>sorta naively think of as “so what” or “what would knowing the answer change for you?”

I can appreciate the "hot take", but it is, indeed, naive. My questions certainly had a similar dispositive character to what you could naturally presume to be dismissive argumentation, but they were sincere and exploratory, not merely rhetorical.

>Reason expanded with intuition?

In my view, which is thoroughly unconventional, intuition and reason are much more closely related than reason and logic, the conventional view that I believe you and that book said about 'genius' are both starting from.

Happy to help, hope to hear more from you.