Chase, Chance, and Creativity

by James H Austin

  Obviously, there will be some connections between the personal illustrations in the first part and the discussions in the third part, but I am hesitant to join them. My preference is to let you establish links when you can, and make the connections for your own reasons, not for mine or anyone else's. More will be gained by giving free reign to your own imagination than by my trying to force, prematurely, a tight sense of literary, psychological, or scientific unity.

  What is creativity, anyway? As Fox has indicated above, the field doesn't abound in certainties. Moreover, as Tannenbaum observes, there is already a "growing mythology" in the "creativity movement."' Creativity not only starts as a composite phenomenon, as clusters of abilities, difficult to tease apart, but its elements thereafter have a quicksilver quality. No two people look at the creative experience exactly the same way. I believe this diversity of views means at least three things: (1) a "pure" definition of creativity differs from person to person, and from people in one discipline to those in another; (2) the creative experience itself differs among individuals; (3) creativity is not always the same even in the same person.

  Many traits go into creativity. Therefore, if you lack one ability, you can compensate for it with an excess of another. This slippery quality makes creativity an elusive target to define by psychological tests, because no one ability correlates with it 100 percent.

  Some would restrict creativity solely to the flash of creative inspiration. I can't agree. I would emphasize that these brief moments are rare, that they have a long prelude, and that they must be followed up if they are to be productive. Still, whenever you have an intense episode of illumination, you know that it is a profound and very special experience. To my knowledge, no electroencephalographic studies using electrodes applied to the scalp have yet been made of human "brain waves" during a major moment of inspiration. (Who would be a normal volunteer for a study in which the recording was made from wires placed deeper in the brain where most of "the action" is?)

  Clearly, our present knowledge of the creative process is still incomplete, but perhaps, one hundred years from now, some conceptions will emerge that are much more factual than those considered here. For the moment then, it will serve our purposes to be somewhat flexible in our definition of terms.

  Creativity I will use the word to refer in a general way to the long and complex series of interactions between an individual and his environment that culminate in something new.

  Creative process This maybe thought of in two ways. The dichotomy illustrates the nature of our problem with definitions. A neuroscientist would regard the creative process as the basic, still unknown, set of internal neurophysiological and neurochemical events which determine creative activity and go on during it. Currently, however, the term is chiefly used in the descriptive sense to convey imperfectly in words the series of mental events culminating in a novel idea or other new product. We are still talking about "the mind" when we ought to be knowing more about the brain.

  Creative experience Creativity is perceived in oneself and observed in others. Still, our central source of information will always be what one individual experiences within himself during his own creative activity. Unfortunately, through the years, this personal information has become intermingled with the educated guesses of others about what the creator is experiencing. Moreover, hypotheses about the mechanism (or mechanisms) which might underlie the creative experience have also added their subtle influence. We inherit more of a hodgepodge than is generally appreciated.

  Creativity in science This may be considered the creative ability associated with something new, reproducible, and significant in a scientific field.

  One distinction is worth examining: that between a discovery and an invention. A discovery implies that something already exists, that it has been uncovered and brought to light. An invention, on the other hand, implies that something new has been created. We should not, however, assume that an invention is inherently a more creative act than a discovery. It is the specific operational details in each instance that are important. Suppose, for example, that you happened to discover a biological principle in 1978. A minor matter, it might seem, for surely it had existed since time immemorial. Still, in order to formulate the principle you might first have had to make a complete break in your traditional patterns of thinking and then develop a brand new concept. Thus, it could be said that Einstein "only" discovered the basic principle E = mc', for it was "there" all the time. Yet this does not detract from the immensity of his achievement, nor does the fact that to express his vision he borrowed five symbols, in use for centuries, and arranged them into a sequence never used before.

  Let us go back still further to 1492. We know that Columbus didn't "invent" the New World. It was already there; he had "only" to discover it. But to do so, at the age of forty-one, he had to trust in the relatively new notion that the earth was round, sail west with the assumption that he would not fall off the sharp edge of a flat earth (and first, incidentally, raise funds from Ferdinand and Isabella to finance the whole enterprise).

  Certain inventions can be relatively trivial modifications of existing technologies; others, such as the invention of the wheel, can have enormous impact on mankind. Whether discovery or invention, we assess it as a creative act by the length of the leap of imagination and the extent of progress involved. Even then, our value judgments tend to be inexact; we don't know precisely what thoughts were going on inside the brain of the person at the moment he had the idea nor do we usually comprehend how difficult was the state of the art at the time he began.

  As we survey what we don't know about creativity, some of the problems confronting us are analogous to those encountered in trying to understand an unknown disease. That is, much of what we now know about creativity is still down at the primitive clinical level of symptoms and signs. Impressive as symptoms and signs are, they do not constitute the "disease" in the medical sense. Similarly, in creativity, we do have some preliminary information but it is still quite descriptive. Take for example, the major sequences identified by Hughes' in the creative process:

  (In practice, investigators jump back and forth from one to another, so the steps do not necessarily follow in sequence.)

  It is useful to have words to describe these stages, for they remind us, at least, that the brain does not function the same way throughout the whole process. Earlier, we also saw that it does help us begin to understand a disease if we have a few words to describe it in clinical terms. But a description is not an explanation, and an understanding of symptoms still leaves us many steps removed from knowing the ultimate neurochemical and pathophysiological causes of a disease. Similar gaps block our understanding of creativity. As Fox has observed, not until we understand the basic mechanisms and elements of thinking itself will we be iii a position to understand the creative process.' This, then, is a major problem.

  How might we proceed from where we are to where we want to be? Let us consider one way: a naive experiment that might be designed to study "creative thinking." Impressive hurdles, both technological and ethical, stand in the way of this kind of experiment in man. But bear with this heuristic approach for the moment, if only because it gives a view of the magnitude of the problem.

  Start with a chimpanzee, a banana beyond his reach, and a stick long enough to retrieve the banana. A moment of creative illumination would be defined when the chimp discovers he can use the stick to get the banana. Weeks earlier, fine wires (recording electrodes) would have been inserted into discrete regions of the brain. Similar wires attached to the body would also permit heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing to be monitored. All these wires would lead out to a special small box which would be so attached to the chimp that it would not hamper his movements. This box would then transmit all the physiological information about which of his nerve cells were firing, and when, to a distant recording instrument.} Note that we can already anticipate a problem in interpretation, for we would like, if possible, to
distinguish between two things: one, the processes that link up a variety of facts to form a new idea; the other, the chimp's subsequent reactions to this new idea.

  Biochemical changes would also be looked for. During the earlier operation, small tubes would also be inserted into the fluid normally bathing the spaces inside and outside the brain. These tubes would wash and drain the fluid into outside receptacles. Fresh fluid would be collected at regular intervals and later analyzed chemically for several neurotransmitter substances. These chemical substances, normally passing out of the brain into the fluid, would provide some general idea of the biochemical events corresponding with those that are neurophysiological. The routine neurochemical and neurophysiological events that occur during the chimp's routine daily activities would be recorded and later contrasted with those taking place during his special moment of "creative thinking," thus defined. Given this battery of information, we would hope to learn more about what goes on during the creative process. The experiment need not end at this stage, for one day we may safely be able to add newer drugs or superimpose psychological conditioning to enhance the effectiveness of the creative process.

  The chimp experiment, reasonably naive, direct, and primitive, lies within the technological and conceptual limitations of today. Yet, even by present standards, it does not begin to measure the complexity of the creative process. Creativity, as we shall soon see, involves incredibly more than the fresh idea that the stick can reach the banana. The latest generation of neuroimaging techniques offers multiple portals and high degrees of resolution. You might think this would make it easier to study human subjects while their brains are engaged in tasks of "creative problem solving." Research so far seems to confirm that just to think "intelligently" is already an intricate global process, at least to the degree that subjects seem able to come up with fresh solutions to tests designed by (logical) researchers, using approaches that seem reasonably logical, if not always predictable.

  It will come as no surprise that multiple brain regions interact when anyone arrives at a relatively simple intelligent thought. But, beyond the requisite degrees of intelligence per se lies the kind of major creative leaps we're most curious about. These rare leaps escape from ordinary common sense. Their "logic" is unconventional. And though their creative product might appear to have been artfully contrived, it has grasped hold of, and united, novel relationships with seemingly artless ease. Intuitive leaps of this rare kind and degree are proving far more difficult to isolate and measure with assurance, using current experimental designs and neuroimaging methods, than are standard forms of what we regard as intelligence. Meanwhile, speculation continues.

  22

  The Creative Personality: Pro

  Creativity may be conceived of as an exercise of the configurative powers of the whole psyche, involving all its substance, the play of its entire energy.

  Brewster Ghiselin

  Everyone wonders, introspectively, "how did I get that way?" I have never been able to identify one element in isolation in myself. Nor have there been two, or three. Instead, a multiplicity of elements interacted: the whole life style participated in problem solving.

  I have been curious to know which ingredients, in combination, make up a creative personality. Searching the literature, I encountered four groups of characteristics. Lists have the disadvantage of breaking up a narrative flow, and you may wonder why they are included here. My reasons are threefold. First, I find that each characteristic rings true, although for me, some are more valid than others. I have indicated the traits that I weigh highly by an open star (w). Second, as you look over these traits, you can clearly see that a spectrum of characteristics is involved. Third, no one list is complete in itself. This probably means something. It suggests that each of the different authors has emphasized those characteristics closest to his own modus operandi or those which he believes others use. If you are someone who is stunned by long lists, by all means skip over them in this and subsequent chapters. But if you are not, and wish to linger, you will find your creative self defined here and there. For everyone is creative, even though the kind and degree of creativity varies observably from person to person.

  We begin with the observation that creative traits can be identified early in life. Witty, Conant, and Strang' suggest that creative people have, when they are still children, the following major characteristics:

  A sensitive perception of details in the world of nature and the world of man;

  an awareness of and concern about unsolved problems-the attitude of inquiry;

  fluency of thought. Ideas come readily; later they are evaluated for quality and logic;

  " concentration-ability to enter wholeheartedly and personally into an experience;

  integration-ability to find unity in the diversity of nature, to discover unexpected likenesses, and to relate or connect things not previously related or connected;

  flexibility and spontaneity guided by a goal or purpose;

  originality and individuality. The creative person has the courage and inner directedness to resist conformity. Not content with what is now accepted, he looks forward to what may be accepted;

  ability to analyze and abstract;

  r ability to synthesize;

  ,6 ability to go beyond the facts and discern new implications, to imagine more than evidence obviously shows, to speculate on relations that may not at present be verifiable;

  * keen satisfaction in creative activities;

  ~~ vivid imagery;

  Superior abstract and verbal intelligence.

  Flexibility is noted above, but we must distinguish between two kinds of flexibility.' One is the tendency to shift from one category of meaning to another, from one kind of logically defined entity to another. This logical approach is regulated both by the structured rules of concept formation, and is limited by what we can absorb from our culture. Not surprisingly, it involves the kind of flexibility that correlates with general intelligence. The second type of flexibility is much more loose or even unstructured. It involves a meandering of attention, a readiness to free associate, to daydream, to unleash one's thoughts into broad unclassified paths only tangentially related either to the starting point or to each other. This latter kind of flexibility correlates with the rapid production of original ideas. In the former, the word "dog" might lead to "bark" (as a vocalization). In the latter, the word "dog" might lead to "bone," thence to "cave," and from there on perhaps to "painting" or even to a variety of chance.

  It is no simple matter to disentangle "pure" creativity from general intelligence using psychological tests. What the more creative have is the ability to generate large numbers of ideas.` The more ideas there are, the more unique some of them will be. But, if some of our ideas are to prove useful, our ideational fluency (our ability to "ride associative currents") must sooner or later be coupled with yet another capability. For we must rapidly discard irrelevant ideas, however original, that simply won't fit. It is not enough to generate a spectrum of novel possibilities; we must sift out the good ones, next make our trial and error mistakes as fast as possible,; and, finally, like a bulldog, hang on to what seems to be the most practical solution. (When this, too, proves inadequate, we have to be willing to go back, pick up the pieces, and start again.)

  Wallach and Kogan also point out that the creative tend to have a playful attitude and view their job more as a game than a task.' They may be on the most serious quest and experience many agonies along the route, but many creative persons still are aware, at least at some point, that they are joyfully engaged in a kind of a game, one in which they have at least a sporting chance.

  Thus far we have talked about creativity in general. What about creativity in science? Here, we find ourselves adopting a more restrictive point of view. For in science, we see the creative process sustained in relation to a product--one that is novel, significant, completed, and reproducible. And, often as not, chance can play a key role in determining the novelty
. What sort of person becomes creatively engaged in scientific activities? How well does he conform to the popular image of the "mad scientist" portrayed in the cartoons by Lichty or Dr. Suess? Is he a middle-aged eccentric, bald and bespectacled, with a crazed gleam in his eyes, surrounded by bubbling vats at his laboratory bench? Well, yes and no.

  Common observation tells us that scientists as a whole do tend to share certain characteristics. What we really want to know is precisely which characteristics determine the most fruitful final outcome, and which are irrelevant. This means that we ought to know much more than the demographic and psychological characteristics of a few scientists judged to be outstandingly creative. We must also find out which of the many characteristics relevant to creativity are the ones that sharply separate these most creative individuals from their less successful cohorts-from that much larger number of other scientists born at the same time, raised and educated in the same favorable setting, who have not gone on to make such major contributions. This latter kind of information, called cohort analysis, is very difficult to come by. It requires carefully controlled research on large numbers of scientists of varying degrees of creativity. Still, this information will be fundamental to our total understanding of the creative process.

  A composite creative American scientist emerges from the existing literature on creativity somewhat as follows. His roots are sunk in the soil of a liberal era, dynamically oriented toward science and technology. It is this yeasty cultural milieu that has stimulated him to seek out new experiences in scientific fields. He tends to be of middle to upper middle-class Anglo-Saxon-German origin, and has a Protestant religious affiliation. He may have a father in one of the professions for whom his feelings are more those of a high regard than of love. Both parents have probably completed high school, may have gone to college, and have maintained a wide range of intellectual interests. This family setting has encouraged him to undertake almost any kind of exploratory activity. Whether as a first-born son or one much older than his next siblings, he tends to be placed early on his own resources." Somewhat late in developing socially, he is on the shy side, belongs to few clubs except those related to science, and may not date steadily until well into college. He spends much time in a systematic pursuit of his own areas of interest, mostly alone, but sometimes with another boy or two of similar interests. He is an avid reader, poor at maintaining family ties, and this general orientation towards ideas and things rather than people appears early and changes rather little.' In contrast to the natural scientist summarized above, the social scientist has an early interest and involvement with others. It seems possible that the physician-investigator may reflect a mixture of the two.