chats related to research, for example interviews of Tiecon Live Studios
TiEcon2008, The Future Of Energy And Transport, Qsinghua University Interview and Timothy
Kenny. Modeling Report. (2) Books. For instance “Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a
Fantastic Future” by Ashlee Vance, another is “Elon Musk: A Biography of Business, Success andEntrepreneurship (Tesla, SpaceX, Billionaire)” by B Storm. (3) Media papers and websites. Some
articles, reports and e-courses related to Elon Musk and his companies and so have been retrieved andstudied .

4.3 Case Analysis
In this case study, we analyze those data points in the spatial and temporal dimensions. On one hand,
we find four metaphors that Elon Musk mentioned and that are cited by media frequently, and comparethem with the four features of Wuity cognition. On the other hand, we sorted out the process that Elon
Musk developed when experimenting with the Space X rockets and motors and analyze it from the six
steps view.
4.3.1 Elon Musk’s Four Metaphors(1) Glasses + abyss vs. zero mentality
Elon Musk said, “A friend of mine has a saying: „Starting a company is like chewing glass and staring
into the abyss.‟ You have to do lots of things you don‟t like.”(Musk interview, 2017) “Failure is an
option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough; Optimism, pessimism; we‟regoing to make it happen. As God is my bloody witness, I‟m hell-bent on making it work ” (Zachary,2016). Judging from those quotes, it seems that Musk knows how to keep a beginner‟s mind and letting
go pessimistic emotion. His most traumatic years were around 2008-2009; he desperately neededfinancing for electric car venture Tesla during the global economic recession. “It was the last hour ofthe last day that financing needed to be closed, or the company would go bankrupt,” he said (Muskinterview, 2012.). The stock market had gone into a free fall, and investors kept changing the terms.
Musk took over the reins as CEO and funneled millions of his own money into Tesla. He not only isstaying in the mode of continuous exploration, but also always starts again after a failure, without being
interrupted by his negative emotions. In 2008 after the first three rocket tests failed, he faced the risk ofbankruptcy, however he persisted on the last day and never gave up, reviving the raising of funds andlaunched successfully in the fourth rocket test.
(2) knowledge as a semantic tree vs. mindful observation
In Musk's Reddit AMA interview, when answering how he learned so much so fast and took it(learning) to a whole new level, Musk wrote, “It is important to view knowledge as sort of a semantic
tree — make sure you understand the fundamental principles, i.e. the trunk and big branches, before
you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang onto.”(Musk interview, 2015b) As across-spanning expert-generalist, Elon Musk enjoys reading, “his ability to master several different
fields isn‟t magic. At first, Musk‟s reading spanned science fiction, philosophy, religion, programming,and biographies of scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs. As he got older, his reading and careerinterests spread to physics, engineering, product design, business, technology, and energy. This thirstfor knowledge allowed him to be exposed to a variety of subjects he had never necessarily learned
about in school.”(Simmons,2016) With the focus of his interests changing and experiencing new
business practices, Musk constantly obtains new concepts of different disciplines of the knowledge
world, it is mindful observation strategy that helps him arrange the priority sequence between all kindsof knowledge based on sematic understanding and sense-making in a deliberate and intuitive way, hebuilds a dynamic and holistic semantic tree of different disciplines, which reflects his own knowledge
view as a knowledge map. He builds an integrated view of his knowledge tree intuitively by observing
his own mind and sub-consciousness inwardly.
(3) cross-specialization connection vs. visual analogy
Facing problem-solving in the business world, Elon Musk did not copy routines that others made, but
broke the path dependence, gained inspiration through creatively connecting two domains and78

observed them together as a whole. He could then visually analyze the advantages of one domain anddisadvantages of the other domain, and thus found insightful new innovative opportunity that had neverbeen discovered before. When Elon Musk was asked “if time could be reversed how will you redesignand select your career, and your life to maximum and to perfect, and what‟s your advice to students in
Tsinghua University?” he answered, “I think it is a good idea to study a broad range of subjects, a lot of
innovation comes through cross-specialization from one area to another, because increasingly as theknowledge basis grows we become quite captured in the siloes of our knowledge. Maybe someone is
specialized in one area or another area, and if you can combine these specialties and create somecomposites of the parts, there are a lot of innovation opportunities by doing that. I think to have generalknowledge of domains is very important. Even specializing in two areas, I think there are great
opportunities. If you look and see what has been done in one domain, and what parts of that domain
could be transferable to another domain. If you can combine them, that would be quite helpful.”(Muskinterview, 2015a)(4) first principle vs. insights into essence
Elon Musk mentioned the first principle several times in different circumstances. "If we put in the timeand learn core concepts across fields and always relate those concepts back to our life and the world,transferring between areas becomes much easier and faster. As we build up a reservoir of 'firstprinciples' and associate those principles with different fields, we suddenly gain the superpower ofbeing able to go into a new field we‟ve never learned before, and quickly make uniquecontributions."(Musk interview, 2015a) It was in a brainstorming session that he suddenly realized thatthe first principle would help him solve the question of rocket improvement and low cost strategy, hedisclosed it in “The Future Of Energy And Transport interview” (Musk interview, 2012). Actually, thefirst principle is insight that he gained through connecting the two domains of the knowledge world andthe action world. At the same time, he applied this insight to provide rules both for communicatingwith employees and for logical analytic thinking in the business world. To resume, the first principle ismultifunctional, it is an insightful common principle that could be applied to the knowledge world as
the premise of logical analysis and to the action world as a simple rule to communicate with people(Kruglanski and Gigerenzer, 2011; Bingham and Eisenhardt, 2011).
4.3.2 The Process of Innovation in Developing Space X
In this section we analyze the process that Elon Musk developed to experiment with the Space X
rockets and motors and analyze them using the six steps view. His innovation process is divided into
six steps:（1）getting stuck“Unwilling to pay what U.S. rocket companies were charging, Elon Musk made three trips to Russia
and tried to buy a refurbished Dnepr missile, but found deal-making in the wild west of Russian
capitalism too risky financially.”(Chaikin,2012)(2) zero mentality
When the Russians refused to negotiate, Elon decided to build the rocket himself - the modern Falcon 9
in 2002 (Cantrell, 2015). Robert Zubrin, president of Pioneer Astronautics said “When I first met him
in 2001, he knew absolutely nothing about rockets, though he clearly had a scientific mind, By 2004,
he had learned a fair amount, and by 2007 he knew everything" (Hall et al.,2014). “Musk also keeps asmall collection of books on his desk--a sort of autodidact's guide on how to build rockets: Huzel and
Huang on the fundamentals of liquid propellants, Sutton and Biblarz on propulsion elements, J.E.
Gordon's Structures: Or Why Things Don't Fall Down.”(Kluger, 2012).
(3) mindful observation“Elon can get to near mastery level on a subject in a pretty short amount of time through sheer will.
What he's very good at is processing complex information for a wide variety of fields very well.”“There's little in his educational background that should have made him ready to make cars androckets. He largely learned aerospace by reading textbooks given to him by a friend and interviewing
experts and his own employees. He does - and this is true - help design the rockets” (Vance, 2016).
(4)visual analogy
Elon said, “If we put in the time and learn core concepts across fields and always relate those concepts
back to our life and the world, transferring between areas becomes much easier and faster”. “I think it

9is a good idea to study a broad range of subjects, a lot of innovations come through cross-specializationfrom one area to another, because increasingly as a knowledge basis grows we become quite adept
through the siloes in our knowledge. I think to have general knowledge of domains is very important.
Even specializing in two areas, I think there are great opportunities.” (Musk interview, 2015a)(5) gaining insight“For example with rockets and cars, the auto industry is very good at producing large complex
mechanical objects at low cost. It is remarkable how little the car costs this way, and applying thosemanufacturing technologies to rocketry is very helpful. Going the other direction, rocketry is very goodat making things very light. Because if it is not this way, it could not be sent to the orbit. So if you
apply those techniques to cars, you can help with making lighter cars, and it allows cars have greater
range. So this is an example of cross-specialization” (Musk interview, 2015a).
(6) implementing
For the rocket industry, Elon Musk combined the advantages of low-cost pipelines and thrustadjustable engines in the automotive industry with the high cost and non-reusable disadvantages of therocket industry.. First, the Space X Company took the lead in the field of aerospace in assembly line
production mode. Second, Space X Falcon Rockets achieved a smooth landing and a successful
recovery, the “gray falcon” rocket engine is the key to success(Musk interview, 2015a; Tesla news,
2015).

5. Discussion and Conclusions
Applying the case study method, we find that Elon Musk‟s four innovation metaphors of“glasses+abyss”, “knowledge as a semantic tree”, “cross-specialization connection” and “firstprinciple” correspond to four features of Wuity thinking (zero mentality, mindful observation, visual
analogy, and insights into essence). His innovative process of developing and testing Space X
corresponds to the six steps of Wuity-based innovation. Wuity-based innovation is used to interpret
Elon Musk‟s way to innovate through learning transfer (Simmons, 2016). Wang Shuren believe that,imagery-based thinking and the Wuity method are the source of original innovation, to innovate is tobreak the bondage of conceptual thinking, return to the original and natural thinking (Wang, 2006;2012). We have shown that Wuity is a way to combine common cognition and creative thinking ofinnovators in East and West, although more discussion and rigorous empirical studies are needed in the
future.
From the perspective of unifying dual-processes theories of cognitive psychology, we proposed a
new concept of deliberate intuition as higher-level cognition of integrating intuitive and deliberate
judgments, and introduced Wuity cognition derived from the context of Chinese culture. Wuity is a
type of deliberate intuition and intuitive insights manifested as mindful observation and visual analogy
strategy and based on imagery reasoning and a non-dualistic view. We used the framework of the fourfeatures of Wuity and the six steps of Wuity-based innovation adopting the case study methodology toillustrate Elon Musk‟s way to innovate.

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