Chapter 5
Moment of Truth
Nueva (chimpanzee), how animals discover the use of tools.
what she did, was an original self thought accomplishment, no precedent of the past.
The process: synthesis of two previously unconnected skills, acquiered in early life
Science began as being a game, or play and now it has rise human knoweldge. It provides unexpected clues.
Ask someone to clarify me the Sultan example
The action is the real achievement, is the proof.
Discovery: See an analogy that nobody had seen before
Familiar shift of awareness
Perceive it as a member of both matrices at the same time
Visual pun: A single form attached to two different functions.
Act of discovery
Has a disruptive and constructive aspect
It disrupts the rigid patterns of mental organization to achieve the new synthesis.
When you have proof something to be true, you have lost the innocence of your vision
And acquired a new skill, when two matrices have integrated they cannot again be town asunder
By being stressed you have been repeating random attempts that have not lead you to the discovery
bisociated with the problem
m1: habitual rules of the game (lower levels of awareness than action itself)
m2: matrix of association, actual train of thought that effects the connection
Present but in different levels of awareness
Shock of implicit: explicit rules, of suddenly focusing awareness on aspects of experience which had been unverbalized, taken for granted.
Discovery is the uncovering of something which has always been there but was hidden from the eye by the blinkers of habits
The more ripe a situation is for the discovery of a new synthesis, the less need there is for the helping hand and chance.
Learning by insight: Gestalt
biological/ cultural ripeness made possible and desirable certain discoveries
It is the creative genius who determine the course of history
How does that intuition work?
Different frames of reference.
problem- we attack it with the set of rules we are familiar with
Monotonous environemnt- the responses will become stereotyped, governed by fixed habits
Variable environment tend to create flexible behavior patterns, with a high adaptability to circustances.
Abscent and Single Mindedness
More original the discovery, the more obvious it is afterwards
We don't create nothing new at all, it synthesis, already existing facts (This goes in hand with Mises defenition of production)
Nueva (chimpanzee), how animals discover the use of tools.
what she did, was an original self thought accomplishment, no precedent of the past.
The process: synthesis of two previously unconnected skills, acquiered in early life
Science began as being a game, or play and now it has rise human knoweldge. It provides unexpected clues.
Ask someone to clarify me the Sultan example
The action is the real achievement, is the proof.
Discovery: See an analogy that nobody had seen before
Familiar shift of awareness
Perceive it as a member of both matrices at the same time
Visual pun: A single form attached to two different functions.
Act of discovery
Has a disruptive and constructive aspect
It disrupts the rigid patterns of mental organization to achieve the new synthesis.
When you have proof something to be true, you have lost the innocence of your vision
And acquired a new skill, when two matrices have integrated they cannot again be town asunder
By being stressed you have been repeating random attempts that have not lead you to the discovery
bisociated with the problem
m1: habitual rules of the game (lower levels of awareness than action itself)
m2: matrix of association, actual train of thought that effects the connection
Present but in different levels of awareness
Shock of implicit: explicit rules, of suddenly focusing awareness on aspects of experience which had been unverbalized, taken for granted.
Discovery is the uncovering of something which has always been there but was hidden from the eye by the blinkers of habits
The more ripe a situation is for the discovery of a new synthesis, the less need there is for the helping hand and chance.
Learning by insight: Gestalt
biological/ cultural ripeness made possible and desirable certain discoveries
It is the creative genius who determine the course of history
How does that intuition work?
Different frames of reference.
problem- we attack it with the set of rules we are familiar with
Monotonous environemnt- the responses will become stereotyped, governed by fixed habits
Variable environment tend to create flexible behavior patterns, with a high adaptability to circustances.
Abscent and Single Mindedness
More original the discovery, the more obvious it is afterwards
We don't create nothing new at all, it synthesis, already existing facts (This goes in hand with Mises defenition of production)
Chapter 6
Three Illustration
Sudden interlocking of two previously unrelated skills, or matrices of thought.
Asking right questions, in seeing a problem where nobody saw one before in substituing why for a how.
Creative genius: scepticism regarding the dogmas implied in traditional modes of thought, combined with the willingness of a wide open mind to consider far-fetched theories.
Pattern of creation (attributed to, not proper subject of science. p.139) "Was able to give ultimate answers, because he asked ultimate questions".
Problems in the department of scientist, not giving it importance to Darwin's paper, until his book was published a year later.
Sudden interlocking of two previously unrelated skills, or matrices of thought.
Asking right questions, in seeing a problem where nobody saw one before in substituing why for a how.
Creative genius: scepticism regarding the dogmas implied in traditional modes of thought, combined with the willingness of a wide open mind to consider far-fetched theories.
Pattern of creation (attributed to, not proper subject of science. p.139) "Was able to give ultimate answers, because he asked ultimate questions".
Problems in the department of scientist, not giving it importance to Darwin's paper, until his book was published a year later.
Chapter 7
The history of Discovery is full of such arrivals at unexpected destinations, and arrivals at the right destination by the wrong boat. P145
Am I- or are the others crazy? Einstein
Narrowness of consciousness
Trust in intuition
And in unconscious guidance by quasy religious or by aesthetic sensibilities
The useful combinations of ideas are precisely the most beautiful, I mean those best able to charm this special sensibility. –max planck
Pioneer scientist must have: A vivid intuitive imagination for new ideas not generated by deduction, but by artistically creative imagination
Branch of knowledge? Mathematics? Science? Logic? Is dependent on mental processes which are subjective, irrational, and verifiable only after the event
Unconscious
Cartsian catastrophe: splitting up of the world into the realms of mattera and mind, and the identification of mind with conscious thinking
Descartes didn’t believe in the dualism of the existence of unconscious mentality as part of a separate realm of mind
Choose awareness as the defining characteristic of mind
Two realms:
Physical and mental
Awareness couldn’t be considered criterion of mentality because the springs of human nature lie in the unconscious, as the realm which links the moments of human awareness with the background of organic processes within which they emerge. P. 149
One would think, there was nothing easier for us, than to know our own mind.. but our thughts have generally such an obscure implicit language, that it is the hardest thing in the world to make them speak out distinctly. Earl of Shaftesbury p. 150
Dreams are means to self knowledge, and thoughts as products of the Id:
It thinks, one ought to say. We become aware of certain representations which do not depend on us, others depend on us, or at least so we believe, where is the boundary? It thinks, just as one would say it rains, I think.
I never think- my thoughts think for me
E. platner-
Thinking is a constant oscillation between conscious and unconscious process. P.151
Goathe: man cannot persist long in a conscious state, he must throw himself back into the unconscious, for his root lives there
Why should everything come to consciousness that lies in the mind? P 151
Conscious carries the character of intelligence
Unconscious life and action
Fechner’s Law: mind as an inceberg: with only a fraction of it above the surface of consciousness, moved by the winds of awareness, but mostly by hidden under- water currents
The result of the thoughts become conscious not the process of thought? P. 153
The unconscious mind is for us like an unknown beinig who creates an produces for us, and finally throws the ripe fruits in our lap.
Every extension of knowledge arises from making conscious the unconsciousness. – Nietzsche P. 153
Awareness is a matter of degree
The dark end- unconscious. Extends well below the human level to an unknown limit- form of protoplasmic consciousness
Quasi hypnotic state of utter concentration on a problem 155
Awareness is focused on the meaning behind the sahpes- transparency of language
The great mastery and ease we gain in the exercise of a skill, the more automatized it will tend to become, because the code of rules which controls it now operates below the treshold of awareness
2nd factor: prevailing environmental conditions, wheater is familiar or containg unusual features
awareness: experience which decreases and fades away with our increasing mastery of a skill exercised under monotonous conditions
Two factor for habit formation:
Mastery of the code
Stability of environment
Enabling the higher levels to turn to more challenging tasks
Creative act upward surge from some unkown layer of the mind- doward relegation of the controls of skilled techinques p.156
Unconscious process (unawareness of the sources of inspiration) s and automatization of skills
Linear gradient of awareness. Here learning is transformed into habit, that the control of new skills, once mastered slides down under its own gravity, making room upstairs for new acquisitions
Utility value
Survival value -157
Automatism, intuition
Virtuoso: a person skilled in the mechanical part of a fine art
The method to reach perfection has been described as : practice, repetition, and repetition of the repeated with ever-increasing intensity”, until,,, the adept becomes a kind of automaton, as far as his own consciousness is concerned.
We see a blur of the world around us
Focal vision has an angle of onl 4 degrees
Static vision does not exist, there is no seeing without exploring
Thinknin is never sharp, neat, linear process. It causese spreading in all direction- memories, images, associations, focal awareness- boat. Ripples on the surface are the fringes of consciousness
What is the preconscious? P 159 ahhh subsidiary awareness
Distinction between the single event that occupies the focus of attention and the process on the periphery which define the context, the purpose and meaning of the former
How do they interact?
How do they influence the direction of thought?
How do they assist mental creativity?
Ideas more nearly allied, summoned in a mechanically logical way
Eugenics, invented by Galton.. example adolf Hitler
Association is always controlled by a code of rules, whether the subject is aware or not, and that different codes are active at different times.
Edelweiss, or a strategic fun-site sage from air attack
Lie of the land? P 161
Visual exploration and mental exploration
One the observational data derived from looking at the rock face, and the lessons derived from previous experience combine into one.
Beam of focal awareness is exploring the inner environment, and ignoring the input from the senses.
Learning compressed into the operational codes of thinking skils
Emotional disturbances interfering with mechanical logic
Must scan your vocabulary for words which will fit a given meaning
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 havinf ever before been called to perform such a task. p. 163
There must be a guidance in the creative thinking- because novelty is not due to random hits.
Unconscious- subliminal self. Is subliminal self superior to the conscious self?
Useful combinations are precisely the most beautiful p165
Hubrus- excessive pride or self confidence
Unconscious processes lead to new discoveries
Waking dream
Thinking in pictures dominates the manifestations of the unconscious- the dream, the hypnogogic half-dream, the psychotic’s hallucinations, the artist’s vision. P.168 (visionary thinkers)
Pictorial thinking: more primitive form of mentation than conceptual thinking,
The poet alternates between two different levels of mental hierarchy
The dreamer’s awareness functions on one only.
The creative activity of the artists involves momentary regressions to earlier stages in mental evolution, bringing forms of mentation into play which otherwise manifest themselves only in the dream or dream likes states
What guidance scientist could possibly derive from the intervention of unconscious processes?
The temporary relinquishing of conscious controls liberates the mind from certain constraints which are necessary to maintain the disciplined routines of thoughts but may become an impediment to the creative leap, at the same time other types of ideation on more primitive levels of mental organization are brought into activity.
Act of abdication
Act of promotion
Distrust of words is a trait often found among those who create with their eyes- p171
Verbal thinking plays only a subordinate part in the decisive phase of creative act.
Often we have to get away from speech in order to think clearly- woodwort’s p.173
How can I know what I think till I see what I say?
Stream of language carries the thought, so that the processes of ideation and verbal formulation become indistinguishable. P.174
Modesty can hardly be carried further, nor insight put into simpler terms- Einstein p 175
Verbal thinking is the most articulate, the most complex, and the most vulnerable to infectious diseases. It is liable to absorb any suggestions, and to incorportate them as hidden persuaders into the code. Language can become a screen which stands between the thinker and reality. This is the reason why true creativity often starts where language ends. P 177
Am I- or are the others crazy? Einstein
Narrowness of consciousness
Trust in intuition
And in unconscious guidance by quasy religious or by aesthetic sensibilities
The useful combinations of ideas are precisely the most beautiful, I mean those best able to charm this special sensibility. –max planck
Pioneer scientist must have: A vivid intuitive imagination for new ideas not generated by deduction, but by artistically creative imagination
Branch of knowledge? Mathematics? Science? Logic? Is dependent on mental processes which are subjective, irrational, and verifiable only after the event
Unconscious
Cartsian catastrophe: splitting up of the world into the realms of mattera and mind, and the identification of mind with conscious thinking
Descartes didn’t believe in the dualism of the existence of unconscious mentality as part of a separate realm of mind
Choose awareness as the defining characteristic of mind
Two realms:
Physical and mental
Awareness couldn’t be considered criterion of mentality because the springs of human nature lie in the unconscious, as the realm which links the moments of human awareness with the background of organic processes within which they emerge. P. 149
One would think, there was nothing easier for us, than to know our own mind.. but our thughts have generally such an obscure implicit language, that it is the hardest thing in the world to make them speak out distinctly. Earl of Shaftesbury p. 150
Dreams are means to self knowledge, and thoughts as products of the Id:
It thinks, one ought to say. We become aware of certain representations which do not depend on us, others depend on us, or at least so we believe, where is the boundary? It thinks, just as one would say it rains, I think.
I never think- my thoughts think for me
E. platner-
Thinking is a constant oscillation between conscious and unconscious process. P.151
Goathe: man cannot persist long in a conscious state, he must throw himself back into the unconscious, for his root lives there
Why should everything come to consciousness that lies in the mind? P 151
Conscious carries the character of intelligence
Unconscious life and action
Fechner’s Law: mind as an inceberg: with only a fraction of it above the surface of consciousness, moved by the winds of awareness, but mostly by hidden under- water currents
The result of the thoughts become conscious not the process of thought? P. 153
The unconscious mind is for us like an unknown beinig who creates an produces for us, and finally throws the ripe fruits in our lap.
Every extension of knowledge arises from making conscious the unconsciousness. – Nietzsche P. 153
Awareness is a matter of degree
The dark end- unconscious. Extends well below the human level to an unknown limit- form of protoplasmic consciousness
Quasi hypnotic state of utter concentration on a problem 155
Awareness is focused on the meaning behind the sahpes- transparency of language
The great mastery and ease we gain in the exercise of a skill, the more automatized it will tend to become, because the code of rules which controls it now operates below the treshold of awareness
2nd factor: prevailing environmental conditions, wheater is familiar or containg unusual features
awareness: experience which decreases and fades away with our increasing mastery of a skill exercised under monotonous conditions
Two factor for habit formation:
Mastery of the code
Stability of environment
Enabling the higher levels to turn to more challenging tasks
Creative act upward surge from some unkown layer of the mind- doward relegation of the controls of skilled techinques p.156
Unconscious process (unawareness of the sources of inspiration) s and automatization of skills
Linear gradient of awareness. Here learning is transformed into habit, that the control of new skills, once mastered slides down under its own gravity, making room upstairs for new acquisitions
Utility value
Survival value -157
Automatism, intuition
Virtuoso: a person skilled in the mechanical part of a fine art
The method to reach perfection has been described as : practice, repetition, and repetition of the repeated with ever-increasing intensity”, until,,, the adept becomes a kind of automaton, as far as his own consciousness is concerned.
We see a blur of the world around us
Focal vision has an angle of onl 4 degrees
Static vision does not exist, there is no seeing without exploring
Thinknin is never sharp, neat, linear process. It causese spreading in all direction- memories, images, associations, focal awareness- boat. Ripples on the surface are the fringes of consciousness
What is the preconscious? P 159 ahhh subsidiary awareness
Distinction between the single event that occupies the focus of attention and the process on the periphery which define the context, the purpose and meaning of the former
How do they interact?
How do they influence the direction of thought?
How do they assist mental creativity?
Ideas more nearly allied, summoned in a mechanically logical way
Eugenics, invented by Galton.. example adolf Hitler
Association is always controlled by a code of rules, whether the subject is aware or not, and that different codes are active at different times.
Edelweiss, or a strategic fun-site sage from air attack
Lie of the land? P 161
Visual exploration and mental exploration
One the observational data derived from looking at the rock face, and the lessons derived from previous experience combine into one.
Beam of focal awareness is exploring the inner environment, and ignoring the input from the senses.
Learning compressed into the operational codes of thinking skils
Emotional disturbances interfering with mechanical logic
Must scan your vocabulary for words which will fit a given meaning
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 havinf ever before been called to perform such a task. p. 163
There must be a guidance in the creative thinking- because novelty is not due to random hits.
Unconscious- subliminal self. Is subliminal self superior to the conscious self?
Useful combinations are precisely the most beautiful p165
Hubrus- excessive pride or self confidence
Unconscious processes lead to new discoveries
Waking dream
Thinking in pictures dominates the manifestations of the unconscious- the dream, the hypnogogic half-dream, the psychotic’s hallucinations, the artist’s vision. P.168 (visionary thinkers)
Pictorial thinking: more primitive form of mentation than conceptual thinking,
The poet alternates between two different levels of mental hierarchy
The dreamer’s awareness functions on one only.
The creative activity of the artists involves momentary regressions to earlier stages in mental evolution, bringing forms of mentation into play which otherwise manifest themselves only in the dream or dream likes states
What guidance scientist could possibly derive from the intervention of unconscious processes?
The temporary relinquishing of conscious controls liberates the mind from certain constraints which are necessary to maintain the disciplined routines of thoughts but may become an impediment to the creative leap, at the same time other types of ideation on more primitive levels of mental organization are brought into activity.
Act of abdication
Act of promotion
Distrust of words is a trait often found among those who create with their eyes- p171
Verbal thinking plays only a subordinate part in the decisive phase of creative act.
Often we have to get away from speech in order to think clearly- woodwort’s p.173
How can I know what I think till I see what I say?
Stream of language carries the thought, so that the processes of ideation and verbal formulation become indistinguishable. P.174
Modesty can hardly be carried further, nor insight put into simpler terms- Einstein p 175
Verbal thinking is the most articulate, the most complex, and the most vulnerable to infectious diseases. It is liable to absorb any suggestions, and to incorportate them as hidden persuaders into the code. Language can become a screen which stands between the thinker and reality. This is the reason why true creativity often starts where language ends. P 177
Chapter 8
Underground Games
The creative act breaks dogmas and taboos of common sense
At discovery the codes of disciplined reasoning are suspended- as well as in dreams, lawless fashion
Pun: two strings of thought tied together by a purely acoustic knot
Optical pun: one visual form bisociated with two functional contexts
Phenomenon of displacement: shift of attention to a previously unnoticed feature
Concretization of abstract and general ideas in a particular image
Dreamer’s gullibility: the dreamer is aware that he is producing his dreams in a lower level
Repressed complexes, they originate in traumatic experiences, p181
Two way traffic between conscious and unconscious. One traffic stream continually moves in a downward dierection: we concentrate on new experiences, arrange them into patterns, develop new observational skills, and when mastered by continued practice, the controls are handed over to a kind of automation, and the whole assembly is dispatched, along the gradients of awareness, out of sight. (porque todo lo hacemos por costumbre, ya se vuelve habito y no logramos ver nada Nuevo)
The upward traffic stream moves in the small fluctuating pulses from the unconscious which sustain the dynamic balance of the mind- and in the rare, sudden surges of creativity, which may lead to a re-structuring of the whole mental landscape 181
The interpretation of empathy is not conscious act it belong to the repertory of underground games p 188
Trageadian creates illusion, the comedian debunks illusion, the therapist does both
Waking state side stepping- shift of emphasis, change over from one frame of reference to another. But while we dream the coherence of these frames is loosened, and change is not experienced as such, side stepping becomes almost the normal way of the dream’s progress.p 189
To acquire a new habit is easy, because one main function of the nervous system is to act as a habit-forming machine; to break our of a habit is an almost heroic feat of mind or character.
The prerequisite of originality is the art of forgetting, at the proper moment what we know. P 190
Switching what would I usually would do to, hey this happen what can I learn or discover from this?
Foundations of modern technology, originates in the accidental reversal of the function of a single machine. P 195
Reversal of logic brought the solution
The source of the rays, the radio active agent, was the uranium itself.
“the discoveries of science, the works of art are explorations- more, are explosions, of a hidden likeness” Bronoswksi
in truly original acts of discovery the “seeing” is in fact imagining, it is done in the mind’s and mostly the unconscious mind’s eye.
Analogy in logic means a process of reasoning from parallel causes. Two situations or events are similar in some respects, but not in all.
The ultimate matchmaker is the unconscious.. freedom of unconscious ideation: its intellectual libertinage p. 201
At the moment of the hunch I did not think but acted immediately
We are somewhat more than ourselves in sleep and the slumber of the body seems to be but the waking of the soul- sir Thomas Browne
The creative act breaks dogmas and taboos of common sense
At discovery the codes of disciplined reasoning are suspended- as well as in dreams, lawless fashion
Pun: two strings of thought tied together by a purely acoustic knot
Optical pun: one visual form bisociated with two functional contexts
Phenomenon of displacement: shift of attention to a previously unnoticed feature
Concretization of abstract and general ideas in a particular image
Dreamer’s gullibility: the dreamer is aware that he is producing his dreams in a lower level
Repressed complexes, they originate in traumatic experiences, p181
Two way traffic between conscious and unconscious. One traffic stream continually moves in a downward dierection: we concentrate on new experiences, arrange them into patterns, develop new observational skills, and when mastered by continued practice, the controls are handed over to a kind of automation, and the whole assembly is dispatched, along the gradients of awareness, out of sight. (porque todo lo hacemos por costumbre, ya se vuelve habito y no logramos ver nada Nuevo)
The upward traffic stream moves in the small fluctuating pulses from the unconscious which sustain the dynamic balance of the mind- and in the rare, sudden surges of creativity, which may lead to a re-structuring of the whole mental landscape 181
The interpretation of empathy is not conscious act it belong to the repertory of underground games p 188
Trageadian creates illusion, the comedian debunks illusion, the therapist does both
Waking state side stepping- shift of emphasis, change over from one frame of reference to another. But while we dream the coherence of these frames is loosened, and change is not experienced as such, side stepping becomes almost the normal way of the dream’s progress.p 189
To acquire a new habit is easy, because one main function of the nervous system is to act as a habit-forming machine; to break our of a habit is an almost heroic feat of mind or character.
The prerequisite of originality is the art of forgetting, at the proper moment what we know. P 190
Switching what would I usually would do to, hey this happen what can I learn or discover from this?
Foundations of modern technology, originates in the accidental reversal of the function of a single machine. P 195
Reversal of logic brought the solution
The source of the rays, the radio active agent, was the uranium itself.
“the discoveries of science, the works of art are explorations- more, are explosions, of a hidden likeness” Bronoswksi
in truly original acts of discovery the “seeing” is in fact imagining, it is done in the mind’s and mostly the unconscious mind’s eye.
Analogy in logic means a process of reasoning from parallel causes. Two situations or events are similar in some respects, but not in all.
The ultimate matchmaker is the unconscious.. freedom of unconscious ideation: its intellectual libertinage p. 201
At the moment of the hunch I did not think but acted immediately
We are somewhat more than ourselves in sleep and the slumber of the body seems to be but the waking of the soul- sir Thomas Browne
Chapter 9
The spark and the flame
The imagination merely enables us to wander into the darkness of the unknown where, by the dim light of he knowledge that we carry, we may glimpse something that seems of interest… imagination is at once the source of all hope and inspiration but also of frustration. To forget this is to court despair.
The tragedies of science are the slayings of beautiful hypotheses by ugly facts.
Verification by experiment can never yield absolute certainty, and when it comes to controversial issues the data can usually be interpreted in mote than one way
Scientists are inclined to trust their intuitions.
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.
Sixth century b.c. first attempt to describe physical reality by mathematical relations, they succeeded in explaining musical quality by quantitative laws, and believed that ultimately “all things are numbers”.
The premature integration of matrices which are not yet sufficiently consolidated has in some cases a wholesome effect, by stimulating more mature attempts in the same direction,p 216
In the first stage the two matrices, which will participate in the ultimate synthesis, are tentatively and inadequately joined together by the logic of the unconscious.
In the second the haphazard connection is severed again, and a reaction may set in which keeps them apart for a considerable time.
Final stage: after the definite merger, the previously separate matrices become mentally inseparable, and we marvel at our former blindness.p. 216
Snowblindness
The blindness which often prevents the original thinker from perceiving the meaning and significance of his own discovery.
Mental inertia- mental stability
The history of human thought is full of triumphant eureka’s, but only rarely do we hear of the anti climaxes, the missed opportunities, which leave no trace. P.217
Erlenmeyer described cocaine as the third scourge of humanity- the other two being alcohol and morphine p. 219
We must resign ourselves to the fact that snowblindness is inherent in the human condition,
Everything has a name- biggest discovery of the child
Symbol-consciousness is a gradual, cumulative event
Saw everything with the strange new sight that had come to me
Empirical induction: some things have names, ergo I assume that all things have names
New integrations: Faulty or premature integrations, through partial blindness towards the meaning of one’s own discoveries, to the gradual blending of matrices by dint of repetitive experiences, which increase the number of links between them.
Spark by unconscious intuition,
The imagination merely enables us to wander into the darkness of the unknown where, by the dim light of he knowledge that we carry, we may glimpse something that seems of interest… imagination is at once the source of all hope and inspiration but also of frustration. To forget this is to court despair.
The tragedies of science are the slayings of beautiful hypotheses by ugly facts.
Verification by experiment can never yield absolute certainty, and when it comes to controversial issues the data can usually be interpreted in mote than one way
Scientists are inclined to trust their intuitions.
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.
Sixth century b.c. first attempt to describe physical reality by mathematical relations, they succeeded in explaining musical quality by quantitative laws, and believed that ultimately “all things are numbers”.
The premature integration of matrices which are not yet sufficiently consolidated has in some cases a wholesome effect, by stimulating more mature attempts in the same direction,p 216
In the first stage the two matrices, which will participate in the ultimate synthesis, are tentatively and inadequately joined together by the logic of the unconscious.
In the second the haphazard connection is severed again, and a reaction may set in which keeps them apart for a considerable time.
Final stage: after the definite merger, the previously separate matrices become mentally inseparable, and we marvel at our former blindness.p. 216
Snowblindness
The blindness which often prevents the original thinker from perceiving the meaning and significance of his own discovery.
Mental inertia- mental stability
The history of human thought is full of triumphant eureka’s, but only rarely do we hear of the anti climaxes, the missed opportunities, which leave no trace. P.217
Erlenmeyer described cocaine as the third scourge of humanity- the other two being alcohol and morphine p. 219
We must resign ourselves to the fact that snowblindness is inherent in the human condition,
Everything has a name- biggest discovery of the child
Symbol-consciousness is a gradual, cumulative event
Saw everything with the strange new sight that had come to me
Empirical induction: some things have names, ergo I assume that all things have names
New integrations: Faulty or premature integrations, through partial blindness towards the meaning of one’s own discoveries, to the gradual blending of matrices by dint of repetitive experiences, which increase the number of links between them.
Spark by unconscious intuition,
Chapter 10
Evolution of IDEAS
Period of incubation, crtical period of fertile anarchy,
Constructive and destructive aspect
Crisis manifests itself in a relaxation of the rigid rules of the game, breakdown of mental habits and absolute frontiers. Last stage is verigication, least spectacular, the most exacting, takes longest time.
Estrangement from reality. P 225
Evolution of ideas constantly go wrong.
The branching of the evolutionists’s tree of life is one way process,. The evolution of ideas is a tale of ever repeated differentiation, specialization and reintegration’s on a higher level, p 226
Century of the fatal mesalliance between Aristotelian physics and the theology of st Thomas Aquinas. This fualty synthesis was to create a new orthodoxy, which led to another three centuries of sterility and stagnation.
Connect, always connect
Out of the creative anarchy emerges the new synthesis
The progress of science, is the discovery at each step of a new order which gives unity to what had long seemed unlike
Bisociation is the essence of creative activity: p 231
The alert experiment is always on the lookout for point and areas of overlap, between things and processes which natural and unaided observations has tended to treat merely, or chiefly, as different. 232
They introduce methods and istrumentation new to the field of research involved,
Small number of original inquiries, followed a a rule by a very large number of routune inquiries.
Original experimental thinking is the discovery of overlap and agreement where formerly only isolation and difference were recognized
It is the combination which generates new direction of research,
The essence of science lies not in disovering facts, but in discovering new ways of thinking about them. 235
Putting on a different kind of thinking cap for the moment. P 236
Renormalizaiton theory p 246
Reculer-pour- mieux-sauter phenomenon, the reggresive phase of the individual
The questions change with the changing values in different periods and cultures
Period of incubation, crtical period of fertile anarchy,
Constructive and destructive aspect
Crisis manifests itself in a relaxation of the rigid rules of the game, breakdown of mental habits and absolute frontiers. Last stage is verigication, least spectacular, the most exacting, takes longest time.
Estrangement from reality. P 225
Evolution of ideas constantly go wrong.
The branching of the evolutionists’s tree of life is one way process,. The evolution of ideas is a tale of ever repeated differentiation, specialization and reintegration’s on a higher level, p 226
Century of the fatal mesalliance between Aristotelian physics and the theology of st Thomas Aquinas. This fualty synthesis was to create a new orthodoxy, which led to another three centuries of sterility and stagnation.
Connect, always connect
Out of the creative anarchy emerges the new synthesis
The progress of science, is the discovery at each step of a new order which gives unity to what had long seemed unlike
Bisociation is the essence of creative activity: p 231
The alert experiment is always on the lookout for point and areas of overlap, between things and processes which natural and unaided observations has tended to treat merely, or chiefly, as different. 232
They introduce methods and istrumentation new to the field of research involved,
Small number of original inquiries, followed a a rule by a very large number of routune inquiries.
Original experimental thinking is the discovery of overlap and agreement where formerly only isolation and difference were recognized
It is the combination which generates new direction of research,
The essence of science lies not in disovering facts, but in discovering new ways of thinking about them. 235
Putting on a different kind of thinking cap for the moment. P 236
Renormalizaiton theory p 246
Reculer-pour- mieux-sauter phenomenon, the reggresive phase of the individual
The questions change with the changing values in different periods and cultures
Chapter 11
SCIENCE AND EMOTION
Three character- Types:
Artist- inspired dreamer \- a solitary figure, eccentric, impractical, unselfish and quixotic
Jester: wide-awake, quick to see his advantage and to get the better of his fellows. He always exercise his wits at the expense of others, he is aggressive and self asserting
Sage: combined the qualities of both, sagacious dreamer, with his head in the clouds and his feet on the solid earth.
Magician and artist both are unselfishly devoted to lofty tasks- uomo universale
Mad professor and jester endowed with caustic wit, he spouts sarcasm, a sinister jester plotting to commit some monstrous practical joke on humanity. Next to the malicious satirist
Book worm or laboratory worker with sage: he is aloof and detached, he is devoid of temperament, desiccated and hard of hearing yet peevish and petulant and jealous of anybody who dares to interfere with his crabbed little world.
The progress of science takes place through a few master- architects, or in any case through a number of guiding brains whchi constantly set all the industrious labourers at work for decades p 257
Malicious jester, the mad professor with his delusions of grandeur, the uninspired pedant, the benovelent magician and the artist
Black magician- archetupal symbol of the self-assertive element in scientists aspirations (competiitiveness, jealousy, and self righteousness in the scientist complex motivational drive’ p 257
White magician symbolizes the self transcending element- motivational drive and emotional makeup…. His humble immersion into the mysteries of nature, origins of life, the equations of a unified theory. He is urged be a sense of power, sense of oceanic wonder
Whoever remains unmoved, whoever cannot contemplate or kow the deep shudder of the soul in enchantment, might just as well be dead for he has already closed his eyes upon life. Einstein p 258
Oceanic wonder is the common source of religious mysticism, of pure science and art.
Magic and Sublimation
Scientist is motivated by a particular blend of passions into which both the self asserting and participatory drives enter, but in highly syblimates state, complementing each other.
Sublimation of the self assertive, aggressive defensive impulses, since we all have to go through the paingul process of abdicating tyrannic powers of infancy-fantasies of omnipotence- and accept the rules of the game of civilized society
Self transcending, participatory emotions are also subject to the process of sublimation, sublimation of magic into art, magic into science. P 259
Self transcending, participatory tendencies is meant to refer to those emotional states where the need is felt to behave as a part of some real or imaginary entity which transcend the boundaries of the individual self. (self assertive- ego is self contained whole and the ultimate value)
Pure science: the contemplation of the new mysteria was regarded as a means of purifying the sould by its immersion in the eternal
We find this feeling of awe and wonder, an intellectual ecstasy of distinctly religious flavour.
The mystic believe in an unknown God, the thinker and scientist in an unkown order, it is hard to say which surpasses the other in nonrational devotion
Enthusiasm- en theos- a god within
Happy is he who bears a god within- an ideal of beauty and who obeys it, and ideal of art, of science. All are lighted by reflection from the infinite. P262
Pantheism: a doctrine that identifies God with the universe, or regards the universe as a manifestation of God.
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. P 63
The boredom of science
The bond between them is the need for social communication. (producer and consumer)
Impact of comic inventions: originality, emphasis, and economy.
Criteria of value when applied to scientific discovery? P 263
Emphasis: its concomitant exaggerations and simplpifications is the essence of model- making.
Economy: elegant solution to various techniques of enticing the audience into an imaginative, recreative effort
The consequence why someone know certain principles but cannot tell if an art is beautiful is that he utilizes the products of science and technology in a purely possessive, exploitive manner without comprehension or feeling, is impersonal and possessive. He doesn’t understand them because he have a participatory relationship to art
Modern man lives isolated in his artificial environment, not because the artificial is evil as such, but because of his lack of comprehension of the forces which make it work- of the principles which relate his gadgets to the forces of nature, to the univereal order. P 264
It is his refusal to take an interest in the principles behind it.
Closing his mind to it, leads the life of an urban barbarian.
The proffesor must make the students re live to some extent the creative process. He must be induced, with proper aid and guidance, to make some of the fundamental discoveries of science by himself, to experience in his own mind some of those flashes of insight which have lightened its path.
Paradoxes, blocked matrices, of Archimedes, Copernicus, etc should be reconstructed in their historical setting and presented in the form of riddles- with appropiate thints- to eager young mind. P 266
The most productive form of learning is problem-solving.
The traditional method of confronting the student not with the problem but with the finished solution, means depriving him of all excitement, to shut off the creative impulse, to reduce the adventure of mankind to a dusty heap of theorems” p 266
Art is a form of communication which aims at eliciting a re creative echo. Educations should be regarged as an art, and use the appropiate 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. P 266
The boredom of the scientist comes from technical jargon. Antiquated teaching methods, cultural prejudice.
Three character- Types:
Artist- inspired dreamer \- a solitary figure, eccentric, impractical, unselfish and quixotic
Jester: wide-awake, quick to see his advantage and to get the better of his fellows. He always exercise his wits at the expense of others, he is aggressive and self asserting
Sage: combined the qualities of both, sagacious dreamer, with his head in the clouds and his feet on the solid earth.
Magician and artist both are unselfishly devoted to lofty tasks- uomo universale
Mad professor and jester endowed with caustic wit, he spouts sarcasm, a sinister jester plotting to commit some monstrous practical joke on humanity. Next to the malicious satirist
Book worm or laboratory worker with sage: he is aloof and detached, he is devoid of temperament, desiccated and hard of hearing yet peevish and petulant and jealous of anybody who dares to interfere with his crabbed little world.
The progress of science takes place through a few master- architects, or in any case through a number of guiding brains whchi constantly set all the industrious labourers at work for decades p 257
Malicious jester, the mad professor with his delusions of grandeur, the uninspired pedant, the benovelent magician and the artist
Black magician- archetupal symbol of the self-assertive element in scientists aspirations (competiitiveness, jealousy, and self righteousness in the scientist complex motivational drive’ p 257
White magician symbolizes the self transcending element- motivational drive and emotional makeup…. His humble immersion into the mysteries of nature, origins of life, the equations of a unified theory. He is urged be a sense of power, sense of oceanic wonder
Whoever remains unmoved, whoever cannot contemplate or kow the deep shudder of the soul in enchantment, might just as well be dead for he has already closed his eyes upon life. Einstein p 258
Oceanic wonder is the common source of religious mysticism, of pure science and art.
Magic and Sublimation
Scientist is motivated by a particular blend of passions into which both the self asserting and participatory drives enter, but in highly syblimates state, complementing each other.
Sublimation of the self assertive, aggressive defensive impulses, since we all have to go through the paingul process of abdicating tyrannic powers of infancy-fantasies of omnipotence- and accept the rules of the game of civilized society
Self transcending, participatory emotions are also subject to the process of sublimation, sublimation of magic into art, magic into science. P 259
Self transcending, participatory tendencies is meant to refer to those emotional states where the need is felt to behave as a part of some real or imaginary entity which transcend the boundaries of the individual self. (self assertive- ego is self contained whole and the ultimate value)
Pure science: the contemplation of the new mysteria was regarded as a means of purifying the sould by its immersion in the eternal
We find this feeling of awe and wonder, an intellectual ecstasy of distinctly religious flavour.
The mystic believe in an unknown God, the thinker and scientist in an unkown order, it is hard to say which surpasses the other in nonrational devotion
Enthusiasm- en theos- a god within
Happy is he who bears a god within- an ideal of beauty and who obeys it, and ideal of art, of science. All are lighted by reflection from the infinite. P262
Pantheism: a doctrine that identifies God with the universe, or regards the universe as a manifestation of God.
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. P 63
The boredom of science
The bond between them is the need for social communication. (producer and consumer)
Impact of comic inventions: originality, emphasis, and economy.
Criteria of value when applied to scientific discovery? P 263
Emphasis: its concomitant exaggerations and simplpifications is the essence of model- making.
Economy: elegant solution to various techniques of enticing the audience into an imaginative, recreative effort
The consequence why someone know certain principles but cannot tell if an art is beautiful is that he utilizes the products of science and technology in a purely possessive, exploitive manner without comprehension or feeling, is impersonal and possessive. He doesn’t understand them because he have a participatory relationship to art
Modern man lives isolated in his artificial environment, not because the artificial is evil as such, but because of his lack of comprehension of the forces which make it work- of the principles which relate his gadgets to the forces of nature, to the univereal order. P 264
It is his refusal to take an interest in the principles behind it.
Closing his mind to it, leads the life of an urban barbarian.
The proffesor must make the students re live to some extent the creative process. He must be induced, with proper aid and guidance, to make some of the fundamental discoveries of science by himself, to experience in his own mind some of those flashes of insight which have lightened its path.
Paradoxes, blocked matrices, of Archimedes, Copernicus, etc should be reconstructed in their historical setting and presented in the form of riddles- with appropiate thints- to eager young mind. P 266
The most productive form of learning is problem-solving.
The traditional method of confronting the student not with the problem but with the finished solution, means depriving him of all excitement, to shut off the creative impulse, to reduce the adventure of mankind to a dusty heap of theorems” p 266
Art is a form of communication which aims at eliciting a re creative echo. Educations should be regarged as an art, and use the appropiate 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. P 266
The boredom of the scientist comes from technical jargon. Antiquated teaching methods, cultural prejudice.