The Brain and Creativity

[Orlando Leibovitz]

The July 28 2008 issue of the New Yorker contains an article titled The Eureka Hunt: Why Do Good Ideas Come To Us When They Do. See http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/28/080728fa_fact_lehrer  for an abstract.

Although the article talks about human insight I think it touches on human creativity. I am interested in anyone's description (definition) of creativity and a comparison of creativity in art and science. I would also appreciate any thoughts about the  creative differences and/or similarities that may exist in different cultures.

My own feeling is that creativity, for example, in visual art and in theoretical physics contains the same attributes. Einstein was as much an artist as a physicist. I realize theoretical physics must deal with the "real world" but the process of original discovery seems the same to me.

O

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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[Jochen Fromm-4]

Yes, maybe creativity is the point where art, science and engineering meet
each other. To create a new piece of art, to find a new theory, and to find
a
new way to construct something is similar: it is difficult, it requires
experience
and sometimes luck, and it is often considered as a mysterious process
how people come up with new ideas and new things.

-J.

----- Original Message -----
From: Orlando Leibovitz
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Sent: Monday, July 28, 2008 5:03 AM
Subject: [FRIAM] The Brain and Creativity

My own feeling is that creativity, for example, in visual art and in
theoretical physics contains the same attributes. Einstein was as much an
artist as a physicist. I realize theoretical physics must deal with the
"real world" but the process of original discovery seems the same to me.



============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Phil Henshaw-2]

The study of individual events is of the accumulative creative processes of development.     I’m not sure what makes us think creativity happens in a ‘flash’ without preceding and following long chains of accumulative development, but it’s an illusion that it happens bye itself.    Maybe the appearance that the flash of insight or creativity happens ‘out of the blue’ comes from how exploratory processes follow a path that then telegraph where they’re headed once they take off, and then getting there is experienced as a sudden confirmation, having the whole path culminate in an instant, or something like that.   

 

There are moments where the excitement level rises sharply, for sure, but invariably that is based on a rather long accumulation of digression and digestion, to then also invariably be followed by a rather long accumulative process of completion and connection.    There’s no reason the middle point should get the credit in my book.    The “ah ha” instant is only a little pleasant flashing thing in the middle of long and complex history of groping around and asking the unanswered questions.    Without those fore and aft parts of the exploratory process there’d be nothing to “break through” and produce the “flash” as far as I  can tell.    

 

As to the creative content that you see displayed in the culmination of works of genius, how a scientist’s questions or a painter’s every brush stroke vibrate with their whole way of seeing the world, you got me.  I don’t know how that works.

 

Phil

 

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Orlando Leibovitz
Sent: Sunday, July 27, 2008 11:04 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: [FRIAM] The Brain and Creativity

 

The July 28 2008 issue of the New Yorker contains an article titled The Eureka Hunt: Why Do Good Ideas Come To Us When They Do. See http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/28/080728fa_fact_lehrer  for an abstract.

Although the article talks about human insight I think it touches on human creativity. I am interested in anyone's description (definition) of creativity and a comparison of creativity in art and science. I would also appreciate any thoughts about the  creative differences and/or similarities that may exist in different cultures.

My own feeling is that creativity, for example, in visual art and in theoretical physics contains the same attributes. Einstein was as much an artist as a physicist. I realize theoretical physics must deal with the "real world" but the process of original discovery seems the same to me.

O

--

Orlando Leibovitz

[hidden email]

www.orlandoleibovitz.com

Studio Telephone: [phone]

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Phil Henshaw-2]

On reading Lehrer’s article I’m impressed how far the neuroscience is getting, as well as pleased that the direct imaging of the physical process of ‘sudden insight’ seems to correspond so closely to what I described based on the necessities of developmental processes in general.    That all reports seem to agree, as Lehrer described Jung-Beeman’s observations, that the ‘trick’ to sudden insight seems to be to thoroughly explore a question and come to a real impasse in thinking first, reducing your question to a complete unknown, and then defocus your attention and let the parts of the brain that are more widely connected go to work on their own.  

 

The particular observation that a few seconds before the ‘ah ha’ moment there is a sharp increase in ‘gamma rhythm’, thought to indicate the ‘binding’ of neurons into a new network, and associated with a particular location…  perfectly describes the emergence by developmental growth of a new complex system observable in the animated buzz of local neural activity required to create a MRI blood flow hot spot.     Then… on making the missing cognitive connection across the impasse resolved, our mind says “Oh sure,…. that should have been obvious all along”.      What’s so odd is that we should so depreciate the value of the major preceding effort and value of reducing the problem to an impasse in the first place, though.   That’s what seems to me to precisely locate where we then needed to switch to freely searching the universe of our experience in order to make the missing connections… and a perfectly good reason once resolved to suddenly make a huge amount of sense and give unusual immediate satisfaction.

 

No if we could only do that with the glaring contradictions of the world around us…

 

Phil

 

 

 

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Phil Henshaw
Sent: Monday, July 28, 2008 8:24 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Brain and Creativity

 

The study of individual events is of the accumulative creative processes of development.     I’m not sure what makes us think creativity happens in a ‘flash’ without preceding and following long chains of accumulative development, but it’s an illusion that it happens bye itself.    Maybe the appearance that the flash of insight or creativity happens ‘out of the blue’ comes from how exploratory processes follow a path that then telegraph where they’re headed once they take off, and then getting there is experienced as a sudden confirmation, having the whole path culminate in an instant, or something like that.   

 

There are moments where the excitement level rises sharply, for sure, but invariably that is based on a rather long accumulation of digression and digestion, to then also invariably be followed by a rather long accumulative process of completion and connection.    There’s no reason the middle point should get the credit in my book.    The “ah ha” instant is only a little pleasant flashing thing in the middle of long and complex history of groping around and asking the unanswered questions.    Without those fore and aft parts of the exploratory process there’d be nothing to “break through” and produce the “flash” as far as I  can tell.    

 

As to the creative content that you see displayed in the culmination of works of genius, how a scientist’s questions or a painter’s every brush stroke vibrate with their whole way of seeing the world, you got me.  I don’t know how that works.

 

Phil

 

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Orlando Leibovitz
Sent: Sunday, July 27, 2008 11:04 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: [FRIAM] The Brain and Creativity

 

The July 28 2008 issue of the New Yorker contains an article titled The Eureka Hunt: Why Do Good Ideas Come To Us When They Do. See http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/28/080728fa_fact_lehrer  for an abstract.

Although the article talks about human insight I think it touches on human creativity. I am interested in anyone's description (definition) of creativity and a comparison of creativity in art and science. I would also appreciate any thoughts about the  creative differences and/or similarities that may exist in different cultures.

My own feeling is that creativity, for example, in visual art and in theoretical physics contains the same attributes. Einstein was as much an artist as a physicist. I realize theoretical physics must deal with the "real world" but the process of original discovery seems the same to me.

O

--

Orlando Leibovitz

[hidden email]

www.orlandoleibovitz.com

Studio Telephone: [phone]

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Orlando Leibovitz]

Orlando here,

I agree with the conclusions of the article and with your analysis. We all (most of us) have sudden insight from time to time. What I want to know is where the really original, genius type insight comes from. What is it that allows Newton or Einstein or Picasso to see something essential that no one has seen or understood before?

O

Phil Henshaw wrote:

On reading Lehrer’s article I’m impressed how far the neuroscience is getting, as well as pleased that the direct imaging of the physical process of ‘sudden insight’ seems to correspond so closely to what I described based on the necessities of developmental processes in general.    That all reports seem to agree, as Lehrer described Jung-Beeman’s observations, that the ‘trick’ to sudden insight seems to be to thoroughly explore a question and come to a real impasse in thinking first, reducing your question to a complete unknown, and then defocus your attention and let the parts of the brain that are more widely connected go to work on their own.  

 

The particular observation that a few seconds before the ‘ah ha’ moment there is a sharp increase in ‘gamma rhythm’, thought to indicate the ‘binding’ of neurons into a new network, and associated with a particular location…  perfectly describes the emergence by developmental growth of a new complex system observable in the animated buzz of local neural activity required to create a MRI blood flow hot spot.     Then… on making the missing cognitive connection across the impasse resolved, our mind says “Oh sure,…. that should have been obvious all along”.      What’s so odd is that we should so depreciate the value of the major preceding effort and value of reducing the problem to an impasse in the first place, though.   That’s what seems to me to precisely locate where we then needed to switch to freely searching the universe of our experience in order to make the missing connections… and a perfectly good reason once resolved to suddenly make a huge amount of sense and give unusual immediate satisfaction.

 

No if we could only do that with the glaring contradictions of the world around us…

 

Phil

 

 

 

From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Phil Henshaw
Sent: Monday, July 28, 2008 8:24 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Brain and Creativity

 

The study of individual events is of the accumulative creative processes of development.     I’m not sure what makes us think creativity happens in a ‘flash’ without preceding and following long chains of accumulative development, but it’s an illusion that it happens bye itself.    Maybe the appearance that the flash of insight or creativity happens ‘out of the blue’ comes from how exploratory processes follow a path that then telegraph where they’re headed once they take off, and then getting there is experienced as a sudden confirmation, having the whole path culminate in an instant, or something like that.   

 

There are moments where the excitement level rises sharply, for sure, but invariably that is based on a rather long accumulation of digression and digestion, to then also invariably be followed by a rather long accumulative process of completion and connection.    There’s no reason the middle point should get the credit in my book.    The “ah ha” instant is only a little pleasant flashing thing in the middle of long and complex history of groping around and asking the unanswered questions.    Without those fore and aft parts of the exploratory process there’d be nothing to “break through” and produce the “flash” as far as I  can tell.    

 

As to the creative content that you see displayed in the culmination of works of genius, how a scientist’s questions or a painter’s every brush stroke vibrate with their whole way of seeing the world, you got me.  I don’t know how that works.

 

Phil

 

From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Orlando Leibovitz
Sent: Sunday, July 27, 2008 11:04 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: [FRIAM] The Brain and Creativity

 

The July 28 2008 issue of the New Yorker contains an article titled The Eureka Hunt: Why Do Good Ideas Come To Us When They Do. See http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/28/080728fa_fact_lehrer  for an abstract.

Although the article talks about human insight I think it touches on human creativity. I am interested in anyone's description (definition) of creativity and a comparison of creativity in art and science. I would also appreciate any thoughts about the  creative differences and/or similarities that may exist in different cultures.

My own feeling is that creativity, for example, in visual art and in theoretical physics contains the same attributes. Einstein was as much an artist as a physicist. I realize theoretical physics must deal with the "real world" but the process of original discovery seems the same to me.

O

--

Orlando Leibovitz

[hidden email]

www.orlandoleibovitz.com

Studio Telephone: [phone]

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Carl Tollander]

Well, for Newton, to write about optics, legend has it that he stuck
knitting needles around his eyeball to see what would happen. Then there
was the alchemy and the staring at the sun thing and drinking mercury
for its tonic effects. Einstein was a clerk in a patent office.

I guess you get what you pay for.

C.

Orlando Leibovitz wrote:

> Orlando here,
>
> I agree with the conclusions of the article and with your analysis. We
> all (most of us) have sudden insight from time to time. What I want to
> know is where the really original, genius type insight comes from.
> What is it that allows Newton or Einstein or Picasso to see something
> essential that no one has seen or understood before?
>
> O
>
> Phil Henshaw wrote:
>>
>> On reading Lehrer’s article I’m impressed how far the neuroscience is
>> getting, as well as pleased that the direct imaging of the physical
>> process of ‘sudden insight’ seems to correspond so closely to what I
>> described based on the necessities of developmental processes in
>> general. That all reports seem to agree, as Lehrer described
>> Jung-Beeman’s observations, that the ‘trick’ to sudden insight seems
>> to be to thoroughly explore a question and come to a real impasse in
>> thinking first, reducing your question to a complete unknown, and
>> then defocus your attention and let the parts of the brain that are
>> more widely connected go to work on their own.
>>
>> The particular observation that a few seconds before the ‘ah ha’
>> moment there is a sharp increase in ‘gamma rhythm’, thought to
>> indicate the ‘binding’ of neurons into a new network, and associated
>> with a particular location… perfectly describes the emergence by
>> developmental growth of a new complex system observable in the
>> animated buzz of local neural activity required to create a MRI blood
>> flow hot spot. Then… on making the missing cognitive connection
>> across the impasse resolved, our mind says “Oh sure,…. that should
>> have been obvious all along”. What’s so odd is that we should so
>> depreciate the value of the major preceding effort and value of
>> reducing the problem to an impasse in the first place, though. That’s
>> what seems to me to precisely locate where we then needed to switch
>> to freely searching the universe of our experience in order to make
>> the missing connections… and a perfectly good reason once resolved to
>> suddenly make a huge amount of sense and give unusual immediate
>> satisfaction.
>>
>> No if we could only do that with the glaring contradictions of the
>> world around us…
>>
>> Phil
>>
>> *From:* [hidden email] <mailto:[hidden email]>
>> [mailto:[hidden email]] *On Behalf Of *Phil Henshaw
>> *Sent:* Monday, July 28, 2008 8:24 PM
>> *To:* 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] The Brain and Creativity
>>
>> The study of individual events is of the accumulative creative
>> processes of development. I’m not sure what makes us think creativity
>> happens in a ‘flash’ without preceding and following long chains of
>> accumulative development, but it’s an illusion that it happens bye
>> itself. Maybe the appearance that the flash of insight or creativity
>> happens ‘out of the blue’ comes from how exploratory processes follow
>> a path that then telegraph where they’re headed once they take off,
>> and then getting there is experienced as a sudden confirmation,
>> having the whole path culminate in an instant, or something like that.
>>
>> There are moments where the excitement level rises sharply, for sure,
>> but invariably that is based on a rather long accumulation of
>> digression and digestion, to then also invariably be followed by a
>> rather long accumulative process of completion and connection.
>> There’s no reason the middle point should get the credit in my book.
>> The “ah ha” instant is only a little pleasant flashing thing in the
>> middle of long and complex history of groping around and asking the
>> unanswered questions. Without those fore and aft parts of the
>> exploratory process there’d be nothing to “break through” and produce
>> the “flash” as far as I can tell.
>>
>> As to the creative content that you see displayed in the culmination
>> of works of genius, how a scientist’s questions or a painter’s every
>> brush stroke vibrate with their whole way of seeing the world, you
>> got me. I don’t know how that works.
>>
>> Phil
>>
>> *From:* [hidden email] <mailto:[hidden email]>
>> [mailto:[hidden email]] *On Behalf Of *Orlando Leibovitz
>> *Sent:* Sunday, July 27, 2008 11:04 PM
>> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
>> *Subject:* [FRIAM] The Brain and Creativity
>>
>> The July 28 2008 issue of the New Yorker contains an article titled
>> The Eureka Hunt: Why Do Good Ideas Come To Us When They Do. See
>> http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/28/080728fa_fact_lehrer 
>> for an abstract.
>>
>> Although the article talks about human insight I think it touches on
>> human creativity. I am interested in anyone's description
>> (definition) of creativity and a comparison of creativity in art and
>> science. I would also appreciate any thoughts about the creative
>> differences and/or similarities that may exist in different cultures.
>>
>> My own feeling is that creativity, for example, in visual art and in
>> theoretical physics contains the same attributes. Einstein was as
>> much an artist as a physicist. I realize theoretical physics must
>> deal with the "real world" but the process of original discovery
>> seems the same to me.
>>
>> O
>>
>> --
>>
>> Orlando Leibovitz
>>
>> [hidden email] <mailto:[hidden email]>
>>
>> www.orlandoleibovitz.com <http://www.orlandoleibovitz.com>
>>
>> Studio Telephone: [phone]
>>
>>  
>> ============================================================
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>
> --
>
> Orlando Leibovitz
>
> [hidden email] <mailto:[hidden email]>
>
> www.orlandoleibovitz.com <http://www.orlandoleibovitz.com>
>
> Studio Telephone: [phone]
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Phil Henshaw-2]

It’s finding a deeper impasse… I think.     Many deep impasses are ‘hidden in sight’, and it takes an ability to stop and wonder about what everyone else is apparently skipping over to catch them, the ability to see things ‘oddly’ out of place is one way I see it.     Like, why is everyone proposing new ways to accelerate resource consumption as the way to solve the accelerating shortfalls due to resource exhaustion?     It’s a kind of an obvious question, that apparently everyone thinks someone else must have answered so it can’t be ‘important’ to ask themselves... 

 

phil

 

From: Orlando Leibovitz [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Tuesday, July 29, 2008 9:36 PM
To: [hidden email]; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Brain and Creativity 2

 

Orlando here,

I agree with the conclusions of the article and with your analysis. We all (most of us) have sudden insight from time to time. What I want to know is where the really original, genius type insight comes from. What is it that allows Newton or Einstein or Picasso to see something essential that no one has seen or understood before?

O

Phil Henshaw wrote:

On reading Lehrer’s article I’m impressed how far the neuroscience is getting, as well as pleased that the direct imaging of the physical process of ‘sudden insight’ seems to correspond so closely to what I described based on the necessities of developmental processes in general.    That all reports seem to agree, as Lehrer described Jung-Beeman’s observations, that the ‘trick’ to sudden insight seems to be to thoroughly explore a question and come to a real impasse in thinking first, reducing your question to a complete unknown, and then defocus your attention and let the parts of the brain that are more widely connected go to work on their own.  

 

The particular observation that a few seconds before the ‘ah ha’ moment there is a sharp increase in ‘gamma rhythm’, thought to indicate the ‘binding’ of neurons into a new network, and associated with a particular location…  perfectly describes the emergence by developmental growth of a new complex system observable in the animated buzz of local neural activity required to create a MRI blood flow hot spot.     Then… on making the missing cognitive connection across the impasse resolved, our mind says “Oh sure,…. that should have been obvious all along”.      What’s so odd is that we should so depreciate the value of the major preceding effort and value of reducing the problem to an impasse in the first place, though.   That’s what seems to me to precisely locate where we then needed to switch to freely searching the universe of our experience in order to make the missing connections… and a perfectly good reason once resolved to suddenly make a huge amount of sense and give unusual immediate satisfaction.

 

No if we could only do that with the glaring contradictions of the world around us…

 

Phil

 

 

 

From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Phil Henshaw
Sent: Monday, July 28, 2008 8:24 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Brain and Creativity

 

The study of individual events is of the accumulative creative processes of development.     I’m not sure what makes us think creativity happens in a ‘flash’ without preceding and following long chains of accumulative development, but it’s an illusion that it happens bye itself.    Maybe the appearance that the flash of insight or creativity happens ‘out of the blue’ comes from how exploratory processes follow a path that then telegraph where they’re headed once they take off, and then getting there is experienced as a sudden confirmation, having the whole path culminate in an instant, or something like that.   

 

There are moments where the excitement level rises sharply, for sure, but invariably that is based on a rather long accumulation of digression and digestion, to then also invariably be followed by a rather long accumulative process of completion and connection.    There’s no reason the middle point should get the credit in my book.    The “ah ha” instant is only a little pleasant flashing thing in the middle of long and complex history of groping around and asking the unanswered questions.    Without those fore and aft parts of the exploratory process there’d be nothing to “break through” and produce the “flash” as far as I  can tell.    

 

As to the creative content that you see displayed in the culmination of works of genius, how a scientist’s questions or a painter’s every brush stroke vibrate with their whole way of seeing the world, you got me.  I don’t know how that works.

 

Phil

 

From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Orlando Leibovitz
Sent: Sunday, July 27, 2008 11:04 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: [FRIAM] The Brain and Creativity

 

The July 28 2008 issue of the New Yorker contains an article titled The Eureka Hunt: Why Do Good Ideas Come To Us When They Do. See http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/28/080728fa_fact_lehrer  for an abstract.

Although the article talks about human insight I think it touches on human creativity. I am interested in anyone's description (definition) of creativity and a comparison of creativity in art and science. I would also appreciate any thoughts about the  creative differences and/or similarities that may exist in different cultures.

My own feeling is that creativity, for example, in visual art and in theoretical physics contains the same attributes. Einstein was as much an artist as a physicist. I realize theoretical physics must deal with the "real world" but the process of original discovery seems the same to me.

O

--

Orlando Leibovitz

[hidden email]

www.orlandoleibovitz.com

Studio Telephone: [phone]

============================================================

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College

lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

 

--

Orlando Leibovitz

[hidden email]

www.orlandoleibovitz.com

Studio Telephone: [phone]

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Günther Greindl]

Hi,

>   Orlando here,
> What
> is it that allows Newton or Einstein or Picasso to see something
> essential that no one has seen or understood before?

I guess the time is just ripe (viz.: enough knowledge has accumulated
and is lying around for a new synthesis) at certain moments for
intelligent guys to have insights. If it hadn't been Einstein or Newton,
then it would have been another bright person 5 years later.

The intelligence of these people in relation to other people is usually
overrated.

See this lovely post by Eli Yudkowsky on OB about Einstein, the village
idiot, and _real_ superintelligences:

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/05/my-childhood-ro.html

Cheers,
Günther


--
Günther Greindl
Department of Philosophy of Science
University of Vienna
[hidden email]

Blog: http://www.complexitystudies.org/
Thesis: http://www.complexitystudies.org/proposal/


============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Carl Tollander]

Not sure that the Cosmic Pez Dispenser of Picassos would have produced a
similar Guernica painting five years later.   Insights are historically
situated, as you say.  Any of these players, in a different milieu or
time would have different insights, but insights they would have.

This doesn't say anything about mapping propensity to insight to some
average relative "intelligence" (as if it were measurable by one scalar
or located in one place).  Even the village idiot has a good day now and
then; it's just that the crowd (or what we call "The Crowd") hasn't
engineered itself to listen.  The argument that insights will happen
anyway in effect says it doesn't have to.

C.

Günther Greindl wrote:

> Hi,
>
>>   Orlando here,
>> What
>> is it that allows Newton or Einstein or Picasso to see something
>> essential that no one has seen or understood before?
>
> I guess the time is just ripe (viz.: enough knowledge has accumulated
> and is lying around for a new synthesis) at certain moments for
> intelligent guys to have insights. If it hadn't been Einstein or Newton,
> then it would have been another bright person 5 years later.
>
> The intelligence of these people in relation to other people is usually
> overrated.
>
> See this lovely post by Eli Yudkowsky on OB about Einstein, the village
> idiot, and _real_ superintelligences:
>
> http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/05/my-childhood-ro.html
>
> Cheers,
> Günther
>
>

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Orlando Leibovitz]

Orlando here,

In addition to intelligence I think there are other personality traits involved in original insight (creativity). It seems to me one must accept the possibility of  ridicule and  be willing to be considered a fool. Pursuit of  personal expression at all cost seems  to be essential. In this regard I am quoting  Martha Graham to Agnes De Mille.  Her words, for me, touch on  artistic creativity.  Or at least partially explain what enables it. I think they apply to scientific  creativity but I'm not sure.

                                                       MARTHA GRAHAM TO AGNES DE MILLE

There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique.
And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable it is nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.
You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you.
Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive.

 It may be so that insights are "historically situated" and the "time is just ripe" and if it is not this person it will be another  but does this explain why  Einstein  perceived  E=MC2  and not  Poincare'. 

The Yudowsky post is wonderful.

O

Carl Tollander wrote:

Not sure that the Cosmic Pez Dispenser of Picassos would have produced a 
similar Guernica painting five years later.   Insights are historically 
situated, as you say.  Any of these players, in a different milieu or 
time would have different insights, but insights they would have.

This doesn't say anything about mapping propensity to insight to some 
average relative "intelligence" (as if it were measurable by one scalar 
or located in one place).  Even the village idiot has a good day now and 
then; it's just that the crowd (or what we call "The Crowd") hasn't 
engineered itself to listen.  The argument that insights will happen 
anyway in effect says it doesn't have to.

C.

Günther Greindl wrote:
  

Hi,

    

  Orlando here,
What 
is it that allows Newton or Einstein or Picasso to see something 
essential that no one has seen or understood before?
      

I guess the time is just ripe (viz.: enough knowledge has accumulated 
and is lying around for a new synthesis) at certain moments for 
intelligent guys to have insights. If it hadn't been Einstein or Newton, 
then it would have been another bright person 5 years later.

The intelligence of these people in relation to other people is usually 
overrated.

See this lovely post by Eli Yudkowsky on OB about Einstein, the village 
idiot, and _real_ superintelligences:

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/05/my-childhood-ro.html

Cheers,
Günther


    

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[Günther Greindl]

Carl,

Carl Tollander wrote:
> Cosmic Pez Dispenser

I like that picture :-))

> situated, as you say.  Any of these players, in a different milieu or
> time would have different insights, but insights they would have.

Agreed.

> engineered itself to listen.  The argument that insights will happen
> anyway in effect says it doesn't have to.

What do you mean by this? "insights happen anyway => thats why they
don't?" I think I am misunderstanding you.

Cheers,
Günther

--
Günther Greindl
Department of Philosophy of Science
University of Vienna
[hidden email]

Blog: http://www.complexitystudies.org/
Thesis: http://www.complexitystudies.org/proposal/


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[Günther Greindl]

Orlando,

Orlando Leibovitz wrote:
> essential. In this regard I am quoting  Martha Graham to Agnes De
snip
>I think they apply to scientific  
> creativity but I'm not sure.

What a wonderful quote, thanks!! And yes, I absolutey believe that good
science should be conducted in this way too.

Cheers,
Günther

--
Günther Greindl
Department of Philosophy of Science
University of Vienna
[hidden email]

Blog: http://www.complexitystudies.org/
Thesis: http://www.complexitystudies.org/proposal/


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[Ann Racuya-Robbins-2]

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf
Of Günther Greindl
Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2008 2:07 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Brain and Creativity 2

Hi,

>   Orlando here,
> What
> is it that allows Newton or Einstein or Picasso to see something
> essential that no one has seen or understood before?

I guess the time is just ripe (viz.: enough knowledge has accumulated
and is lying around for a new synthesis) at certain moments for
intelligent guys to have insights. If it hadn't been Einstein or Newton,
then it would have been another bright person 5 years later.

The intelligence of these people in relation to other people is usually
overrated.

See this lovely post by Eli Yudkowsky on OB about Einstein, the village
idiot, and _real_ superintelligences:

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/05/my-childhood-ro.html

Cheers,
Günther


--
Günther Greindl
Department of Philosophy of Science
University of Vienna
[hidden email]

Blog: http://www.complexitystudies.org/
Thesis: http://www.complexitystudies.org/proposal/


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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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[Ann Racuya-Robbins-2]

I agree that the intelligence of these people in relation to other people is
usually overrated.

I would take this a bit further...I would say that the intelligence of most
people is grossly underrated. I think the mindset that is looking for
insight in a few of us is missing the vast amount of insight available
everywhere and all the time.  I am reminded a bit of how some races were not
considered to be good athletes when they weren't allowed to compete in the
first place. Or that for white women exercise was bad for their health
because they weren't strong enough. I guess for black and brown women
working in the fields from dawn to dusk didn't have that problem. Today our
blindspots are a bit different but there none the less.

 
-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf
Of Günther Greindl
Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2008 2:07 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Brain and Creativity 2

Hi,

>   Orlando here,
> What
> is it that allows Newton or Einstein or Picasso to see something
> essential that no one has seen or understood before?

I guess the time is just ripe (viz.: enough knowledge has accumulated
and is lying around for a new synthesis) at certain moments for
intelligent guys to have insights. If it hadn't been Einstein or Newton,
then it would have been another bright person 5 years later.

The intelligence of these people in relation to other people is usually
overrated.

See this lovely post by Eli Yudkowsky on OB about Einstein, the village
idiot, and _real_ superintelligences:

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/05/my-childhood-ro.html

Cheers,
Günther


--
Günther Greindl
Department of Philosophy of Science
University of Vienna
[hidden email]

Blog: http://www.complexitystudies.org/
Thesis: http://www.complexitystudies.org/proposal/


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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org


============================================================
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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[Ann Racuya-Robbins-2]

I agree here again…the possibility of  ridicule and  being willing to be considered a fool are involved in original insight (creativity). In fact even in this friam forum I have felt a kind of ridicule (you don’t know anything about mathematics) when I am making a point or something similar…and being encouraged to shut up and raising laughter (at me not with me). I am somewhat grizzled from experience so I expect this from time to time. But why are those who do this doing it? What is gained? I think being able to use mathematical symbology on the friam  would be wonderful but not if the syntax is not pliable to speak in new ways. And yes I invent constantly in every language I am able to.

 

Think of people whose jobs and families’ well being depend on being well thought of by others. How much ridicule can they stand. Not much.

 

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Orlando Leibovitz
Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2008 10:31 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Brain and Creativity 2

 

Orlando here,

In addition to intelligence I think there are other personality traits involved in original insight (creativity). It seems to me one must accept the possibility of  ridicule and  be willing to be considered a fool. Pursuit of  personal expression at all cost seems  to be essential. In this regard I am quoting  Martha Graham to Agnes De Mille.  Her words, for me, touch on  artistic creativity.  Or at least partially explain what enables it. I think they apply to scientific  creativity but I'm not sure.

                                                       MARTHA GRAHAM TO AGNES DE MILLE

There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique.
And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable it is nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.
You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you.
Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive.

 It may be so that insights are "historically situated" and the "time is just ripe" and if it is not this person it will be another  but does this explain why  Einstein  perceived  E=MC2  and not  Poincare'. 

The Yudowsky post is wonderful.

O

Carl Tollander wrote:

Not sure that the Cosmic Pez Dispenser of Picassos would have produced a 

similar Guernica painting five years later.   Insights are historically 

situated, as you say.  Any of these players, in a different milieu or 

time would have different insights, but insights they would have.

This doesn't say anything about mapping propensity to insight to some 

average relative "intelligence" (as if it were measurable by one scalar 

or located in one place).  Even the village idiot has a good day now and 

then; it's just that the crowd (or what we call "The Crowd") hasn't 

engineered itself to listen.  The argument that insights will happen 

anyway in effect says it doesn't have to.

C.

Günther Greindl wrote:

Hi,

  Orlando here,

What 

is it that allows Newton or Einstein or Picasso to see something 

essential that no one has seen or understood before?

I guess the time is just ripe (viz.: enough knowledge has accumulated 

and is lying around for a new synthesis) at certain moments for 

intelligent guys to have insights. If it hadn't been Einstein or Newton, 

then it would have been another bright person 5 years later.

The intelligence of these people in relation to other people is usually 

overrated.

See this lovely post by Eli Yudkowsky on OB about Einstein, the village 

idiot, and _real_ superintelligences:

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/05/my-childhood-ro.html

Cheers,

Günther

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College

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--

Orlando Leibovitz

[hidden email]

www.orlandoleibovitz.com

Studio Telephone: [phone]

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[Douglas Roberts-2]

Couldn't disagree more.  Examples of why, in my opinion, the aggregate assessment of human intelligence is highly inflated:

1. Bush.  Elected.  Twice. (Florida vote count issue notwithstanding).
2. Americans continuing to buy fuel hogging cars even after the warning supplied by the mid-70's oil crises, which gave clear indication of the impending global oil supply/demand tip-over point which we are now seeing.  The ensuing 30 years between then and now could have intelligently been spent planning to prevent today's current oil market "crises".
   
3. General Motors, Ford: Instead of planning for the inevitable evolution of the petroleum-based market pricing realities, they continued along their stupid short-sighted plan of producing the fuel hogs that their stupid customers craved, instead of planning ahead for today's market, in which GM lost more than $15 billion this year.  Ford was right behind, losing $9 billion. There is now serious talk of GM facing bankruptcy as a direct result of their less-than-intelligent management leadership.
   
4. The Democratic party.
5. The Republican party.
6. Congress.
   
7. White supremacists.
8. Jerry Fallwell.
9. Jerry Fallwell's followers.
   
10. Fundamentalists (Christian, Muslim, Mormon: doesn't matter)

I could go on, but it would be stupid to do so...

--
Doug Roberts, RTI International
[hidden email]
[hidden email]
505-455-7333 - Office
505-670-8195 - Cell

On Fri, Aug 1, 2008 at 11:49 AM, Ann Racuya-Robbins <[hidden email]> wrote:

II would say that the intelligence of most
people is grossly underrated.

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[Marcus G. Daniels]

> I think being able to use mathematical symbology on the friam would be
> wonderful but not if the syntax is not pliable to speak in new ways.
“One man’s rigor is another man’s mortis”
Bohren, Craig F. and B. A. Albrecht (1998). Atmospheric Thermodynamics.


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[Steve Smith]

Ann Racuya-Robbins wrote:

I agree here again…the possibility of  ridicule and  being willing to be considered a fool are involved in original insight (creativity). In fact even in this friam forum I have felt a kind of ridicule (you don’t know anything about mathematics) when I am making a point or something similar…and being encouraged to shut up and raising laughter (at me not with me). I am somewhat grizzled from experience so I expect this from time to time. But why are those who do this doing it? What is gained? I think being able to use mathematical symbology on the friam  would be wonderful but not if the syntax is not pliable to speak in new ways. And yes I invent constantly in every language I am able to.

 

Think of people whose jobs and families’ well being depend on being well thought of by others. How much ridicule can they stand. Not much.

Ann -

I, for one, applaud your willingness and ability to take the dismissal and/or ridicule that comes with this situation.  It has allowed your voice to be heard by at least a few.    The fact that you have been able to avoid "going away mad" has helped open a door, albeit small, between two traditionally polarized communities (factions?).  

The sfComplex's mission includes opening this door, even if many of us on one side of it are not well equipped to deal with what is on the other side, or what might come through it.  If it were easy, it would already have been done.

I don't know that I can begin to answer some of your questions, explicit or implicit, but perhaps we can start some kind of dialog in the subset of the community that is not having allergic reactions to your thoughts and words.   

I have been speaking with Mary-Charlotte Domandi (CC:ed here), from KSFR, who has good  experience in interviewing and interpreting amongst people and communities across a wide range.   I would like form a series of presentations and panel discussions that might give you and others more like you, a forum at the Complex where your ideas and thoughts are welcomed and discussed in the same manner as many of the more specific technical topics are presented.

Perhaps we can meet in-person at the Complex with Mary-Charlotte and others like myself who are more able to hear what you are trying to say, to get the dialog started and get something more formal started.  

FRIAM/sfComplex -

I also invite others on FRIAM to contact me and/or Ann directly if you can hear what she is trying to converse with us about and are interested in participatin.   I think Ann's point of view is easy for this community to dismiss, but I also think there are very important aspects of it that we need to hear if we want the conversation to be as broad and meaningful as it can be.

- Steve





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[Ann Racuya-Robbins-2]

 “As to the creative content that you see displayed in the culmination of works of genius, how a scientist’s questions or a painter’s every brush stroke vibrate with their whole way of seeing the world, you got me.  I don’t know how that works.”

 

I think this creative content emerges from two interacting “facts” qualities of their experience:

1.       Some people come to such an acceptance and trust in their own sensibility, you might say their unique or individual sensibility, that they use it every day and in everything they do. It becomes the primary means of problem solving, exploring and celebrating life.

2.       They receive enough positive acceptance and reinforcement from some others, even a few, even one other in the world.

Many people who achieve these two qualities of experience are still ignored and lost to history.

 

The thing many of us have been missing all along is that genius is not the exception but the rule of all life…maybe especially, although I am not sure of that, human life. I think it is genius to survive each and every time it happens and not a lack of genius but a tragedy when one doesn’t survive. While it is genius and creative to survive most of us are not valued or respected for our accomplishment.

 

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Phil Henshaw
Sent: Monday, July 28, 2008 6:24 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Brain and Creativity

 

The study of individual events is of the accumulative creative processes of development.     I’m not sure what makes us think creativity happens in a ‘flash’ without preceding and following long chains of accumulative development, but it’s an illusion that it happens bye itself.    Maybe the appearance that the flash of insight or creativity happens ‘out of the blue’ comes from how exploratory processes follow a path that then telegraph where they’re headed once they take off, and then getting there is experienced as a sudden confirmation, having the whole path culminate in an instant, or something like that.   

 

There are moments where the excitement level rises sharply, for sure, but invariably that is based on a rather long accumulation of digression and digestion, to then also invariably be followed by a rather long accumulative process of completion and connection.    There’s no reason the middle point should get the credit in my book.    The “ah ha” instant is only a little pleasant flashing thing in the middle of long and complex history of groping around and asking the unanswered questions.    Without those fore and aft parts of the exploratory process there’d be nothing to “break through” and produce the “flash” as far as I  can tell.    

 

As to the creative content that you see displayed in the culmination of works of genius, how a scientist’s questions or a painter’s every brush stroke vibrate with their whole way of seeing the world, you got me.  I don’t know how that works.

 

Phil

 

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Orlando Leibovitz
Sent: Sunday, July 27, 2008 11:04 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: [FRIAM] The Brain and Creativity

 

The July 28 2008 issue of the New Yorker contains an article titled The Eureka Hunt: Why Do Good Ideas Come To Us When They Do. See http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/28/080728fa_fact_lehrer  for an abstract.

Although the article talks about human insight I think it touches on human creativity. I am interested in anyone's description (definition) of creativity and a comparison of creativity in art and science. I would also appreciate any thoughts about the  creative differences and/or similarities that may exist in different cultures.

My own feeling is that creativity, for example, in visual art and in theoretical physics contains the same attributes. Einstein was as much an artist as a physicist. I realize theoretical physics must deal with the "real world" but the process of original discovery seems the same to me.

O

--

Orlando Leibovitz

[hidden email]

www.orlandoleibovitz.com

Studio Telephone: [phone]

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[Ann Racuya-Robbins-2]

Precisely, who is the man here which is the rigor which is the mortis?

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf
Of Marcus G. Daniels
Sent: Friday, August 01, 2008 12:22 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Brain and Creativity 2

> I think being able to use mathematical symbology on the friam would be
> wonderful but not if the syntax is not pliable to speak in new ways.
"One man's rigor is another man's mortis"
Bohren, Craig F. and B. A. Albrecht (1998). Atmospheric Thermodynamics.


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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org


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