The Act of Creation
"The creative act is not an act of creation in the sense of the Old Testament. It does not create something out of nothing; it uncovers, selects, re-shuffles, combines, synthesizes already existing facts, ideasm faculties, skills."
Part 1
“Men have
been wise in different modes; but they have always laughed in the same way.”
Chapter 1
The Logic of Laughter
All patterns of creative activity are tri-valent: they enter the service of humor, discovery or art.
Laughter Reflex
Laughter is a reflex.
Spontaneous laughter is a coordinated contraction of face muscles in a stereotyped pattern accompanied by altered breathing.
Gradations of laughter:
Smile -- Broad grin -- laughter
“Men have been wise in different modes; but they have always laughed in the same way.”
How has involuntary laughter survived so long? How is it that our brain hasn’t found a ‘cure’ for it? Laughter has no apparent biological purpose.
Intellectual activity provokes bodily reactions. For example: we cant reflect that something is beautiful if we find something amusing (even if we are by ourselves).
This brings us to a paradox:
“Humor is the only domain of a creative activity where a stimulus on a high level of complexity produces a massive and sharply response on the level of physiological reflexes.” (stimulus and physiological responses are on the same level.
Showing unity in variety:
Bisociative: experiencing reality in two ways. A clash of two mutually incompatible codes or associative contexts. A combination of two codes of contexts that don’t go together, creating a tension and later exploding.
Matrix: skill by which we do things. (technique by which we look for places starting by; placed starting with li, la, lo or by geography.
“I shall use the word ‘matrix’ to denote any ability, habit, or skill, any skill, any pattern of ordered behavior governed by a ‘code’ of fixed rules.”
In other words: a matrix is the pattern brfore you, representing the ensemble of permissible moves. The code is the fixed invariable factor in a skill or habit. Taking chess as an example, the code is the rules of the game that are predetermined, and the matrix is the total of possible choices before you, and the strategy would be the actual move you pick among a variety of moves.
Hidden persuaders:
“The controls of a skilled activity generally function below the level of consciousness on which the activity takes place. The code is a hidden persuader.” This is like Polanyi’s iceberg.
“Seeing is believing, as the saying goes, but the reverse is also true: knowing is seeing.”
“Before reaching awareness the input is filtered, processed, distorted, interpreted, and reorganized in a series of relay-stations at various levels of the nervous system; but the processing itself id not experienced by the person, and the rules of the game according to which the controls work are unknown to him.” This is like the kind of knowledge that we have but we don’t know we have, just as no one knows the formula to ride a bicycle.
Thinking and bicycle riding:
“Both are governed by implicit codes of which we are only dimly aware, and which we are unable to specify.” (It is hard to find the rules that define our thinking).
Habit and Originality
To think creatively we should not only use one matrix. For creativity we should use more than one.
“We learn by assimilating and grouping them into ordered schemata, into stable patterns of unity in variety.” They enable us to cope with events and situations and apply the correct rules. Matrices pattern our perceptions, thoughts, and activities, and are condensations of learning into habit. We are creatures of many layered habits.
If habits are repeated under unchanging conditions and in a monotonous environment, they become rigid and automatized.
How to escape our automatized routines of thinking and behaving:
Man and Machine
Laughter is a reflex.
Spontaneous laughter is a coordinated contraction of face muscles in a stereotyped pattern accompanied by altered breathing.
Gradations of laughter:
Smile -- Broad grin -- laughter
“Men have been wise in different modes; but they have always laughed in the same way.”
How has involuntary laughter survived so long? How is it that our brain hasn’t found a ‘cure’ for it? Laughter has no apparent biological purpose.
Intellectual activity provokes bodily reactions. For example: we cant reflect that something is beautiful if we find something amusing (even if we are by ourselves).
This brings us to a paradox:
“Humor is the only domain of a creative activity where a stimulus on a high level of complexity produces a massive and sharply response on the level of physiological reflexes.” (stimulus and physiological responses are on the same level.
Showing unity in variety:
Bisociative: experiencing reality in two ways. A clash of two mutually incompatible codes or associative contexts. A combination of two codes of contexts that don’t go together, creating a tension and later exploding.
Matrix: skill by which we do things. (technique by which we look for places starting by; placed starting with li, la, lo or by geography.
“I shall use the word ‘matrix’ to denote any ability, habit, or skill, any skill, any pattern of ordered behavior governed by a ‘code’ of fixed rules.”
In other words: a matrix is the pattern brfore you, representing the ensemble of permissible moves. The code is the fixed invariable factor in a skill or habit. Taking chess as an example, the code is the rules of the game that are predetermined, and the matrix is the total of possible choices before you, and the strategy would be the actual move you pick among a variety of moves.
Hidden persuaders:
“The controls of a skilled activity generally function below the level of consciousness on which the activity takes place. The code is a hidden persuader.” This is like Polanyi’s iceberg.
“Seeing is believing, as the saying goes, but the reverse is also true: knowing is seeing.”
“Before reaching awareness the input is filtered, processed, distorted, interpreted, and reorganized in a series of relay-stations at various levels of the nervous system; but the processing itself id not experienced by the person, and the rules of the game according to which the controls work are unknown to him.” This is like the kind of knowledge that we have but we don’t know we have, just as no one knows the formula to ride a bicycle.
Thinking and bicycle riding:
“Both are governed by implicit codes of which we are only dimly aware, and which we are unable to specify.” (It is hard to find the rules that define our thinking).
Habit and Originality
To think creatively we should not only use one matrix. For creativity we should use more than one.
“We learn by assimilating and grouping them into ordered schemata, into stable patterns of unity in variety.” They enable us to cope with events and situations and apply the correct rules. Matrices pattern our perceptions, thoughts, and activities, and are condensations of learning into habit. We are creatures of many layered habits.
If habits are repeated under unchanging conditions and in a monotonous environment, they become rigid and automatized.
How to escape our automatized routines of thinking and behaving:
- Plunge into a dreaming or dream like state, when codes of rational thinking are suspended (primitive level of ideation).
- Escaping by seeing something in a new light or with a new response (mental evolution). The bisociative act connects previously unconnected matrices of experience.
Man and Machine
Same
matrices produce comic, tragic or intellectually challenging effects.
In order to discover we must use bisociative acts; by creating a fusion of humor and aesthetic experience.
Someone slipping on a banana peel, fate’s jokes, or Hamlet getting hiccups; these examples can be converted from comic to tragic or purely intellectual experience based on the same logical pattern (bisociated matrices).
“The fact that man slipping and crashing on the ley pavement will be either a comic or a tragic figure according to whether the spectator’s attitude is dominated by malice or pity.” Or if you are a doctor maybe it’s funny and you feel pity at the same time, you would want to know the nature of the injury (intellectual).
This shows us how one event can have the three sides of the triptych; comic, tragic and curious.
In order to discover we must use bisociative acts; by creating a fusion of humor and aesthetic experience.
Someone slipping on a banana peel, fate’s jokes, or Hamlet getting hiccups; these examples can be converted from comic to tragic or purely intellectual experience based on the same logical pattern (bisociated matrices).
“The fact that man slipping and crashing on the ley pavement will be either a comic or a tragic figure according to whether the spectator’s attitude is dominated by malice or pity.” Or if you are a doctor maybe it’s funny and you feel pity at the same time, you would want to know the nature of the injury (intellectual).
This shows us how one event can have the three sides of the triptych; comic, tragic and curious.
Chapter 2
Laugter and Emotion
The sudden bisociation of an idea or event with the habitually incompatible matrices produces a comic effect.
Aggression and Identification
“Mortification or discomfort or hoaxing of others very readily caused laughter, while a witty or funny remark often pass unnoticed.
The Innertia of Emotion
“Laughter is a discharge mechanism for ‘nervous energy’.” Herbert Spencer
Laughter is aggression (or apprehension) robbed of its logical raison d’etre.
Example: impersonating. In this situation the impersonator is perceived at the same time as himself and as someone else. Two matrices are bisociated in the spectators mind. His intellect is capable of oscillating from one matrix to another, but the emotions can’t follow so they end up in laughter.
Emotions usually can’t cope with our reason. “Our emotions are incapable of keeping step with our reason and become divorced from reason”. And because of these emotions, our body reacts.
Example that our emotions don’t keep up:
“It is emotion deserted by thought which is discharged in laughter. For emotion, owing to its greater mass momentum, is unable to follow the sudden switch of ideas to a different type of logic or a new rule of the game; less nimble than thought, it tends to persist in a straight line.”
Over-statements of the body:
Reactions to situations that held a threat or a promise in our remote past; an echo.
The Mechanism of Laughter
“The sudden bisociation of a mental event with two habitually incompatible matrices results in an abrupt transfer of the train of thought from one associative context to another. The emotive charge which the narrative carried cannot be so transferred owing to its greater inertia and persistence; discarded by reason, the tension finds its outlet in laughter.”
Memory serves as an accumulator; a storage battery whose electric charge can be sparked off at any time.
The sudden bisociation of an idea or event with the habitually incompatible matrices produces a comic effect.
Aggression and Identification
- Aggressive-defensive / Self – asserting tendency: an impulse of aggression of apprehension.
“Mortification or discomfort or hoaxing of others very readily caused laughter, while a witty or funny remark often pass unnoticed.
- Participatory
/ self- transcending: a feeling of participation, identification or belonging. The
self is experienced as part of a larger whole.
The Innertia of Emotion
“Laughter is a discharge mechanism for ‘nervous energy’.” Herbert Spencer
Laughter is aggression (or apprehension) robbed of its logical raison d’etre.
Example: impersonating. In this situation the impersonator is perceived at the same time as himself and as someone else. Two matrices are bisociated in the spectators mind. His intellect is capable of oscillating from one matrix to another, but the emotions can’t follow so they end up in laughter.
Emotions usually can’t cope with our reason. “Our emotions are incapable of keeping step with our reason and become divorced from reason”. And because of these emotions, our body reacts.
Example that our emotions don’t keep up:
- Reason has little power over irritability or anxiety.
- It takes time to talk someone out of a mood.
- Passion is blind to better judgment.
- Anger or fear show physical effects after the cause has been removed.
“It is emotion deserted by thought which is discharged in laughter. For emotion, owing to its greater mass momentum, is unable to follow the sudden switch of ideas to a different type of logic or a new rule of the game; less nimble than thought, it tends to persist in a straight line.”
Over-statements of the body:
Reactions to situations that held a threat or a promise in our remote past; an echo.
The Mechanism of Laughter
“The sudden bisociation of a mental event with two habitually incompatible matrices results in an abrupt transfer of the train of thought from one associative context to another. The emotive charge which the narrative carried cannot be so transferred owing to its greater inertia and persistence; discarded by reason, the tension finds its outlet in laughter.”
Memory serves as an accumulator; a storage battery whose electric charge can be sparked off at any time.
Chapter 3
Varieties of Humour
Pun and Witticism
Pun: bisociation of a single phonetic form with two meanings (two strings of thought tied together by an acoustic knot)
Reversal of logic:
When a word is understood both literally and metaphorically at the same time. By playing simultaneously two games governed by opposite rules.
Man and Animal
Hybrid man-animal: animal appearance with human behavior (like Disney characters)
This causes an intersection of two planes, like the impersonation example.
Impersonation
Impersonator is two different people at the same time.
- Decode the code or rules implied
- Find the link (focal concept, word or situation bisociated)
- Define the character of the emotive charge and make a guess regarding the unconscious elements it may contain.
Pun and Witticism
Pun: bisociation of a single phonetic form with two meanings (two strings of thought tied together by an acoustic knot)
Reversal of logic:
When a word is understood both literally and metaphorically at the same time. By playing simultaneously two games governed by opposite rules.
Man and Animal
Hybrid man-animal: animal appearance with human behavior (like Disney characters)
This causes an intersection of two planes, like the impersonation example.
Impersonation
Impersonator is two different people at the same time.
The Adult-Child
conviction of superiority
The Trivial and the Exalted
Parody: most aggressive form of impersonation, designed not only to deflate hollow pretense but also to destroy illusion in all its forms; and to undermine pathos by harping on the trivial, all too human aspects of the victim,
“When consciousness is unawares transferred from great things to small - the result will be either comic or an aesthetic experience, depending on whether the persons emotions are of the type capable of participating in the transfer or not.” Our emotions play a part.
“The scientist’s attitude is basically similar in situations where he suddenly discovers the connection between a banal event and a general law of nature – Newton’s apple.”
Caricature and Satire
Political cartoon: translation into visual imagery of a witty topical comment at its best. The visual triggers memories and expectations, which causes a delayed action effect. The joke is not in the picture, but in what is in our heads.
Portrait caricature: it’s a purely visual, distortion of human form. At the same time we see ourselves and something else. It exaggerates or over simplifies features.
“The caricaturists distortions is something physiologically impossible, yet at the same time visually convincing.” It is funny because we know a person or a personality and see these special traits more, bot only as a portrait of a person. We laugh at the victims expense, because the artist adds biological impossibilities.
Stylization: the artist and caricaturist’s judgment of what he considers relevant.
“The polarity between comic and aesthetic derives from the polarity between the self-assertive and self transcending tendencies.”
Satire: verbal caricature which distorts characteristic features of an individual or society by exaggeration and simplification. The artist enlarges things he disproves of, “deformities in society, which blunted by habit, we are no longer aware of, and suddenly discover the absurdity of the familiar and the familiarity of the absurd.”
“We are made suddenly conscious of conventions and prejudices which we have unquestioningly accepted, which were tacitly implied in the codes in control of our thinking and behavior.”
“The satirist’s weapon is irony. Its aim is to defeat the opponent on his ground by pretending to accept his premises, his values, his methods of reasoning, in order to expose their implicit absurdity.” Like 1984 or Brave New World.
The Misfit
Deformity as a cause of laughter. We laugh at anything outside the norm, of appearance or behavior (midgets, imps, pronunciations).
The real thing makes us feel sympathy but when someone imitates it, it is funny. It enables us to be childishly cruel with a clear conscience.
The Paradox of the Centipede
“However, an additional factor enters into the comic effect of some disorders of behavior such as stuttering, mispronunciation, misspelling: one might call is the bisociation of structure and function / or part and whole.” We only take notice of some part instead of the whole.
Paradox: we can’t concentrate on the grammar or the performance of a sentence and at the same time perform or talk. The centipede can’t think about how to walk and walk.
Displacement
“Instead of displacing attention form the whole to the part, it is displaced to a previously neglected aspect of the whole, showing it in a new light.” What is supposed to be important ceases to be important and something else becomes important that should regularly be irrelevant. “The sudden shift of emphasis to a seemingly irrelevant aspect of a bisociative concept.”
Coincidence
Crossing of two independent causal chains through coincidence is an example of bisociated contexts.
Nonsense
Illusion of meaning: there is a bisociation but the context is trivial; only words have a connection but the meanings don’t, it has to pretend to make sense.
“And what could be moisturer, that the tears form an oyster?”
“The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.”
Tickling
Tickling is not laughing. It only causes laughter when an additional condition is fulfilled: it must be perceived as a mock attack, a caress in a mildly aggressive disguise. It also has to be accompanied by a surprise element, and it has to be someone close to the person in order to cause laughter.
“Tickles impersonates an aggressor, but is simultaneously known not to be one.”
The Clown
He is an exaggerated caricature of stupidity; a collection of all deformities, bodily and functional.
Originality, Emphasis and Economy
Main criteria of comic technique:
Originality, emphasis and economy.
Exaggeration, selection, simplification.
conviction of superiority
The Trivial and the Exalted
Parody: most aggressive form of impersonation, designed not only to deflate hollow pretense but also to destroy illusion in all its forms; and to undermine pathos by harping on the trivial, all too human aspects of the victim,
“When consciousness is unawares transferred from great things to small - the result will be either comic or an aesthetic experience, depending on whether the persons emotions are of the type capable of participating in the transfer or not.” Our emotions play a part.
“The scientist’s attitude is basically similar in situations where he suddenly discovers the connection between a banal event and a general law of nature – Newton’s apple.”
Caricature and Satire
Political cartoon: translation into visual imagery of a witty topical comment at its best. The visual triggers memories and expectations, which causes a delayed action effect. The joke is not in the picture, but in what is in our heads.
Portrait caricature: it’s a purely visual, distortion of human form. At the same time we see ourselves and something else. It exaggerates or over simplifies features.
“The caricaturists distortions is something physiologically impossible, yet at the same time visually convincing.” It is funny because we know a person or a personality and see these special traits more, bot only as a portrait of a person. We laugh at the victims expense, because the artist adds biological impossibilities.
Stylization: the artist and caricaturist’s judgment of what he considers relevant.
“The polarity between comic and aesthetic derives from the polarity between the self-assertive and self transcending tendencies.”
Satire: verbal caricature which distorts characteristic features of an individual or society by exaggeration and simplification. The artist enlarges things he disproves of, “deformities in society, which blunted by habit, we are no longer aware of, and suddenly discover the absurdity of the familiar and the familiarity of the absurd.”
“We are made suddenly conscious of conventions and prejudices which we have unquestioningly accepted, which were tacitly implied in the codes in control of our thinking and behavior.”
“The satirist’s weapon is irony. Its aim is to defeat the opponent on his ground by pretending to accept his premises, his values, his methods of reasoning, in order to expose their implicit absurdity.” Like 1984 or Brave New World.
The Misfit
Deformity as a cause of laughter. We laugh at anything outside the norm, of appearance or behavior (midgets, imps, pronunciations).
The real thing makes us feel sympathy but when someone imitates it, it is funny. It enables us to be childishly cruel with a clear conscience.
The Paradox of the Centipede
“However, an additional factor enters into the comic effect of some disorders of behavior such as stuttering, mispronunciation, misspelling: one might call is the bisociation of structure and function / or part and whole.” We only take notice of some part instead of the whole.
Paradox: we can’t concentrate on the grammar or the performance of a sentence and at the same time perform or talk. The centipede can’t think about how to walk and walk.
Displacement
“Instead of displacing attention form the whole to the part, it is displaced to a previously neglected aspect of the whole, showing it in a new light.” What is supposed to be important ceases to be important and something else becomes important that should regularly be irrelevant. “The sudden shift of emphasis to a seemingly irrelevant aspect of a bisociative concept.”
Coincidence
Crossing of two independent causal chains through coincidence is an example of bisociated contexts.
Nonsense
Illusion of meaning: there is a bisociation but the context is trivial; only words have a connection but the meanings don’t, it has to pretend to make sense.
“And what could be moisturer, that the tears form an oyster?”
“The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.”
Tickling
Tickling is not laughing. It only causes laughter when an additional condition is fulfilled: it must be perceived as a mock attack, a caress in a mildly aggressive disguise. It also has to be accompanied by a surprise element, and it has to be someone close to the person in order to cause laughter.
“Tickles impersonates an aggressor, but is simultaneously known not to be one.”
The Clown
He is an exaggerated caricature of stupidity; a collection of all deformities, bodily and functional.
Originality, Emphasis and Economy
Main criteria of comic technique:
Originality, emphasis and economy.
- Measure of originality: surprise effect
- Emphasis: in the element of surprise he gives us emphasis that replaces creative originality; a suggestiveness. Creates suspense and facilitates the listener’s flow of associations.
Exaggeration, selection, simplification.
- Economy: contrary of suggestion. It is the technique of implication, of what is implied in the jokes but not actually said. They are logical gaps that the listener has to bridge by his own effort; he is forced to cooperate.
Chapter 4
From Humor to Discovery
Explosion and Catharsis
Intellectual gratification: admiration for the cleverness of the joke plus satisfaction of one’s own cleverness in seeing the joke.
Explosion and Catharsis
Intellectual gratification: admiration for the cleverness of the joke plus satisfaction of one’s own cleverness in seeing the joke.
“The Eureka
cry is the explosion of the energies which must find an outlet since the
purpose for which they have been mobilized no longer exists; the catharsis is
an inwards unfolding of a kind of ‘oceanic feeling’, and its slow ebbing away.”
“Thus the impact of a sudden, bisociative surprise which makes reasoning perform a summersault will have a twofold effect: part of the tension will become detached from it and exploded while the remaining part will slowly ebb away.”
Explosion = aggressive–defense / self-assertive
Catharsis = earthing of participatory emotions.
'Seeing the Joke' and 'Solving the Problem'
“The dual manifestations of emotions at the moment of discovery is reflected on a minor and trivial scale in our reactions to a clever joke.”
Examples of things that are witty and funny: mathematical games, brain-twisters, logical paradoxes.
“To distinguish between these cases would be a splitting of hairs, for the basic process is the same: the tension has been dissociated from its original purpose and must find some other outlet.”
The Creation of Humor
“Humor depends primarily on its surprise effect: the bisociative shock.”
To do this the humorist must have the ability to break away from the stereotyped routines of thought. “He must provide mental jolts, caused by the collision of incompatible matrices.” The solution is arrived at by a kind of ‘thinking aside’, a shift of attention to some feature of the situation, or an aspect of the problem, which was previously ignored.
The humorist may stumble on it by chance or may be guided by some intuition which he can’t define.
Paradox and Synthesis
The humorist doesn’t have the same emotions or stress as the audience does.
The humorist might experience surprise at the moment when the idea hits him. But it is a different kind of shock than that of the audience. These are the self-administered shock and the shock imposed from the outside.
“The less suggestive and the more implicit the joke, the more will the consumer’s reactions approximate the producer’s – whose mental effort he is compelled to recreate.”
Creative act: humorist consisted in bringing about a commentary fusion between two incompatible matrices; the humorist deliberately chooses things to expose their hidden incongruities.
Scientific discovery: permanent fusion of matrices of thought previously believed to be incompatible.
“Thus the impact of a sudden, bisociative surprise which makes reasoning perform a summersault will have a twofold effect: part of the tension will become detached from it and exploded while the remaining part will slowly ebb away.”
Explosion = aggressive–defense / self-assertive
Catharsis = earthing of participatory emotions.
'Seeing the Joke' and 'Solving the Problem'
“The dual manifestations of emotions at the moment of discovery is reflected on a minor and trivial scale in our reactions to a clever joke.”
Examples of things that are witty and funny: mathematical games, brain-twisters, logical paradoxes.
“To distinguish between these cases would be a splitting of hairs, for the basic process is the same: the tension has been dissociated from its original purpose and must find some other outlet.”
The Creation of Humor
“Humor depends primarily on its surprise effect: the bisociative shock.”
To do this the humorist must have the ability to break away from the stereotyped routines of thought. “He must provide mental jolts, caused by the collision of incompatible matrices.” The solution is arrived at by a kind of ‘thinking aside’, a shift of attention to some feature of the situation, or an aspect of the problem, which was previously ignored.
The humorist may stumble on it by chance or may be guided by some intuition which he can’t define.
Paradox and Synthesis
The humorist doesn’t have the same emotions or stress as the audience does.
The humorist might experience surprise at the moment when the idea hits him. But it is a different kind of shock than that of the audience. These are the self-administered shock and the shock imposed from the outside.
“The less suggestive and the more implicit the joke, the more will the consumer’s reactions approximate the producer’s – whose mental effort he is compelled to recreate.”
Creative act: humorist consisted in bringing about a commentary fusion between two incompatible matrices; the humorist deliberately chooses things to expose their hidden incongruities.
Scientific discovery: permanent fusion of matrices of thought previously believed to be incompatible.
Part 2: The Sage
“Discovery often means simply the uncovering of something which has always been there but was hidden from the eye by the blinkers of habit.”
“The history of science has its Pantheon of celebrated revolutionaries – and its catacombs, where the unsuccessful rebels lie, anonymous and forgotten.”
“The history of science has its Pantheon of celebrated revolutionaries – and its catacombs, where the unsuccessful rebels lie, anonymous and forgotten.”
Chapter 5
Moments of Truth
The Chimpanzee and the Stick
Nueva (a chimpanzee) was in a cage and was given a stick. After a while she was given a banana but was put out of her reach. She finally figured out how to get to the banana by using the stick. She had no previous knowledge of this.
Matrix 1: subsidiary awareness; playful habit of pushing or pulling things with a stick.
Matrix 2: focal awareness; reaching the banana.
“The moment occurred when Nueva’s glance fell on the stick while her attention was set on the banana.”
Discovery that a playful technique provides an unexpected clue to the problems of a different field.
The Chimpanzee and the Stick
Nueva (a chimpanzee) was in a cage and was given a stick. After a while she was given a banana but was put out of her reach. She finally figured out how to get to the banana by using the stick. She had no previous knowledge of this.
Matrix 1: subsidiary awareness; playful habit of pushing or pulling things with a stick.
Matrix 2: focal awareness; reaching the banana.
“The moment occurred when Nueva’s glance fell on the stick while her attention was set on the banana.”
Discovery that a playful technique provides an unexpected clue to the problems of a different field.
“When two matrices have been integrated hey can’t be torn asunder.”
Archimedes
When we have a hard problem and can’t find the solution for it, our thought generally go in circles with what we know.
“The essential point is that at the critical moment both matrices M1 and M2 were simultaneously active in Archimedes’ mind – though presumably on different levels of awareness.”
“The creative stress resulting from the blocked situation had kept the problem on the agenda even while the beam of consciousness was drifting along quite another plane. (in Polanyi’s terms: subsidiary awareness and focal point),
“Now we have seen that the rules which govern the matrix of a skill function on a lower level of awareness than the actual performance itself.”
“Discovery often means simply the uncovering of something which has always been there but was hidden from the eye by the blinkers of habit.”
Chance and Ripeness
Ripeness: We have skills that have been established previously and have been frequently exercised. The more we do them and the better we are the more chance we have or making a relevant discovery.
“The statistical probability for a relevant discovery to be made is the greater the more firmly established and well-exercised each of the separate skills, or thought matrices are.”
“The more ripe a situation is for the discovery of a new synthesis, the less need there is for the helping hand of chance.”
Chance: it is what triggers the fusion between two matrices by hitting one of the many links it could have.
“Various components which will go into the new synthesis are all lying around only waiting for the trigger-action of chance, or the catalyzing action of an exceptional brain, to be assembled and welded together.” “If one opportunity is missed, another will occur.”
Logic and Intuition
Archimedes
When we have a hard problem and can’t find the solution for it, our thought generally go in circles with what we know.
“The essential point is that at the critical moment both matrices M1 and M2 were simultaneously active in Archimedes’ mind – though presumably on different levels of awareness.”
“The creative stress resulting from the blocked situation had kept the problem on the agenda even while the beam of consciousness was drifting along quite another plane. (in Polanyi’s terms: subsidiary awareness and focal point),
“Now we have seen that the rules which govern the matrix of a skill function on a lower level of awareness than the actual performance itself.”
“Discovery often means simply the uncovering of something which has always been there but was hidden from the eye by the blinkers of habit.”
Chance and Ripeness
Ripeness: We have skills that have been established previously and have been frequently exercised. The more we do them and the better we are the more chance we have or making a relevant discovery.
“The statistical probability for a relevant discovery to be made is the greater the more firmly established and well-exercised each of the separate skills, or thought matrices are.”
“The more ripe a situation is for the discovery of a new synthesis, the less need there is for the helping hand of chance.”
Chance: it is what triggers the fusion between two matrices by hitting one of the many links it could have.
“Various components which will go into the new synthesis are all lying around only waiting for the trigger-action of chance, or the catalyzing action of an exceptional brain, to be assembled and welded together.” “If one opportunity is missed, another will occur.”
Logic and Intuition
Chapter 6
Three Illustrations
Three examples of bisociative pattern of creative synthesis; the sudden interlocking of two previously unrelated skills or matrices of thought:
1. The Printing Press
Matrix skill no.1: printing from wooden blocks by means of rubbing (seal)
Matrix skill no.2: winepress
Seal + winepress = printing with movable types.
2. Gavity and the Holy Ghost Before people only saw astronomy with geometry; Kepler marries astrology and physics.
“The greater of the philosophers of the scientific revolution consisted not so much in finding the right answers, but in asking the right questions; in seeing a problems where nobody saw one before; in substituting a ‘why’ with a ‘how’.”
“Kepler’s determination of the orbit of mars became the unifying link between the two formerly separate realms of physics and astronomy. His was the first serious attempt of explaining the mechanism of the solar system in terms of physical forces; and once the example was set, physics and cosmology could never again be divorced.”
3. Darwin and Natural Selection
Darwin’s greatness:
“Picking up the disjointed threads, plaiting them into a braid, and the weaving an enormous carpet around it.”
The bisiociative process in Darwin’s case was triggered by reading Malthus.
Matrices:
Three examples of bisociative pattern of creative synthesis; the sudden interlocking of two previously unrelated skills or matrices of thought:
- Invention of printing with movable types; Guttenberg
- Kepler in astronomy and physics
- Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection
1. The Printing Press
Matrix skill no.1: printing from wooden blocks by means of rubbing (seal)
Matrix skill no.2: winepress
Seal + winepress = printing with movable types.
2. Gavity and the Holy Ghost Before people only saw astronomy with geometry; Kepler marries astrology and physics.
“The greater of the philosophers of the scientific revolution consisted not so much in finding the right answers, but in asking the right questions; in seeing a problems where nobody saw one before; in substituting a ‘why’ with a ‘how’.”
“Kepler’s determination of the orbit of mars became the unifying link between the two formerly separate realms of physics and astronomy. His was the first serious attempt of explaining the mechanism of the solar system in terms of physical forces; and once the example was set, physics and cosmology could never again be divorced.”
3. Darwin and Natural Selection
Darwin’s greatness:
“Picking up the disjointed threads, plaiting them into a braid, and the weaving an enormous carpet around it.”
The bisiociative process in Darwin’s case was triggered by reading Malthus.
Matrices:
- Theories of evolution before him (Erasmus Darwin, Lamarck)
- Domestic breeding (improvement of domestic breeds achieved by the selective mating of favorable variation)
- Malthus’ essay, survival of the fittest
Chapter 7
Thinking Aside
Limits of Logic
Sometimes you look for things and you don’t find them, and when you stop looking for them you find them; in other words, when you are ripe.
Paradox: “A branch of knowledge which operates predominantly with abstract symbols, whose entire rationale and credo are objectivity, verifiability, logicality, turns out to be dependent on mental processes which re subjective, irrational, and verifiable only after the event.”
The Unconscious Before FreudPeople thought that the unconscious mind was an invention.
Cartesian catastrophe: separated mind and matter and identifies mind with conscious thinking.
“Nothing can be in the mind which is not aware.” The mind was thought to be aware of everything.
Cudworth: “ It is certain, that our human souls themselves are not always conscious of whatever they have in them; for even the sleeping geometrician hath, at that time, all his geometrical theorems some way in him; also the sleeping musician , all his musical skills and songs.” We have ideas without perception of them.
Fechner’s metaphor of the mind as an iceberg: “only a fraction of it is above the surface of consciousness, moved by the winds of unawareness, but mostly by underwater currents.” Similar to Polanyi’s Iceberg description.
Windt: “Our mind is so fortunately equipped, that it brings us the most important bases for our thought without our having the least knowledge of this work of elaboration. Only the result of it becomes conscious. The unconscious mind is for is like an unknown being who creates and produces for us, and finally throws the ripe fruits in our lap.”
The Mechanization of Habits
“Conscious and unconscious experiences do not belong to different compartments of the mind; they form a continuous scale of gradations of degrees of awareness.”
Awareness: experience which decreases and fades away with our increasing mastery of a skill exercised under monotonous conditions.
The more mastery and ease we gain in the exercise, the more automatizes it will tend to become, because the code of rules which controls it now operates below the threshold of awareness.”
In the lower levels: the things we are less aware of. At the very top: utter concentration.
Principle of Parsimony: handing down of the controls to lower levels in the hierarchy of nervous functions, enabling higher levels to turn to more challenging tasks.
Exploring the Shallows
Boat analogy:
“Thinking is never a sharp, neat linear process; it could rather be compared to the progress of a boat on a lake. When you day dream you drift before the wind; when you read or listen to a narrative you travel like a barge towed by a tug. But in each case the progress of the boat causes ripples on the lake, spreading in all directions – memories, images, associations; some of these move quicker than the boat itself and create anticipations, others penetrate into the deep. The boat symbolizes focal awareness, the ripples on the surface are the fringes of consciousness, and you can furnish the deeps with the nasty eddies of repressed complexes, the deep-water currents of the collective unconscious.”
The region between the focal awareness and the vast unconscious regions of the mind, is what Polanyi calls subsidiary awareness.
In order to see things or to have thoughts in one direction or another, there is a code of rules that helps us associate things. It is an automatic control that varies depending on what we are thinking of or what we are looking for.
Sometimes this search is combined with past experiences. In other times, the whole process is inside our minds and we ignore the world outside; the codes here are like the codes that control the matrices.
We have things in our uncounscious (or preconscious) that we summon when our focal awareness lights them or calls them. “All of them were unconscious or pre-conscious the moment before the beam of focal awareness alighted on them.” This beam is guided by codes.
Steps of purposive thinking:
When the task is of more complex order, these steps might run into difficulty. Because the codes of rules that have worked for us in the past prove inadequate with similar things. We get a blocked matrix.
“When a situation is blocked, straight thinking must be superseded by ‘thinking aside’ – the search for a new, auxiliary matrix which will unblock it, without having ever before been called to perform such a task. The essence of discovery is to hit upon such a matrix.”
The 'Hooked Atoms of Thought'
Henry Poincaré: he says that our unconscious makes combinations of things.
Limits of Logic
Sometimes you look for things and you don’t find them, and when you stop looking for them you find them; in other words, when you are ripe.
Paradox: “A branch of knowledge which operates predominantly with abstract symbols, whose entire rationale and credo are objectivity, verifiability, logicality, turns out to be dependent on mental processes which re subjective, irrational, and verifiable only after the event.”
The Unconscious Before FreudPeople thought that the unconscious mind was an invention.
Cartesian catastrophe: separated mind and matter and identifies mind with conscious thinking.
“Nothing can be in the mind which is not aware.” The mind was thought to be aware of everything.
Cudworth: “ It is certain, that our human souls themselves are not always conscious of whatever they have in them; for even the sleeping geometrician hath, at that time, all his geometrical theorems some way in him; also the sleeping musician , all his musical skills and songs.” We have ideas without perception of them.
Fechner’s metaphor of the mind as an iceberg: “only a fraction of it is above the surface of consciousness, moved by the winds of unawareness, but mostly by underwater currents.” Similar to Polanyi’s Iceberg description.
Windt: “Our mind is so fortunately equipped, that it brings us the most important bases for our thought without our having the least knowledge of this work of elaboration. Only the result of it becomes conscious. The unconscious mind is for is like an unknown being who creates and produces for us, and finally throws the ripe fruits in our lap.”
The Mechanization of Habits
“Conscious and unconscious experiences do not belong to different compartments of the mind; they form a continuous scale of gradations of degrees of awareness.”
Awareness: experience which decreases and fades away with our increasing mastery of a skill exercised under monotonous conditions.
The more mastery and ease we gain in the exercise, the more automatizes it will tend to become, because the code of rules which controls it now operates below the threshold of awareness.”
In the lower levels: the things we are less aware of. At the very top: utter concentration.
Principle of Parsimony: handing down of the controls to lower levels in the hierarchy of nervous functions, enabling higher levels to turn to more challenging tasks.
Exploring the Shallows
Boat analogy:
“Thinking is never a sharp, neat linear process; it could rather be compared to the progress of a boat on a lake. When you day dream you drift before the wind; when you read or listen to a narrative you travel like a barge towed by a tug. But in each case the progress of the boat causes ripples on the lake, spreading in all directions – memories, images, associations; some of these move quicker than the boat itself and create anticipations, others penetrate into the deep. The boat symbolizes focal awareness, the ripples on the surface are the fringes of consciousness, and you can furnish the deeps with the nasty eddies of repressed complexes, the deep-water currents of the collective unconscious.”
The region between the focal awareness and the vast unconscious regions of the mind, is what Polanyi calls subsidiary awareness.
In order to see things or to have thoughts in one direction or another, there is a code of rules that helps us associate things. It is an automatic control that varies depending on what we are thinking of or what we are looking for.
Sometimes this search is combined with past experiences. In other times, the whole process is inside our minds and we ignore the world outside; the codes here are like the codes that control the matrices.
We have things in our uncounscious (or preconscious) that we summon when our focal awareness lights them or calls them. “All of them were unconscious or pre-conscious the moment before the beam of focal awareness alighted on them.” This beam is guided by codes.
Steps of purposive thinking:
- The code of rules appropriate to the task is ‘tuned in’
- A matrix emerges (mental grid) providing a preliminary selection of permissible moves
- A strategy is chosen, depending on the particulars of the situation
When the task is of more complex order, these steps might run into difficulty. Because the codes of rules that have worked for us in the past prove inadequate with similar things. We get a blocked matrix.
“When a situation is blocked, straight thinking must be superseded by ‘thinking aside’ – the search for a new, auxiliary matrix which will unblock it, without having ever before been called to perform such a task. The essence of discovery is to hit upon such a matrix.”
The 'Hooked Atoms of Thought'
Henry Poincaré: he says that our unconscious makes combinations of things.
Exploring the Deeps
Unconscious production:
Colridge’s Kabla Khan; made by visual thinking and them wrote it in paper.
“Thinking in pictures dominates the manifestations of the unconscious, the artist’s vision.” But this is happening on a lower level of the mental hierarchy, a lower level of thinking, a primitive level.
But the poet alternates between two levels of mental hierarchy: pictures and words
“The creative activity of the artist involves momentary regression to earlier stages in mental evolution, bringing forms of mentation to play which otherwise manifest themselves only in the dream or dream like states.”
The Word an the Vision
Suggestive answer of how scientists could derive from the intervention of unconscious processes (rules): “The temporary relinquishing of conscious controls liberates the routines of the mind from certain constraints which are necessary to maintain the disciplined routines of thought but may become an impediment to the creative leap; at the same tyme other types of ideation on more primitive levels of mental organization are brought into activity.” (visuals)
Kekulé’s and Faradays creation with their eyes; visions.
Einstein’s reliance on visual imagery: investigations leading that mathematicians achieved their work by pictures or kinetic, the verbal thinking only comes after.
“Most of us were brought up in the belief that ‘thinking’ is synonymous with verbal thinking.”
The Snares of Language
The scientist’s trouble with language:
“He suffers not from the poverty of his verbal tools but rather from their over-precision, the hidden snares.”
Words are essential for formulating and communicating thoughts, but at the same time are restricted and are traps.
Unconscious production:
Colridge’s Kabla Khan; made by visual thinking and them wrote it in paper.
“Thinking in pictures dominates the manifestations of the unconscious, the artist’s vision.” But this is happening on a lower level of the mental hierarchy, a lower level of thinking, a primitive level.
But the poet alternates between two levels of mental hierarchy: pictures and words
“The creative activity of the artist involves momentary regression to earlier stages in mental evolution, bringing forms of mentation to play which otherwise manifest themselves only in the dream or dream like states.”
The Word an the Vision
Suggestive answer of how scientists could derive from the intervention of unconscious processes (rules): “The temporary relinquishing of conscious controls liberates the routines of the mind from certain constraints which are necessary to maintain the disciplined routines of thought but may become an impediment to the creative leap; at the same tyme other types of ideation on more primitive levels of mental organization are brought into activity.” (visuals)
Kekulé’s and Faradays creation with their eyes; visions.
Einstein’s reliance on visual imagery: investigations leading that mathematicians achieved their work by pictures or kinetic, the verbal thinking only comes after.
“Most of us were brought up in the belief that ‘thinking’ is synonymous with verbal thinking.”
The Snares of Language
The scientist’s trouble with language:
“He suffers not from the poverty of his verbal tools but rather from their over-precision, the hidden snares.”
Words are essential for formulating and communicating thoughts, but at the same time are restricted and are traps.
Chapter 8
Underground Games
The Importance of Dreaming
Recapitulating:
“Ordered, disciplined thought is a skill governed by set rules of the game, some of which are explicitly stated, others implied and hidden in the code.”
“The creative act, sin so far as it depends on unconscious resources, presupposes a relaxing of the controls and a regression to modes or ideation which are indifferent to the rules of verbal logic, unperturbed by contradiction, untouched by the dogmas and taboos of so called common sense.”
“At the decisive stage of discovery the codes of disciplined reasoning are suspended.”
While dreaming we are constantly bisociating but in a passive way. We join matrices that we wouldn’t even think of joining while awake. “It makes use of ‘links’ which, while awake we ‘would not dream’ of using – except where dream-logic intrudes into humor, discovery, and art.”
All of the bisociative patterns are found in a dream (pun, displacement, analogies, impersonation, etc.)
A dream, different from other abnormal states, is part of our daily life.
Difference between dreams and other delusionary states:
“Dreaming, seems to be an essential part of our psychic metabolism.”
Concretization and Symbolization
Optical pun: connecting a single visual form with two different functional contexts
Punning for Profit
Ties between sound and meaning. Meanings linked together by one sound.
“In sciences concerned with language and meaning, the relations between sense and sound play an important part.”
The Benefits of Impersonation
In dreams: no boundaries of the self.
Displacement
As displacement in humor (shifting attention to a seemingly irrelevant aspect of a phenomenon, previously ignored or taken for granted) it also takes places in art and discovery.
“In discovery, it makes a familiar thing or idea appear under a new angle, in an unexpected light.”
In dreams the shift of emphasis (changing from one frame to another) is normal.
Pendulum example:
Once we have certain frames and matrices in our minds, it is hard to get away from their context and to shift their emphasis.
Standing On One's HeadDisplacement is the shift of emphasis accompanied by a kind of ‘reversal of logic’.
The unconscious has a tendency to unify opposites. Freud says that what the person didn’t want to do is exactly what he wanted to do.
“It seems indeed that the tendency to stand things, from time to time, on their head has its deep unconscious roots.”
Mental head-stand: turning mistakes into an area of study.
Analogy and Intuition
“Some writers identify the creative act in its entirety with the unearthing of hidden analogies.”
In most acts of discovery the seeing is imagining done with the mind.
Similarity: a relation established in the mind by a process of selective emphasis on those features which overlap in a certain respect.
“Solving a problem means bridging a gap; and for routine problems there usually exist matrices – various types of prefabricated bridges – which will do the job; though it may require a certain amount of sweat to adjust them to the terrain.”
Discovery by analogy = finding similarities with past situations.
But this can be misleading, because no single situations are the same.
Example of hidden analogies:
The Importance of Dreaming
Recapitulating:
“Ordered, disciplined thought is a skill governed by set rules of the game, some of which are explicitly stated, others implied and hidden in the code.”
“The creative act, sin so far as it depends on unconscious resources, presupposes a relaxing of the controls and a regression to modes or ideation which are indifferent to the rules of verbal logic, unperturbed by contradiction, untouched by the dogmas and taboos of so called common sense.”
“At the decisive stage of discovery the codes of disciplined reasoning are suspended.”
While dreaming we are constantly bisociating but in a passive way. We join matrices that we wouldn’t even think of joining while awake. “It makes use of ‘links’ which, while awake we ‘would not dream’ of using – except where dream-logic intrudes into humor, discovery, and art.”
All of the bisociative patterns are found in a dream (pun, displacement, analogies, impersonation, etc.)
A dream, different from other abnormal states, is part of our daily life.
Difference between dreams and other delusionary states:
- It is transitory
- It is easily interrupted
- It is confine to the inner landscape, by shutting of senses
- It is aware of the fantasies created but doesn’t know when it is creating them
“Dreaming, seems to be an essential part of our psychic metabolism.”
Concretization and Symbolization
Optical pun: connecting a single visual form with two different functional contexts
Punning for Profit
Ties between sound and meaning. Meanings linked together by one sound.
“In sciences concerned with language and meaning, the relations between sense and sound play an important part.”
The Benefits of Impersonation
In dreams: no boundaries of the self.
- You can change characters
- Interchange people
- Be more than one person at a time
Displacement
As displacement in humor (shifting attention to a seemingly irrelevant aspect of a phenomenon, previously ignored or taken for granted) it also takes places in art and discovery.
“In discovery, it makes a familiar thing or idea appear under a new angle, in an unexpected light.”
In dreams the shift of emphasis (changing from one frame to another) is normal.
Pendulum example:
Once we have certain frames and matrices in our minds, it is hard to get away from their context and to shift their emphasis.
Standing On One's HeadDisplacement is the shift of emphasis accompanied by a kind of ‘reversal of logic’.
The unconscious has a tendency to unify opposites. Freud says that what the person didn’t want to do is exactly what he wanted to do.
“It seems indeed that the tendency to stand things, from time to time, on their head has its deep unconscious roots.”
Mental head-stand: turning mistakes into an area of study.
- Motor
- Photography
- Xrays
- Phonograph
- Antibiotics
Analogy and Intuition
“Some writers identify the creative act in its entirety with the unearthing of hidden analogies.”
In most acts of discovery the seeing is imagining done with the mind.
Similarity: a relation established in the mind by a process of selective emphasis on those features which overlap in a certain respect.
“Solving a problem means bridging a gap; and for routine problems there usually exist matrices – various types of prefabricated bridges – which will do the job; though it may require a certain amount of sweat to adjust them to the terrain.”
Discovery by analogy = finding similarities with past situations.
But this can be misleading, because no single situations are the same.
Example of hidden analogies:
- Benjamin franklin: electricity/kite
- Otto Icewi: transmission of nerve-impulses
Chapter 9
The Spark and the Flame
False Inspirations
Eureka act:
“If all goes well that single, explosive contact will lead to a lasting fusion of the two matrices – a new synthesis will emerge, a further advance in mental evolution will have been achieved. On the other hand, the inspiration may have been a mirage; or premature; or not suffieciently impressive to be believed in.”
Sometimes our intuitions and imaginations can be wrong, and we end up following something that is not worth it.
“Verifiability is a matter of degrees, and neither the artist nor the scientist who tries to break new ground, can hope ever to achieve absolute certainty.”
Premature LinkagesThe right intuition begets wrong results, faulty integrations or premature births.
Example: Pythagorean brotherhood
Believing that all things are numbers. They failed at this. It was until the 17th century that physics and mathematics were united again.
Intuitive insights and techniques are sometimes the forerunners of our more mature discoveries.
Stages (when our intuition is right):
Snow Blindness
“If we watch ourselves honestly we shall often find that we have begun to argue against a new idea even before it has been completely stated.”
Sometimes the thinker is blond to see the significance of his discovery.
Example: Copernicus had discovered that the planets might move in ellipses, but he dropped it.
“The history of human thought is full of triumphant Eureka’s; but only rarely fo we hear of the anti-climaxes, the missed opportunities, which leave no trace.”
Example:
“We must resign ourselves to the fact that snowblindness is inherent in the human condition; if it were not so, then everything we know today about the theory of numbers, or analytical geometry, would have been discovered within a few generations after Euclid.”
Gradual Integrations
Cases where we have an answer but only notice it a second, or another, time around.
Sometimes the link between matrices has to be strengthened by repetition or by other links that will precipitate the integration.
The Dawn of Language
Example of gradual integration: how children discover that all things have names, repetitive stamping in. The kids keep uniting previously unrelated matrices between sounds and things, then the kids notice or discover that everything has a name, and go on asking the name for everything until they learn them.
Summary
“New integrations arise by various processes which can be arranged in a series.”
Ranges:
False Inspirations
Eureka act:
“If all goes well that single, explosive contact will lead to a lasting fusion of the two matrices – a new synthesis will emerge, a further advance in mental evolution will have been achieved. On the other hand, the inspiration may have been a mirage; or premature; or not suffieciently impressive to be believed in.”
Sometimes our intuitions and imaginations can be wrong, and we end up following something that is not worth it.
“Verifiability is a matter of degrees, and neither the artist nor the scientist who tries to break new ground, can hope ever to achieve absolute certainty.”
Premature LinkagesThe right intuition begets wrong results, faulty integrations or premature births.
Example: Pythagorean brotherhood
Believing that all things are numbers. They failed at this. It was until the 17th century that physics and mathematics were united again.
Intuitive insights and techniques are sometimes the forerunners of our more mature discoveries.
Stages (when our intuition is right):
- Two matrices are joined together by the logic of the unconscious
- The connection of matrices is dissolved and we keep them apart for some time
- A definite merger occurs, and the matrices become mentally inseparable
Snow Blindness
“If we watch ourselves honestly we shall often find that we have begun to argue against a new idea even before it has been completely stated.”
Sometimes the thinker is blond to see the significance of his discovery.
Example: Copernicus had discovered that the planets might move in ellipses, but he dropped it.
“The history of human thought is full of triumphant Eureka’s; but only rarely fo we hear of the anti-climaxes, the missed opportunities, which leave no trace.”
Example:
- Kepler and universal gravity
- Freud and cocaine
- Galileo and comets
“We must resign ourselves to the fact that snowblindness is inherent in the human condition; if it were not so, then everything we know today about the theory of numbers, or analytical geometry, would have been discovered within a few generations after Euclid.”
Gradual Integrations
Cases where we have an answer but only notice it a second, or another, time around.
Sometimes the link between matrices has to be strengthened by repetition or by other links that will precipitate the integration.
The Dawn of Language
Example of gradual integration: how children discover that all things have names, repetitive stamping in. The kids keep uniting previously unrelated matrices between sounds and things, then the kids notice or discover that everything has a name, and go on asking the name for everything until they learn them.
Summary
“New integrations arise by various processes which can be arranged in a series.”
Ranges:
- Faulty or premature integrations, through partial blindness towards the meaning and significance of one’s own discoveries.
- Gradual blending by dint repetitive experiences, increasing the link between them.
- Sudden illumination of ‘spontaneous’ discoveries, sparked off by an unconscious intuition, or a chance observation, or a combination of both.
Chapter 10
The Evolution of Ideas
Separations and Reintegrations
Separations and Reintegrations
The last
stage of the Eureka act is the one that takes the most time – both in the life
of the individual and in the historical evolution of science.
On the individual’s side, it may take decades but in science it may go on for generations, even centuries.
“This does not mean that science does not advance; only that it advances in a jerky, unpredictable, ‘unscientific’ way.”
“’Progress’ by definition can never go wrong; evolution constantly does; and so does the evolution of ideas, including those of ‘exact science’”
“New ideas are thrown up spontaneously like mutations; the vast majority of them are useless, the equivalent of biological freaks without survival-value.”
“There is a constant struggle for survival between competing theories in every branch of the history of thought.”
“The evolution of ideas is a tale of ever-repeated differentiation, specialization and reintegration’s on a higher level; a progression from primordial unity through variety to more complex patterns of unity-in-variety.”
Twenty-six Centuries of Science
“If we could take a kind of grandstand view of the history of scientific thought we would at once be struck by its discontinuity, its abrupt changes of tempo and rhythm.”
On the individual’s side, it may take decades but in science it may go on for generations, even centuries.
“This does not mean that science does not advance; only that it advances in a jerky, unpredictable, ‘unscientific’ way.”
“’Progress’ by definition can never go wrong; evolution constantly does; and so does the evolution of ideas, including those of ‘exact science’”
“New ideas are thrown up spontaneously like mutations; the vast majority of them are useless, the equivalent of biological freaks without survival-value.”
“There is a constant struggle for survival between competing theories in every branch of the history of thought.”
“The evolution of ideas is a tale of ever-repeated differentiation, specialization and reintegration’s on a higher level; a progression from primordial unity through variety to more complex patterns of unity-in-variety.”
Twenty-six Centuries of Science
“If we could take a kind of grandstand view of the history of scientific thought we would at once be struck by its discontinuity, its abrupt changes of tempo and rhythm.”
Creative Anarchy
Science is not gradual nor continual.
Each advance has been effected by a dramatic and abrupt change:
“The breaking down of frontiers between related territories, the amalgamation of previously separate frames of reference or experimental techniques; the sudden falling into pattern of previously disjoined data.”
'Connect, Always Connect'
New synthesis in an individual:
Bisociation of two previously unconnected matrices.
On the map of history:
Confluence of two branches of science, which were developed independently and didn’t seem to have anything in common.
In an individual’s mind: this is triggered by a link.
In history: the links are the discoveries of individuals.
“All of the decisive advances in the history of scientific thought can be described in terms of mental cross-fertilization between different disciplines.”
Example: astronomy and neurophysiology.
“The integration of matrices is not a simple operation of adding together. It is a process of mutual inference and cross-fertilization, in the course of which both matrices are transformed in various ways and degrees.”
The Thinking Cap
“At the decisive turning points in the history of science, all the data in the field, unchanged in themselves may fall into a new pattern, and be given a new interpretation, a new theoretical frame.”
The collecting of facts (observation and experiment) is also crucial. This collecting of data is discriminatory, and ultimately falls on personal taste.
But as important as discovering new facts is also the way we think about them. It doesn’t mean that you have to have new data to find something new, you can also think of your old data in a new way; by changing the way we view facts that we already have we can discover new things.
Example: Copernicus, Harvey, Einstein.
“Without the hard little bits of marble which are collected ‘facts’ or ‘data’ one cannot compose a mosaic; what matters, however, are not so much the individual bits, but the successive pattern into which you arrange them, then break them up and rearrange them.”
This requires originality.
“New facts alone do not make a new theory; and new facts alone do not destroy an outlived theory. In both cases it requires creative originality to achieve the task.”
The Pathology of Thought
Just as individuals get ‘snowblind’ it can also happen in the evolution of matrices of science, and these occur on a historic scale and can last years, or generations.
“Some of the most important discoveries consisted in the elimination of psychological road-blocks in uncovering what had always been there.”
Example: the history of ideas about the universe and why we didn’t have physics until 17 century A.D. We had a mental block and couldn’t leave the Aristotelian views; we couldn’t grasp inertial momentum.
“The collective matrix of a science at a given time is determined by a kind of establishment, which includes universities, learned societies, and the editorial offices of technical journals.”
Centralizing science, The Way of Discovery, how certain people are involved in the decisions and sometimes work goes on without recognition.
“The history of science has its Pantheon of celebrated revolutionaries – and its catacombs, where the unsuccessful rebels lie, anonymous and forgotten.”
Limits of Confirmation
Controversies in science; discrepancies in thought:
But we must keep in mind:
“What we call ‘scientific evidence’ can never confirm that a theory is true; it can only confirm that it is more true than another.”
Koestler emphasizes this point in order to diminish the barrier between art and science.
“The main obstacle which prevents us from seeing that the two domains form a single continuum is the belief that the scientists, unlike the artist, is in a position to attain to ‘objective truth’ by submitting theories to experimental tests.”
Just because a theory works doesn’t prove it is true.
Example: Einstein’s relativity theory.
“The criteria of truth differs from the criteria of beauty in that the former refer to cognitive, the latter to emotive processes; but neither of them are absolute.”
Fashions in Science
“We find in the history of science many fashions, crazes and ‘schools’ as in the history of literature or interior decoration.”
Boundaries of Science
Science is not gradual nor continual.
Each advance has been effected by a dramatic and abrupt change:
“The breaking down of frontiers between related territories, the amalgamation of previously separate frames of reference or experimental techniques; the sudden falling into pattern of previously disjoined data.”
'Connect, Always Connect'
New synthesis in an individual:
Bisociation of two previously unconnected matrices.
On the map of history:
Confluence of two branches of science, which were developed independently and didn’t seem to have anything in common.
In an individual’s mind: this is triggered by a link.
In history: the links are the discoveries of individuals.
“All of the decisive advances in the history of scientific thought can be described in terms of mental cross-fertilization between different disciplines.”
Example: astronomy and neurophysiology.
“The integration of matrices is not a simple operation of adding together. It is a process of mutual inference and cross-fertilization, in the course of which both matrices are transformed in various ways and degrees.”
The Thinking Cap
“At the decisive turning points in the history of science, all the data in the field, unchanged in themselves may fall into a new pattern, and be given a new interpretation, a new theoretical frame.”
The collecting of facts (observation and experiment) is also crucial. This collecting of data is discriminatory, and ultimately falls on personal taste.
But as important as discovering new facts is also the way we think about them. It doesn’t mean that you have to have new data to find something new, you can also think of your old data in a new way; by changing the way we view facts that we already have we can discover new things.
Example: Copernicus, Harvey, Einstein.
“Without the hard little bits of marble which are collected ‘facts’ or ‘data’ one cannot compose a mosaic; what matters, however, are not so much the individual bits, but the successive pattern into which you arrange them, then break them up and rearrange them.”
This requires originality.
“New facts alone do not make a new theory; and new facts alone do not destroy an outlived theory. In both cases it requires creative originality to achieve the task.”
The Pathology of Thought
Just as individuals get ‘snowblind’ it can also happen in the evolution of matrices of science, and these occur on a historic scale and can last years, or generations.
“Some of the most important discoveries consisted in the elimination of psychological road-blocks in uncovering what had always been there.”
Example: the history of ideas about the universe and why we didn’t have physics until 17 century A.D. We had a mental block and couldn’t leave the Aristotelian views; we couldn’t grasp inertial momentum.
“The collective matrix of a science at a given time is determined by a kind of establishment, which includes universities, learned societies, and the editorial offices of technical journals.”
Centralizing science, The Way of Discovery, how certain people are involved in the decisions and sometimes work goes on without recognition.
“The history of science has its Pantheon of celebrated revolutionaries – and its catacombs, where the unsuccessful rebels lie, anonymous and forgotten.”
Limits of Confirmation
Controversies in science; discrepancies in thought:
- Sometimes these were decided because one theory has more evidence in its favor than another.
- Other times a new theory eliminates the controversy.
But we must keep in mind:
“What we call ‘scientific evidence’ can never confirm that a theory is true; it can only confirm that it is more true than another.”
Koestler emphasizes this point in order to diminish the barrier between art and science.
“The main obstacle which prevents us from seeing that the two domains form a single continuum is the belief that the scientists, unlike the artist, is in a position to attain to ‘objective truth’ by submitting theories to experimental tests.”
Just because a theory works doesn’t prove it is true.
Example: Einstein’s relativity theory.
“The criteria of truth differs from the criteria of beauty in that the former refer to cognitive, the latter to emotive processes; but neither of them are absolute.”
Fashions in Science
“We find in the history of science many fashions, crazes and ‘schools’ as in the history of literature or interior decoration.”
Boundaries of Science
Science is
not a curve, nor is it continuous.
“In reality progress is neither continuous nor cumulative in the strict sense. Of it were continuous, there would be no ‘revolutionary discoveries’, no discarding theories and sudden changes in direction.”
“Science, like poetry of architecture or painting, has its genres, ‘movements’, schools, theories which it pursues with increasing perfection until the level of saturation is reached where all is done and said – and then embarks on a new approach, based on a different type of curiosity, a different scale of values.”
“The scientist’s discoveries impose his order on chaos, as the composer or painter imposes his; an order that always refers to limited aspects of reality, and is biased by the observer’s frame of reference, which differs from period to period, as a Rembrandt nude differs from a nude by Manet.”
Summary
“The history of science shows recurrent cycles of differentiation and specialization followed by reintegrations on a higher level; from unity to variety to more generalized patterns of unity-in-variety. The process also has certain analogies with biological evolution – such as wastefulness, sudden mutations, the struggle for survival between competing theories.”
“In reality progress is neither continuous nor cumulative in the strict sense. Of it were continuous, there would be no ‘revolutionary discoveries’, no discarding theories and sudden changes in direction.”
“Science, like poetry of architecture or painting, has its genres, ‘movements’, schools, theories which it pursues with increasing perfection until the level of saturation is reached where all is done and said – and then embarks on a new approach, based on a different type of curiosity, a different scale of values.”
“The scientist’s discoveries impose his order on chaos, as the composer or painter imposes his; an order that always refers to limited aspects of reality, and is biased by the observer’s frame of reference, which differs from period to period, as a Rembrandt nude differs from a nude by Manet.”
Summary
“The history of science shows recurrent cycles of differentiation and specialization followed by reintegrations on a higher level; from unity to variety to more generalized patterns of unity-in-variety. The process also has certain analogies with biological evolution – such as wastefulness, sudden mutations, the struggle for survival between competing theories.”
Chapter 11
Science and Emotion
Three Character-Types
Traditionally:
But in modern times, the sage has three representations:
Three Character-Types
Traditionally:
- The artist: an inspired dreamer – a solitary figure, eccentric, impractical, unselfish, and quixotic.
- The jester: spurns the dreamer, refuses to be taken in by any romantical nonsense, wide-awake, quick to see his advantage and to get the better of his fellows. He is aggressive and self-asserting.
- The sage: combined qualities of the artist and jester, a sagacious dreamer, with his head in the clouds and his feet on the ground.
But in modern times, the sage has three representations:
- Benevolent magician: symbolizes self-transcending, the emotional drive in the scientist, the immersion into the mysteries of nature.
- Uninspired pedant: the stabilizing element: restraining influence on the self-asserting and a skeptical critic of the inspired dreamer.
- Mad professor: symbol of the self-assertive element in the scientists inspirations. The competitiveness, jealousy, self-righteousness.
Magic and Sublimation“The creative scientist in actual life hardly resembles any of these single wax-figures - the conquistador, the pedant or the inspired dreamer; he contains ingredients of all of them in varying proportions, melted down as it were, and recast according to a personal formula.”
The scientist is motivated by a blend of self-assertive and participatory drives, completing each other.
“The sublimation of the self-transcending emotion has transformed ‘magic’ into ‘science’; but there is no hard-and-fast boundary between the two.”
“Not only Kepler’s astronomy was derived from the belief in the Holy Trinity and the Harmony of the Spheres; most of the giants of science were similarly inspired by religious, mystical or transcendental beliefs.”
“The mystic believes in a known god, the thinker and scientist in an unknown order; it is hard to say which surpasses the other in nonrational devotion.”
Quotations by men who played a decisive part in shaping the scientific outlook of the twentieth century.
Louis Pasteur
Einstein
Bertrand Russel
“From the Pythagoreans onward, through the Renaissance to our times, the oceanic feeling, the sense of participation in the mystery of the infinite, was the principal inspiration of that winged and flat-footed creature, the scientist.”
The Boredom of Science
“The emotional reaction which follows the act of discovery is a complex one, reflecting the complexity of the emotional drive. There is a sudden explosion of tension, which has become redundant and must somehow be worked off in gestures or shouts of jubilation – an overflow-reaction continuous with laughter, but of a more individual character because derived from a more sublimated kind of emotion. Concurrent with it, there is pure intellectual delight, the peaceful catharsis of the self-transcending emotions. The first is derived from the fact that ‘I’ made a discovery – the second from the fact that a discovery has been made.”
‘Consumers point of view’:
The audience hopes that by sharing the creators vision he will gain a deeper and broader view of reality.
The scientist is not supposed to appeal emotions, and the student of science is not supposed to be guided by them.
“I must mention one specific factor which is largely responsible for turning science into a bore, and providing the humanist with an excuse for turning his back on it. It is the academic cant that a self-respecting scientist must be a bore, that the more dehydrated the style of his writing, and the more technical jargon he uses, the more respect he will command.”
But works of science can also be works of literary art.
“Art is a form of communication which aims at eliciting a re-creative echo. Education should be regarded as an art, and use the appropriate techniques of art to call forth that echo.”
“Our textbooks and methods of teaching reflect a static, pre-evolutionary concept of the world. For man cannot inherit the past; he has to re-create it.”
The scientist is motivated by a blend of self-assertive and participatory drives, completing each other.
“The sublimation of the self-transcending emotion has transformed ‘magic’ into ‘science’; but there is no hard-and-fast boundary between the two.”
“Not only Kepler’s astronomy was derived from the belief in the Holy Trinity and the Harmony of the Spheres; most of the giants of science were similarly inspired by religious, mystical or transcendental beliefs.”
“The mystic believes in a known god, the thinker and scientist in an unknown order; it is hard to say which surpasses the other in nonrational devotion.”
Quotations by men who played a decisive part in shaping the scientific outlook of the twentieth century.
Louis Pasteur
Einstein
Bertrand Russel
“From the Pythagoreans onward, through the Renaissance to our times, the oceanic feeling, the sense of participation in the mystery of the infinite, was the principal inspiration of that winged and flat-footed creature, the scientist.”
The Boredom of Science
“The emotional reaction which follows the act of discovery is a complex one, reflecting the complexity of the emotional drive. There is a sudden explosion of tension, which has become redundant and must somehow be worked off in gestures or shouts of jubilation – an overflow-reaction continuous with laughter, but of a more individual character because derived from a more sublimated kind of emotion. Concurrent with it, there is pure intellectual delight, the peaceful catharsis of the self-transcending emotions. The first is derived from the fact that ‘I’ made a discovery – the second from the fact that a discovery has been made.”
‘Consumers point of view’:
The audience hopes that by sharing the creators vision he will gain a deeper and broader view of reality.
The scientist is not supposed to appeal emotions, and the student of science is not supposed to be guided by them.
“I must mention one specific factor which is largely responsible for turning science into a bore, and providing the humanist with an excuse for turning his back on it. It is the academic cant that a self-respecting scientist must be a bore, that the more dehydrated the style of his writing, and the more technical jargon he uses, the more respect he will command.”
But works of science can also be works of literary art.
“Art is a form of communication which aims at eliciting a re-creative echo. Education should be regarded as an art, and use the appropriate techniques of art to call forth that echo.”
“Our textbooks and methods of teaching reflect a static, pre-evolutionary concept of the world. For man cannot inherit the past; he has to re-create it.”