Using Amabile’s definition of whether something is creative as a starting point – something that is useful and novel – perhaps it is the level of credibility of the designation of “creative” that is related to who decides. What I mean by this is if I have an idea that I think is novel and useful, and share it externally either through creation of…[Read more]

Will,

Wow, just your recounting of the experience was a great example of both the capability of metacognition – looking at an internal process from a separate (yet still internal) perspective – as well as the ability of mental time travel as part of that metacognition. You were able to mentally slow the process down slow enough to report (first…[Read more]

Will and Michael,

As I read both of your last posts, I recognized a connected thought between them. Will talks about how disruptive ideas are often obvious in retrospect, and when I watched Steven Johnson’s TEDx talk* mentioned by Michael, he discusses how often people have a part of an idea and in sharing this part with others who have other…[Read more]

Pascal,

Thanks for sharing that article. It’s a good reminder that innovation is a process. Thomas Edison’s quote about the process he went through before he invented a successful light bulb reflects this, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work”.

And yes, I think moving past fear is important, but so is the amount of…[Read more]

Freeman,

Is it possible that “artistic creativity” is a type of problem solving? For example, it seems the artist seeks the best way to communicate a message or emotion to their audience, or how to inspire them think differently. This could be through painting, dance, sculpture, poetry, graphic design, or any other medium. In this way, it seems…[Read more]

Will,

I agree with your comments about fear as an obstacle to creativity. It underscorese that creativity has a strong social element to it, and overcoming that fear of (whatever) breaks self-imposed boundaries in the creative process. Even in the internal imaginative step of the creativity process, an individual oftentimes takes into account the…[Read more]

Two thoughts:

1. Being that I’m not an evolutionary psychology type, it would be great to hear what one of these might think the role of ISS in evolution is (if anyone out there wants to chime in). I can imagine they may say that the ISS is a step in the further expansion of humanity to procreate on other planets, so it performs an evolutionary f…[Read more]

Michael – I agree with your analogy of imagination as a mental whiteboard. I sometimes characterize it as a mental sandbox, whiteboard or hologram.

To help me understand, can you give an example of what you meant by “Too much creativity-within-imagination could therefore interfere with learning.”?

John wrote, “Imagination is abstract, and doesn’t necessarily lead to anything tangible. Creativity is concrete, it’s applied imagination to make something.”

This is similar to something that I’ve noticed based on reading a lot of literature on the creative process. I’ve found that it helps to think of the imagination as an internal part of the…[Read more]

You may be right that there are limits to a 3-lb hominid brain. Could you characterize what you see some of those limits may be, in the context of a process such as idea generation?