pointing in that direction have been obtained; this work was carried
out using a substance called tricyano-aminopropene.
* Ribonucleic acid, a key substance in the genetic apparatus.
... The application of a substance changing the rate of
production and composition of RNA and provoking enzyme changes
in the functional units of the central nervous system has both
negative and positive aspects. There is now evidence that the
administration of tricyano-aminopropene is followed by an increased
suggestibility in man. This being the case, a defined change of such
a functionally important substance as the RNA in the brain could
be used for conditioning. The author is not referring specifically
to tricyano-aminopropene, but to any substance inducing changes
of biologically important molecules in the neurons and the glia
and affecting the mental state in a negative direction. It is not
difficult to imagine the possible uses to which a government in
a police-controlled state could put this substance. For a time
they would subject the population to hard conditions. Suddenly
the hardship would be removed, and at the same time, the substance
would be added to the tap water and the mass-communications media
turned on. This method would be much cheaper, and would create
more intriguing possibilities than to let Ivanov treat Rubashov
individually for a long time, as Koestler described in his book.
On the other hand, a counter-measure against the effect of a substance
such as tricyano-aminopropene is not difficult to imagine either. [1]
The last sentence is formulated with caution, but the implications are clear. However shocking this may sound, if our sick species is to be saved, salvation will come, not from UNO resolutions and diplomatic summits, but from the biological laboratories. It stands to reason that a biological malfunction needs a biological corrective.
2
It would be naive to expect that drugs can present the mind with gratis gifts, and put into it something which is not already there. Neither mystic insights, nor philosophical wisdom, nor creative power can be provided by pill or injection. The biochemist cannot add to the faculties of the brain -- but he can eliminate obstructions and blockages which impede their proper use. He cannot put additional circuits into the brain, but he can improve coordination between existing ones and enhance the power of the neocortex -- the apex of the hierarchy -- over the lower, emotion-bound levels and the blind passions engendered by them. Our present tranquillizers, barbiturates, stimulants, anti-depressants and combinations thereof are merely a first step towards more sophisticated aids to promote a balanced state of mind, immune against the sirens' song, the barking of demagogues and false Messiahs. Not the Pop-Nirvana procured by LSD or the soma pills of Brave New World, but a state of dynamic equilibrium in which the divided house of faith and reason is reunited and hierarchic order restored.
3
I first published these hopeful speculations -- as the only alternative to despair that I could (and can) see -- in the concluding chapter of The Ghost in the Machine. Among the many negative criticisms which it brought in its wake, the one most frequently voiced accused me of proposing the manufacture of a little pill which would suppress all feeling and emotion and reduce us to the equanimity of cabbages. This charge, sometimes uttered with great vehemence, was based on a complete misreading of the text. What I proposed was not the castration of emotion, but reconciling emotion and reason which through most of man's schizophrenic history have been at loggerheads. Not an amputation, but a process of harmonization which assigns each level of the mind, from visceral impulses to abstract thought, its appropriate place in the hierarchy. This implies reinforcing the new brain's power of veto against that type of emotive behaviour -- and that type only -- which cannot be reconciled with reason, such as the 'blind' passions of the group-mind. If these could be eradicated, our species would be safe.
There are blind emotions and visionary emotions. Who in his senses would advocate doing away with the emotions aroused while listening to Mozart or looking at a rainbow?
4
Any individual living today who asserted that he had made a pact with the devil and had intercourse with succubi would be promptly dispatched to a mental home. Yet not so long ago, belief in such things was taken for granted and approved by common sense -- i.e., the consensus of opinion, i.e., the group-mind. Psychopharmacology is playing an increasing part in the treatment of mental disorders in the clinical sense, such as individual delusions which affect the critical faculties and are not sanctioned by the group-mind. But we are concerned with a cure for the paranoid streak in what we call 'normal people', which is revealed when they become victims of group-mentality. As we already have drugs to increase man's suggestibility, it will soon be within our reach to do the opposite: to reinforce man's critical faculties, counteract misplaced devotion and that militant enthusiasm, both murderous and suicidal, which is reflected in history books and the pages of the daily paper.
But who is to decide which brand of devotion is misplaced, and which beneficial to mankind? The answer seems obvious: a society composed of autonomous individuals, once they are immunized against the hypnotic effects of propaganda and thought-control, and protected against their own suggestibility as 'belief-accepting animals'. But this protection cannot be provided by counter-propaganda or drop-out attitudes; they are self-defeating. It can only be done by 'tampering' with human nature itself to correct its endemic schizophysiological disposition. History tells us that nothing less will do.
5
Assuming that the laboratories succeed in producing an immunizing substance conferring mental stability -- how are we to propagate its global use? Are we to ram it down people's throats, whether they like it or not?
Again the answer seems obvious. Analgesics, pep pills, tranquillizers, contraceptives have, for better or worse, swept across the world with a minimum of publicity or official encouragement. They spread because people welcomed their effects. The use of a mental stabilizer would spread not by coercion but by enlightened self-interest; from then on, developments are as unpredictable as the consequences of any revolutionary discovery. A Swiss canton may decide, after a public referendum, to add the new substance to the iodine in the table salt, or the chlorine in the water supply, for a trial period, and other countries may imitate their example. There might be an international fashion among the young. In one way or the other, the simulated mutation would get under way. It is possible that totalitarian countries would try to resist it. But today even Iron Curtains have become porous; fashions are spreading irresistibly. And should there be a transitional period during which one side alone went ahead, it would gain a decisive advantage because it would be more rational in its long-term policies, less frightened and less hysterical. In conclusion, let me quote from The Ghost in the Machine:
Every writer has a favourite type of imaginary reader, a friendly
phantom but highly critical, with whom he is engaged in a continuous,
exhausting dialogue. I feel sure that my friendly phantom-reader has
sufficient imagination to extrapolate from the recent breath-taking
advances of biology into the future, and to concede that the solution
outlined here is in the realm of the possible. What worries me is
that he might be repelled and disgusted by the idea that we should
rely for our salvation on molecular chemistry instead of a spiritual
rebirth. I share his distress, but I see no alternative. I hear him
explain: 'By trying to sell us your Pills, you are adopting that
crudely materialistic attitude and naive scientific hubris which you
pretend to oppose.' I still oppose it. But I do not believe
that
it is 'materialistic' to take a realistic view of the condition
of man; nor is it hubris to feed thyroid extracts to children who
would otherwise grow into cretins . . . Like the reader, I would
prefer to set my hopes on moral persuasion by word and example. But
we are a mentally sick race, and as such deaf to persuasion. It
has been tried from the age of the prophets to Albert Schweitzer;
and Swift's anguished cry: 'Not die here in a rage, like a poisoned
rat in a hole,' has acquired an urgency as never before.
Nature has let us down, God seems to have left the receiver off the
hook, and time is running out. To hope for salvation to be synthesised
in the laboratory may seem materialistic, crankish or naive; it
reflects the ancient alchemist's dream to concoct the elixir
vitae. What we expect from it, however, is not eternal life,
but the transformation of homo maniacus into homo sapiens. [2]
This is the only alternative to despair which I can read into the shape of things to come.
We can now move to more cheerful horizons.
PART TWO
The Creative Mind
VI
HUMOUR AND WIT
I
The theory of human creativity which I developed in earlier books [1] endeavours to show that all creative activities -- the conscious and unconscious processes underlying the three domains of artistic originality, scientific discovery and comic inspiration -- have a basic pattern in common, and to describe that pattern. The three panels of the triptych on page 110 indicate these three domains, which shade into each other without sharp boundaries. The meaning of the diagram will become apparent as the argument unfolds.
The three domains of creativity
The creative process is, oddly enough, most clearly revealed in humour and wit. But this will appear less odd if we remember that 'wit is an ambiguous term, relating to both witticism and to ingenuity or inventiveness.* The jester and the explorer both live on their wits, and we shall see that the jester's riddles provide a convenient back-door entry, as it were, into the inner sanctum of creative originality. Hence this inquiry will start with an analysis of the comic.** It may be thought that I have allowed a disproportionate amount of space to humour, but it is meant to serve, as I said, as a back-door approach to the creative process in science and art. Besides, it can also be read as a self-contained essay -- and it may provide the reader with some light relief.
* 'Wit' stems from witan, understanding, whose roots go back to
the Sanskrit veda, knowledge. The German Witz
means both joke and acumen; it comes from wissen, to know;
Wissenschaft, science, is a close kin to Furwitz and
Aberwitz -- presumption, cheek, and jest. French teaches the
same lesson. Spirituel may either mean witty or spiritually
profound; 'to amuse' comes from to muse' (a-muser), and a
witty remark is a jeu d'esprit -- a playful, mischievous
form of discovery.
** This chapter is based on the summary of the theory which I contributed
to the fifteenth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. [2]
2
Humour, in all its many-splendour'd varieties, can be simply defined as a type of stimulation which tends to elicit the laughter reflex. Spontaneous laughter is a motor reflex, produced by the coordinated contraction of fifteen facial muscles in a stereotyped pattern and accompanied by altered breathing. Electrical stimulation of the zygomatic major, the main lifting muscle of the upper lip with currents of varying intensity, produces facial expressions ranging from the faint smile through the broad grin, to the contortions typical of explosive laughter. [3] (The laughter and smile of civilized man is of course often of a conventional kind where voluntary effort deputizes for, or interferes with, spontaneous reflex activity; we are concerned, however, only with the latter.)
Once we realize that laughter is a humble reflex, we are immediately faced with several paradoxes. Motor reflexes, such as the contraction of the pupil of the eye in dazzling light, are simple responses to simple stimuli, whose value in the service of survival is obvious. But the involuntary contraction -- of fifteen facial muscles associated with certain irrepressible noises strikes one as an activity without any practical value, quite unrelated to the struggle for survival. Laughter is a reflex, but unique in that it has no apparent biological utility. One might call it a luxury reflex. Its only purpose seems to be to provide temporary relief from the stress of purposeful activities.
The second, related paradox is a striking discrepancy between the nature of the stimulus and that of the response in humorous transactions. When a blow beneath the knee-cap causes an automatic upward kick, both 'stimulus' and 'response' function on the same primitive physiological level, without requiring the intervention of higher mental functions. But that such a complex mental activity as reading a story by James Thurber should cause a specific reflex-contraction of the facial musculature is a phenomenon which has puzzled philosophers since Plato. There is no clear-cut, predictable response which would tell a lecturer whether he has succeeded in convincing his listeners; but when he is telling a joke, laughter serves as an experimental test. Humour is the only form of communication in which a stimulus on a high level of complexity produces a stereotyped, predictable response on the physiological reflex level. This enables us to use the response as an indicator for the presence of that elusive quality that we call humour -- as we use the click of the Geiger counter to indicate the presence of radioactivity. Such a procedure is not possible in any other form of art; and since the step from the sublime to the ridiculous is reversible, the study of humour provides the psychologist with important clues for the study of creativity in general.
3
The range of laughter-provoking experiences is enormous, from physical tickling to mental titillations of the most varied and sophisticated kinds. I shall attempt to demonstrate that there is unity in this variety, a common denominator of a specific and specifiable pattern which reflects the 'logic' or 'grammar' of humour. A few examples will help to unravel that pattern.
(a) A masochist is a person who likes a cold shower in the morning,
so he takes a hot one.
(b) An English lady, on being asked by a friend what she thought of
her departed husband's whereabouts: 'Well, I suppose the poor soul
is enjoying eternal bliss, but I wish you wouldn't talk about such
unpleasant subjects.'*
* This is a variant of Russell's anecdote
in the Prologue.
(c) A doctor comforts his patient: 'You have a very serious disease.
Of ten persons who catch it only one survives. It is lucky you
came to me, for I have recently had nine patients with this disease
and they all died of it.'
(d) Dialogue in a film by Claude Bern:
'Sir, I would like to ask for your daughter's hand.'
'Why not? You have akeady had the rest.'
(e) A marquis at the court of Louis XV unexpectedly returned from a
journey and, on entering his wife's boudoir, found her in the arms
of a bishop. After a moment's hesitation the marquis walked calmly
to the window, leaned out and began going through the motions of
blessing the people in the Street.
'What are you doing?' cried the anguished wife.
'Monseigneur is performing my functions, so I am performing his.'
Is there a common pattern underlying these five stories? Starting with the last, we discover after a little reflection that the marquis's behaviour is both unexpected and perfectly logical -- but of a logic not usually applied to this type of situation. It is the logic of the division of labour, governed by rules as old as human civilization. But we expected that his
reactions would be governed by a different set of rules -- the code of sexual morality. It is the sudden clash between these two mutually exclusive codes of rules -- or associative contexts, or cognitive holons -- which produces the comic effect. It compels us to perceive the situation in two self-consistent but incompatible frames of reference at the same time; it makes us function simultaneously on two different wave-lengths. While this unusual condition lasts, the event is not, as is normally the case, associated with a single frame of reference, but bisociated with two.
I have coined the term 'bisociation' to make a distinction between the routines of disciplined thinking within a single universe of discourse -- on a single plane, as it were -- and the creative types of mental activity which always operate on more than one plane. In humour, both the creation of a subtle joke and the re-creative act of perceiving the joke, involve the delightful mental jolt of a sudden leap from one plane or associative context to another.
Let us turn to our other examples. In the film dialogue, the daughter's 'hand' is perceived first in a metaphorical frame of reference, then suddenly in a literal, bodily context. The doctor thinks in terms of statistical probabilities, the rules of which are inapplicable to individual cases; and there is an added twist because, in contrast to what naive common sense suggests, the patient's odds of survival are unaffected by whatever happened before, and are still one against ten. This is one of the profound paradoxes of the theory of probability; the mathematical joke implies a riddle.
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