The Tides of Mind by David Gelernter

Author:David Gelernter
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Liveright

Six

Spectrum, Middle Third: Creativity

How does creativity work? Few questions in all of mind science, or in science, philosophy, and psychology in general, have been asked with such keen interest in modern times. We worship creativity, and we know it is rare. If only we could understand it; then we could teach it. And then everyone would be creative! This simple and ultimately inspiring, even moving, thoroughly unconvincing belief survives from the progressive age—the generation after the Second World War. In those years, Americans were sure that anyone could learn anything.

Creativity is a hard problem because there is no step-by-step way to achieve it. We can learn how to solve elaborate logical or mathematical problems, learn how to translate foreign languages or play baseball or fly a kite or drive a car. To do any of these things in an inspired way requires special gifts, but nearly anyone who tries can reach basic competence. That’s what’s perplexing and frustrating about creativity. There is no way to reach even basic competence.

We can understand creativity, or a good deal about it. Creativity has much to do with the dynamics of the spectrum and two of the spectrum’s major transitions: the gradual emergence of emotion, and the unconscious mind’s gradual taking over from consciousness, as we move down-spectrum.

Diffuse Attention Is Required

The physicist and philosopher Roger Penrose writes that creative thoughts are apt to come to him as he thinks “perhaps vaguely” about a problem—“consciously, but maybe at a low level just at the back of my mind. It might well be that I am engaged in some other rather relaxing activity; shaving would be a good example.”1

Penrose mentions, too, the great mathematician Jules Henri Poincaré, who found the key to a hard problem while getting on a bus. “This complicated and profound idea apparently came to Poincaré in a flash, while his conscious thoughts seemed to be quite elsewhere.”

According to the literary philosopher and novelist George Steiner: “All of us have experienced twilit, penumbral moods of diffuse attention and unresistant receptivity on the one hand, and of tensed, heightened focus on the other.”2

Thus, Penrose is creative when he is thinking “perhaps vaguely” about a problem—“consciously,” but just barely.

Poincaré finds a creative solution to a problem “while his conscious thoughts seemed to be quite elsewhere.” He must be barely conscious of the problem, or not conscious of it at all.

Steiner awaits inspiration—he experiences “unresistant receptivity”—during “twilit, penumbral moods” when his attention is “diffuse.”

In other words, creative solutions arise when a problem is lurking at the edge of consciousness. Logical solutions require focused attention (attention dialed up, metaphorically, to a bright, sharp spotlight), but creative solutions arise at a much lower level of focus—attention, metaphorically, creating a broad pool of light. Penrose uses the phrase “low level” and Steiner writes “twilit, penumbral”; both thinkers have used metaphors that fit the spectrum perfectly. Creativity occurs (in these cases anyway) when focus is fairly low. We are not at the bottom of the spectrum; if we were, our

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