alt Hacker News> I don't think I've had a truly original idea in my life. Combine A + B, when it's rare for people to know A and B at the same time.
There is also something to be said about recognizing that A + B can be combined.
And also in accurately judging that other combinations will be useless and avoiding them.
Yes, I think that identifying patterns and applying the appropriate combination of A+B to solve is true intelligence. It's a combination of knowledge, insight and inspiration.
In the UK organisations such as GCHQ ( Brit NSA ) use brain teasers as a recruitment and filtering tool.