The Act of Creation

by Arthur Koestler

  '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 wrote three centuries ago. Yet it is difficult and frustrating to write consciously on the unconscious, rationally on the irrational. It is rather like praising the beauties and expounding the grammar of the Sanskrit language -- but a Sanskrit which you speak only in your sleep and the command of which you lose when awake. Only fragments of it emerge to the surface -- disjointed memories and the testimonies of creative minds. When these fragments are pieced together, as best we can, they do not form a coherent pattern -- but they do provide evidence that such a pattern exists.

  Summary

  The interlocking of two previously unrelated skills or matrices of thought was again seen to constitute the basic pattern of discovery in the illustrative cases of Gutenberg, Kepler, and Darwin-Wallace (Chapter VI). Gutenberg combined the techniques of the wine-press and the seal; Kepler married physics to astronomy; Darwin connected biological evolution with the struggle for survival.

  On the question how the new synthesis comes into being, the evidence indicates that verbal thinking, and conscious thinking in general, plays only a subordinate part in the decisive phase of the creative act. Hadamard's inquiry among leading mathematicians in America revealed that 'practically all of them . . . avoid not only the use of mental words but also . . . the mental use of algebraic or any other signs'. On the testimony of those original thinkers who have taken the trouble to record their methods of work, this also seems to be the rule in other branches of science. Their virtually unanimous emphasis on spontaneous intuitions, unconscious guidance, and sudden leaps of imagination which they are at a loss to explain, suggests that the role of strictly rational thought-processes in scientific discovery has been vastly overestimated since the Age of Enlightenment; and that, contrary to the Cartesian bias in our beliefs, 'full consciousness', in the words of Einstein, 'is a limit case'.

  'Full consciousness' must indeed be regarded as the upper limit of a continuous gradient from focal awareness through peripheral awareness to total unawareness of an event. Awareness is a matter of degrees; and only a fraction of our multi-levelled activities at any moment enters the beam of focal consciousness. But this realization in itself provides no answer to the question how unconscious guidance works.

  We have approached that question in several cautious steps. First, I have tried to show that unconscious automatisms must not be confused, as they often are, with unconscious intuitions. To be able to recite the lines of Kubla Khan 'in one's sleep' is not the same thing as conceiving them in a dream; it is, in fact, the result of the opposite process. The formation and gradual automatization of habits of all kinds, of muscular, perceptual, thinking skills, follows the principle of economy. Once a new skill has been mastered, the controls begin to function automatically and can be dispatched underground, out of sight; and under stable conditions strategy too will tend to become stereotyped. I called this the 'downward' stream of mental traffic.

  The next step led us to inquire how in ordinary, routine thinking we explore the 'shallows' of our minds -- operating on the twilight peripheries of awareness, as it were. Galton's oft-quoted metaphor of the ante-chamber, from which the 'most closely allied' idea is summoned to the presence-chamber of the mind in a 'mechanically logical way', proved to be inadequate, because the order of precedence was seen to depend firstly, on the specific rules of the game in which the mind is engaged at the time, and secondly, on strategic considerations dependent on the lie of the land. Purposive thinking, then, may be compared to the scanning of a landscape with the narrow beam of focal vision -- whether it is a panorama, a chessboard, or an 'inner landscape'. Those features which are relevant to the purpose of the operation will stand out as 'members' of the matrix, while the rest sinks into the background. Thus the first act in skilled routine-thinking and problem-solving is the 'tuning-in' of the code appropriate to the task, guided by some obvious similarity with situations encountered in the past. This leads to the emergence of a matrix which provides a preliminary selection of possible moves; the actual moves depend on strategy, guided by feed-back, and distorted by emotional interferences.

  However, the problems which lead to original discoveries are precisely those which cannot be solved by any familiar rule of the game, because the matrices applied in the past to problems of similar nature have been rendered inadequate by new features or complexities in the situation, by new observational data, or a new type of question. The search for a clue, for Poincaré's 'good combination' which will unlock the blocked problem, proceeds on several planes, involving unconscious processes at various levels of depth.

  In a general way this simultaneous activity on various levels, during the period of incubation, in itself creates a state of receptivity, a readiness of the 'prepared mind' to pounce on favourable chance-constellations, and to profit from any casual hint (Gutenberg and the wine-press, Archimedes, Pasteur, Darwin, Fleming). In discoveries of this type, where both rational thinking and the trigger-action of chance play a noticeable part, the function of the unconscious seems to be mainly to keep the problem constantly on the agenda, even while conscious attention is occupied elsewhere. In this context the word 'unconscious' refers primarily to processes (such as perceptions and memories) which occur fairly low down on the gradient of awareness.

  But in other types of discovery the unconscious plays a more specific, guiding role by bringing forms of ideation into play which otherwise manifest themselves only in dreaming and related states. Their codes function more or less permanently 'underground', because they govern the type of thinking prevalent in childhood and in primitive societies, which has been superseded in the normal adult by techniques of thought which are more rational and realistic -- or are considered as such. These ancient, quasi-archaeological layers in the mental hierarchy form a world apart, as it were, glimpses of which we get in the dream; their existence is a kind of historic record, which testifies to the facts of mental evolution; and they must not be confused with automatized skills which, once mastered, function unawares, for reasons of mental economy. (It would perhaps be preferable to call these 'archeological' strata of the mind the 'sub-conscious', to distinguish them from processes of which we are merely un-conscious because they happen to rank low on the linear scale of awareness. But the Freudian connotations of the word subconscious would probably lead to confusion of a different kind.)

  The period of incubation represents a reculer pour mieux sauter. Just as in the dream the codes of logical reasoning are suspended, so 'thinking aside' is a temporary liberation from the tyranny of over-precise verbal concepts, of the axioms and prejudices engrained in the very texture of specialized ways of thought. It allows the mind to discard the strait-jacket of habit, to shrug off apparent contradictions, to un-learn and forget -- and to acquire, in exchange, a greater fluidity, versatility, and gullibility. This rebellion against constraints which are necessary to maintain the order and discipline of conventional thought, but an impediment to the creative leap, is symptomatic both of the genius and the crank; what distinguishes them is the intuitive guidance which only the former enjoys.

  Though Poincaré was doubtless one of its beneficiaries, I have quoted his hypothesis regarding the nature of that guidance -- the automatic mixing machine in the basement -- as an example of a mechanistic explanation. In fact, however, the underground games of the mind were seen to be of a highly sophisticated, visionary and witty nature, although its rules are not those of formal logic. The dreamer constantly bisociates -- innocently as it were -- frames of reference which are regarded as incompatible in the waking state; he drifts effortlessly from matrix to matrix, without being aware of it; in his inner landscape, the bisociative techniques of humour and discovery are reflected upside down, like trees in a pond. The most fertile region seems to be the marshy shore, the borderland between sleep and full awakening -- where the matrices of disciplined thought are already operating b
ut have not yet sufficiently hardened to obstruct the dreamlike fluidity of imagination.*

  I have discussed various bisociative devices in which the matchmaking activities of the unconscious manifest themselves: the substitution of vague visual images for precise verbal formulations; symbolization, concretization, and impersonation; mergers of sound and sense, of form and function; shifts of emphasis, and reasoning in reverse gear; guidance by nascent analogies. In day-dreaming, and in most dreams of ordinary mortals, these activities are free-wheeling or serving intimately personal ends; in the inspired moments of artists and scientists they are harnessed to the creative purpose.

  The moment of truth, the sudden emergence of a new insight, is an act of intuition. Such intuitions give the appearance of miraculous flashes, or short-circuits of reasoning. In fact they may be likened to an immersed chain, of which only the beginning and the end are visible above the surface of consciousness. The diver vanishes at one end of the chain and comes up at the other end, guided by invisible links.

  Habit and originality, then, point in opposite directions in the two-way traffic between conscious and unconscious processes. The condensation of learning into habit, and the automatization of skills constitute the downward stream; while the upward traffic consists in the minor, vitalizing pulses from the underground, and the rare major surges of creation.

  NOTES

  To p. 192. Jung's emphasis on the mandala as the symbol of the coincidencia oppositorum concerns the reconciliation of opposites in the fully integrated person -- which is an altogether different question.

  To p. 202. Half a century earlier, the cracklings and sparks produced by rubbing a piece of amber had been compared to lightning and thunder by Wall, a friend of Boyle's; but as the context shows, the comparison was meant in a purely metaphorical way.

  To p. 210. ' . . . Einstein has reported that his profound generalization connecting space and time occurred to him while he was sick in bed. Descartes is said to have made his discoveries while lying in bed in the morning and both Cannon and Poincaré report having got bright ideas when lying in bed unable to sleep -- the only good thing to be said for insomnia! It is said that James Brindley, the great engineer, when up against a difficult problem, would go to bed for several days till it was solved. Walter Scott wrote to a friend:

  The half-hour between waking and rising has all my life proved propitious to any task which was exercising my invention. . . . It was always when I first opened my eyes that the desired ideas thronged upon me. (Beveridge, W.I.B., 1950, pp. 73-4).

  IX

  THE SPARK AND THE FLAME

  False Inspirations

  I have discussed the genesis of the Eureka act -- the sudden shaking together of two previously uncormected matrices; let us now turn to the aftermath of it.

  If all goes well, that single, explosive contact will lead to a lasting fusion of the two matrices -- a new synthesis will emerge, a further advance in mental evolution will have been achieved. On the other hand, the inspiration may have been a mirage; or premature; or not sufficiently impressive to be believed in.

  A stimulating inquiry by the American chemists Platt and Barker showed that among those scientists who answered their questionnaire, eighty-three per cent claimed frequent or occasional assistance from unconscious intuitions. But at the same time only seven per cent among them asserted that their intuitions were always correct; the remainder estimated the percentage of their 'false intuitions' variously at ten to ninety per cent.

  A false inspiration is not an ordinary error committed in the course of a routine operation, such as making a mistake in counting. It is a kind of inspired blunder which presents itself in the guise of an original synthesis, and carries the same subjective conviction as Archimedes's cry did. Let me quote Poincaré once more:

  I have spoken of the feeling of absolute certitude accompanying the inspiration; often this feeling deceives us without it being any the less vivid. . . . When a sudden illumination seizes upon the mind of the mathematician, it usually happens that it does not deceive him, but it also sometimes happens, that it does not stand the test of verification; well, we almost always notice that this false idea, had it been true, would have gratified our natural feeling for mathematical elegance. [1]

  The previous chapters may have given the mistaken impression that the genius need only listen to his Socratian demon and all will be well. But the demon is a great hoaxer -- precisely because he is not bound by the codes of disciplined thought; and every original thinker who relies, as he must, on his unconscious hunches, incurs much greater risks to his career and sanity than his more pedestrian colleagues. 'The world little knows', wrote Faraday, 'how many of the thoughts and theories which have passed through the mind of a scientific investigator have been crushed in silence and secrecy; that in the most successful instances not a tenth of the suggestions, the hopes, the wishes, the preliminary conclusions have been realized.' [2] Darwin, Huxley, and Planck, among many others, made similar confessions; Einstein lost 'two years of hard work' owing to a false inspiration. 'The imagination', wrote Beveridge, 'merely enables us to wander into the darkness of the unknown where, by the dim light of the knowledge that we carry, we may glimpse something that seems of interest. But when we bring it out and examine it more closely it usually proves to be only trash whose glitter had caught our attention. Imagination is at once the source of all hope and inspiration but also of frustration. To forget this is to court despair.' [3]

  All through his life Kepler hoped to prove that the motions of the planets round the sun obeyed certain musical laws, the harmonies of the spheres. When he was approaching fifty, he thought he had succeeded. The following is one of the rare instances on record of a genius describing the heady effect ofa false inspiration -- Kepler never discovered that he was the victim of a delusion:

  The thing which dawned on me twenty-five years ago before I had yet discovered the five perfect bodies between the heavenly orbits; which sixteen years ago I proclaimed as the ultimate aim of all research; which caused me to devote the best years of my life to astronomical studies, to join Tycho Brahe and to choose Prague as my residence -- that I have, with the aid of God, who set my enthusiasm on fire and stirred in me an irrepressible desire, who kept my life and intelligence alert -- that I have now at long last brought to light. Having perceived the first glimmer of dawn eighteen months ago, the light of day three months ago, but only a few days ago the plain sun of a most wonderful vision -- nothing shall now hold me back. Yes, I give myself up to holy raving. If you forgive me, I shall rejoice. If you are angry, I shall bear it. Behold, I have cast the dice, and I am writing a book either for my contemporaries, or for posterity. It is all the same to me. It may wait a hundred years for a reader, since God has also waited six thousand years for a witness. [4]

  T. H. Huxley has said that the tragedies of science are the slayings of beautiful hypotheses by ugly facts. Against this tragedy, at least, the artist seems to be immune. On the other hand, it is generally believed that the scientist can at least rely on the verification of his intuitions by experiment, whereas the artist has no such objective tests to decide whether or not he should burn his manuscript, or slash his canvas to pieces.

  In fact, however, 'verification by experiment' can never yield absolute certainty, and when it comes to controversial issues the data can usually be interpreted in more than one way. The history of medicine is full of obvious and distressing examples of this. In physics and chemistry too, the best we can do by so-called 'crucial experiments' is to confirm a prediction -- but not the theory on which the prediction is based (see below, pp 240-6); and scientific controversies about the interpretation of experimental results have been just as passionate and subjective as controversies between theologians or art critics. If a hunch is drastically contradicted by experiment, it will of course be abandoned. But, by and large, scientists are inclined to trust their intuitions; and if confronted with experiments which give ambiguous or divergent results
, either to declare -- as Einstein once did -- that 'the facts are wrong'; or -- as Hobbes did -- that 'the instance is so particular and singular, that 'tis scarce worth our observing'; or to resort to the standard phrase that the unfavourable experimental result is due 'to unknown sources of error' -- hoping that some day, somehow, it will all work out. Modern theoretical physics lives to a large extent on that hope. Thus verifiability is a matter of degrees, and neither the artist, nor the scientist who tries to break new ground, can hope ever to achieve absolute certainty.

  Premature Linkages

  I have mentioned discoveries which were the happy outcome of a comedy of errors. No less frequent are those tragedies in the history of thought, where the right kind of intuition begets wrong results -- faulty integrations, premature births.

  The first attempt to describe physical reality by mathematical relations was made in the sixth century B.C. by the Pythagorean Brotherhood -- a religious, scientific, and political Order which wielded great power in the south of Italy. They succeeded in explaining musical quality by quantitative laws, and believed that ultimately 'all things are numbers'.