Creativity is inherited, an innate trait. But like anything else, it may be improved and fine tuned.

Hi,

Good questions.

I've discussed some aspects of creativity in my book: Turing Points: The Nature of Creativity.

Briefly speaking, what matters is the ability to take up a new perspective to frame the problem, or create such a perspective to do so.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Turning-Points-The-Nature-of-Creativity/140321359397952

Chaomei Chen

Creativity is a situation that a person creates some things or makes invention or discovers some relations. I guesstimate a creative person is original, independent, challenge for problem definition, do things differently, undisciplined and so. I guess it is inheritance and the environment is affected.

partly born, but as with most of our cognitive skills we can train it. Born here means that some have an easier access to creativity tasks and thinking wild whereas others prefer not do. We use parts of the Torrance creativity thinking tasks.

Good question, Yingxu. Even if I am not an expert on this subject I will find the boldness to offer this: I always considered creativity to the combination of strong memory, vivid imagination, lateral thinking, a personality approaching (yet not breaching) narcissistic and some form of technical training.

As with most abilities, and even if in this case a genetic scaffolding is required, creativity is most probably a synergy between nature and nurture. And stochastic events in the life of a potentially creative person, in order for this ability to flourish, are not to be disregarded.

It is also interesting to note how closely related and how many overlapping qualities creativity seems to be sharing with a good sense of humor.

Any data on how synergists perform?

I should like to quote from two sources regarding where Einstein believed ideas come from and what his conception of God is:

‘Einstein once said something very interesting to me when we were trying to think: “Can we get another idea that will solve this problem?” and he said, “Ideas come from God.” Now he didn’t believe in a personal God or anything like that. This was his metaphorical way of speaking. You cannot command the idea to come, it will come when it’s good and ready. He [Einstein] put it in those terms: “Ideas come from God”. [p61]’ http://hvalsang.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/orphan-thoughts-and-albert-einstein/

‘Scientific research can reduce superstition by encouraging people to think and view things in terms of cause and effect. Certain it is that a conviction, akin to religious feeling, of the rationality and intelligibility of the world lies behind all scientific work of a higher order... This firm belief, a belief bound up with a deep feeling, in a superior mind that reveals itself in the world of experience, represents my conception of God. In common, parlance this may be described as "pantheistic" (Spinoza)’. Ideas And Opinions - Albert Einstein - Google Books

Of course, as a Christian, I believe that math is a human creation, vestige of the creating power passed on to us via the “image of God” beings that we are. Regarding the applicability of the humanly created math with its usefulness in the description of the physical aspect of Nature, see Wigner http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.html . I believe the circle is closed between God creator of both man and Nature and man being able to explain aspects of Nature with the creative power passed on to him by God.

To be creative, at the beginning, do not screen/filter the unconscious. In most cases, the unconscious are right. Keep our mind open to possibilities and also to the "impossibles". We need to be trained to change our perceptions.

Relating to problem solving, Einstein suggest us to study it rather than solving it, and in time a solution will reveal itself. With this way, the solution will be more neutral (not biased), could be more creative, and could get better solution(s).

Try to get alternative solutions so that we can compare them and can choose the best solution for certain situations. By this way, we hope we will not be trapped by one solution.

All feats, abilities & performances are partly congenital (it needs the structure of a brain, developed in a long lasting evolution) as well as developed (“trained” / “unfolded”) in a social context (even the the detailed structure of our brain reflects the experience in an ecological niche – which is, for human beings, particular structured by social interactions and its results, e.g. tools, culture pp pp).

The stability of our every-day-world need a vast reduction of a high complex world of stimuli into a much lower complex world of meaningful categories, narratives etc. As GESTALT psychology since hundred years stresses (now in correspondence with interdisciplinary systems theory stressing phenomena like “emergence” or “phase transition”) creativity has to do with a Gestalt-switch (“Aha”!). That is a transition from one (reduced) pattern (=well known solutions and interpretations of the world) into another one (=a new arrangement of the “facts” into new understanding / meaning). This transition from one order to another one (interdiscpl. = “phase transition”) needs more complexity  stepping back from the reducing forces of categories etc.

Therefore, new insights (“Aha”!) often emerge in “loose” situations - when you take a shower, are sleepy (or in the phase of awakening), by switching your activities to art-making etc.

Perhaps these few hints may be of some value for the discussion. (I have written a lot about this, however unfortunately mostly in German language)

Creativity is by known definition a phenomenon whereby something new and valuable is created (such as an idea, a joke, a literary work, a painting or musical composition, a solution, an invention etc.) or the way you say “creativity is the intellectual ability to make creations, inventions, and discoveries that brings novel relations, entities, and/or unexpected solutions into existence”

One cannot become of nothing. It’s a common knowledge. There for we can hypothetically say that everything exists. If everything exists, than it’s just a matter of reaching that (idea/joke...) and present it to others that could see it. Conformation. Plato had idea about the idea, famous cave example. That led us to not personal creation. There you go Einstein God appear, collective knowledge, fluxes and everything in relation to that. Nature of creativity is not individual one. There for not born or trained.

But we see every day, creativity in action, not by many, but we see a lot – so it’s natural to ask our self’s what is different in some of us or the way you put it “What are the basic attributes of inventors and creative researchers?” I come from a country that slap you from the minute your born, and if you not creative in your action...well you get the picture. Basic existence is a big driver for creativity. As from my interest in art I had learn that great artist base their art on emotions. The big one love, hate...

That are just some thoughts...if that help your research I’m glad

Wallas (1926) identified five stages in a creative process as follows: (1) preparation, (2) incubation, (3) insight, (4) evaluation, and (5) elaboration. Incubation is widely accepted as a necessary step in creation and discovery.

Incubation is a mental phenomenon where a breakthrough in problem solving may not be achieved in a continuous intensive thinking and inference until an interrupt or interleave action is conducting, usually in a relax environment and atmosphere [Wang, 2009]. The cognitive mechanism of incubation can be explained by the subconscious processes of the brain related to thinking and inference, such as perception, imagination, and unintentional search, which are involved in complex thinking and long chains of inferences. Whenever there is an impasse in creative thinking and problem solving, incubation may often lead to a creation under the effect of active subconscious processes.

Various creativities and creation processes have been identified in [Wang, 2009] such as free/constrained creativity, analytic/synthetic creativity, inference-based creativity, problem-solving-based creativity, and scientific/ technological/art creativity.

The taxonomy of human creativity may be classified into three categories known as the abstract, concrete, and art creativities. A scientific (abstract) creation is usually characterized by a free and unlimited creative environment where the goals and paths for such a creation is totally free and unlimited; while an engineering (concrete) creation is characterized by a limited creative environment where a creative problem solving is constructed by a certain set of goals, paths, and available conditions. The third form of creation is the art (empirical) creation that generates a novel artifact that attracts human sensorial attention and perceptual satisfactory.

Some important thoughts on creativity by late Fr Sophrony Sakharov of Essex " I realised that everything that I created was conditioned by what was already in existence. I could not invent a new colour or line that had never existed anywhere before. An abstract picture is like a string of words, beautiful and sonorous in themselves, perhaps, but never expressing a complete thought..."—Preface to St Silouan the Athonite

Creativity is expression of the world around us in an attractive, acceptable and useful form in any walk of life. In most cases it is inbuilt as all are not born with the level of creativity given storehouse of scientific knowledge and experimental tools at that time.

Similarly in India none is legendary Tan Sen in classical music.

Some may be trained to be creative in a specific area as Ahed Alkhatib pointed out by " transformational leadership with creativity since this leadership will offer the proper medium for both discovering creative persons as well as learning and training on creativity."

However, a creative person whether in science or art and craft is one who can observe and NOTICE something different i. e. NOTICE that which others have observed but missed to notice and find relations between unlikely things, ideas, cause-effects.

Great question Yingxu Wang and basic to my area of interdisciplinary science/philosophy/theology. As your eminent correspondents suggest, maybe originality resides in the reification of unseen realities. This is still a challenge, even in science, where we struggle to explain quantum theory, dark energy and dark matter, and biogenesis, and consciousness, for example. Philosophical and theological phenomenology raises many more subjects that are currently cognitively limited.

In trying to find a worldview that could embrace existing creative contributions plus the residue of cognitively unresolved issues, our research led to the "creatio ex ethica" theory. This encompasses ethical encounters basic to work in science, philosophy and theology, in a history-conserving and anthropically-personalist matrix.

A unified process, called "ecollation", has been proposed to be what actualizes unseen realities. Ecollations (novel collations of known and unknown realities) are similar to the well known biological processes of "en-niching" that give rise to new species and ultimately to ecosystem complexities.

Perhaps cognitive ecollations register by novel neural connections, exegeted within the larger matrix of cerebral hermeneutics? As many suggest, novelty appears to originate in the liminal zone where 'top-down' matricial processes meet 'bottom up' neural mechanisms. Happily, neural ecollation may be a process we can characterize and work with, so as to gain insight on original revelations in diverse areas of study.

I define creativity as that which is original (statistically infrequent) and useful. I also investigate negative creativity - an act which is original and useful TO THE INDIVIDUAL, him/herself. With respect to whether creativity is trained or inborn, I suggest we first identify what the nature of creativity really is. The nature-nurture debate will ensue for centuries hereafter (as it has with a similar cognitive construct - intelligence), but identifying the nature of creativity (as you've questioned) is the real challenge. With respect to the attributes of creative thinkers, I'd like to refer you to the attached document (an amateurish paper written by me in my undergraduate course). However, the review outlines several proposed influences on the creative process, and person. Hope this helps :)

I believe that creativity is the ability to innovate the development of creativity can be realized in childhood . when the child is stimulated and has access to every situations, challenged to solve problems, increases cognitive ability and creativity will imaginative we all have creative behaviors, but not of aware of it, simply do not understand exactly is to be creative.

Creativity means to see the world with clear eyes and to consider their phenomenons as wonder. It is playful to find new relations and connections.

It requires a permanent change of perspective and avoiding retracted thoughts tracks. Maybe you can train this sight of view.

This are characteristics of childhood but its not a game it is hard work.

@ Azlan: one also needs the guts to pursue despite obstacles, more generally: not be easily influenced by the opinion of others - keep your style etc. Time will tell whether it was ingenious or crap.

i am by all means not an expert, but am fascinated by subject. i have had a few thoughts about creativity in the past. first, could it that creativity may be domain specific. i.e., a talented creative musician may not be so creative in a visual domain, much like a scientist creative in her thinking may not be artistically creative. Other aspects of creativity that capture my attention involve its many paradoxes. most of all, in my view, is this one- while we think of creativity as something that comes from 'free thinking' or 'free spirit', past research has shown that creativity flourishes in places where the environment is most restrictive . such apparent contradiction may in-fact offer some answers- much like the brain re-wires in the face of lesions, could it be that the brain makes new connection in the face of other restrictions?.

Hi Yael, indeed the expression is modular but a creative musician also appreciates creative arts despite not having the skills for it him/herself and vice versa, exceptions exists of course. There are some interesting cases of people having had a stroke and then discovering a new creative feature on them. Also some savants have create talent in one of the arts - but we still o not know enough about the exact brain mechanisms. Transcranial stimulation makes some more creative as well. So inhibition of the logical brain (as also in some mood disorders, just think of some famous composers and artists) may be required to "uplight" / let re-emerge the creative part of your brain. Children are creative but rules of society narrow down the pattern of thinking - i.e. school curriculum. If it is too tight/ narrow, one escapes into creativity. Learning to think as taught in school can prevent the dim light of creativty in some. Accepting a childs' answer / thoughts regardless how far off it is from reality, can promote creativity - do not always give a child directly the proper scientific explanation. Let them play around, they may discover laws and rules themselves - and sometimes come up with great new ideas. One can always destroy an imagination with: has been shown already, known since ... That for sure kills all interest in own discoveries - or as it is now: no idea? google it.

Dear Yingxu Wang, quite a challenging and at the same time intimidating question you asked whereby a choice among the most relevant topics is necessarily required, So, I’ll concentrate on particular features of creativity more familiar to me. Undoubtedly and rather abruptly, I’ll start by saying that the act of research has a imaginative component that cannot be passed on to an algorithm. Einstein noted that a creative scientist must be an “unscrupulous opportunist” and that the essence of science is looking for “in whatever manner is suitable, a simplified and lucid image of the world … There is no logical path, but only intuition” (cited in Holton, 1995, p. 168). Paul Feyerabend when remarking and commenting his famed “anything goes” said that “the only principle that does not inhibit progress is anything goes” (P. Feyerabend, Against Method. London, 1993) and explicitly asserted that research should be animated not by abstract epistemological prescriptions, but by wit and creativity.

To be more explicit, current epistemological and historical critique has repeatedly remarked that scientific knowledge is hypothetical, partial, provisional and refutable, always provable and never completely true. Then, scientific ‘truth’ is always approximate and subject to falsification. Additionally, the critical process has highlighted its limits, faults, oversights, discrepancies and relevant negative consequences underlining the need for imagination and creativity which is that particular intellectual tool that reveals the unpredicted and concealed features of reality.

I wish to get into the specifics of certain features of creativity by saying that it usually starts from straight problems made apparent by other researchers or put forward by the state of the art and sometimes characterized by conflicting solutions operating in line with what the psychological research called: ‘lateral thinking’, where a researcher seeks alternative points of view before trying the solution. In this process mention should be made of its main characteristics consisting in the fact that beyond the logic of inquiry which includes the use of induction and deduction, there may be the case for the use of ‘abductive reasoning’ that implies a complex process which includes both the formulation of hypotheses and their evaluation. Abduction is the search of the ‘best’ explanations of a phenomenon within a set of the possible and alternative ones. It may lead to a substantial step further than pure deduction or induction because it helps to meet theory and data in a creative way. Abductive reasoning is often associated with ‘serendipity’ whereby it gives a more or less divergent solution to a problem, not generated within the framework of the acquired knowledge, representing, in the most interesting cases, an anomaly inside the framework itself. Serendipity is a sum of abilities hard to define: a sort of a combination of intuition and creativity, which gives to the events of reality the capacity of speaking for themselves through the sagacity of a researcher who sees beyond what appears casually in those events. Then, it may happen that the true importance of a researcher will be measured by the yardstick of serendipity, conceived as a manifestation of a creative mind that can transform the discordant and unexpected data into a possible innovation rather than being a disturbing deviation as it is not part of its own logical path.

As a final consideration, I’d express my personal conviction that the research activity, in its asymptotic approximation to the truth, will show its core when it conceives a broader horizon for the cognitive act by establishing a trans-disciplinary methodology for a synthesized work from multiple disciplines which involves some form of creative process whereby “concepts in the studies pertaining to each discipline domain are reworked and reformulated to encompass their key features”.[ Cf. Jifa Gu, Xijin Tang, “Meta-synthesis approach to complex system modeling”, European Journal of Operational Research, 2005, 166, 597–614].

As with many cognitive terms, a major obstacle is the assumption that we all know what we mean and all agree what we mean when we use the word "creativity". Two of the contributors have recognised the issue by starting with a definition, but how precise are the definitions? The contributors seem broadly to agree on a definition of "new and useful", and one further defines "new" as "statistically infrequent". However, it is difficult to see in what way a page of random lexical output (perhaps generated by a monkey with a typewriter) would not satisfy even a sophisticated definition of "new", since it will be unique. By extension, it seems to me that any sufficiently complex arrangement of meaning or symbology would be unique and therefore new.

The second quality judgement "useful" is surely in the eye of the beholder, and therefore does not exist except in relation to a person who might find it useful. A complex equation could only be useful if there is somebody who understands the notation. Because of this relational nature, it is possible to say that something posesses usefulness (because we have somebody who understands and can demonstrate in what way it is useful) but we cannot with certainty dismiss anything as void of usefulness - it may be that we simply lack the right person to demonstrate the usefulness - like a message in an old language which nobody today understands.

It seems to me that what we mean by an act of creativity is a contribution to a field which is relatively non-derivative, and which opens up (can serve as a launching point for) a number of useful, but more derivative contributions. If intellectual endeavour were represented by a small-world network, the creative contributions would be the long-distance links between hubs, while most contributions would be short distance links from one hub.

Only once the community formulates an adequate characterisation of this cognitive concept, is it likely to be fruitfully studied and analysed.

I thing that creativity is instinctive and is a feature of our brains, Inventors and creative researchers are people who are still looking to the things and to the word with the eyes of a childhood who is discovering his environment, the tools, the ideas …etc.. with enthusiasm, curiosity, marvel, and without prejudges , prejudice and preconception. A way of thinking out of the box

Mr. Tucci, how refreshing to see someone respond with such a clear notion that true creativity is not born from the natural mathematical reasoning mind and then even more enjoyable to see that you are an independent researcher. In a world that nourishes confidence through causal connections, I might as well jump in and say creativity (as a whole) is not taught, nor can be. Rather it stems from an innate, intuitive state that is more extreme in some than in others (as is shown by what you read above in other comments). The creative mind is the one where "the more they learn, the more they realize they don't know." Some personality types enjoy this passion while others seek permanent solutions and closure.

In the original question, the first stage of the cognitive process is identified as "discovering a novel relation," - CAUSAL!! Second stage identified as logical justification, - also CAUSAL! These identified stages of creativity fail to mention what I would call the most critical stage in the process, confidence in your imagination - ACAUSAL, and not the kind of confidence that requires logical justification.

Thanks to all for your comments, great food for thought.

Consider looking into the qualitative psychological research by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, for example, his book on creativity and flow. See http://www.amazon.com/Creativity-Psychology-Discovery-Invention-ebook/dp/B000TG1X9C/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1380457910&sr=1-2&keywords=csikszentmihalyi

Nice question! Many suggestive answers! Here I want to focus my discussion on the relationship between creativity and education.

It seems to me, every child is born with curiosity, which is a fundamental quality for a creative person. You may often hear children ask their parents what is this, why that happens, etc. That is because the children are curious about the new things they encounter the first time. Now, comes to the interesting part. How should their parents respond to their seemingly naive questions.

For example, if a child asks "why the sun rises and sets everyday?". What should you answer? You may think that is simple. Just tell him the fact. Then, the question is what is the fact. If this question was asked 400 years ago. The "fact" would be "because the sun circles the earth". Now, we know that "fact" is not the case. The fact is actually "the earth circles the sun and the earth spins itself". However, who can guaranty this fact won't be falsified 400 years later.

A problem of teaching children facts is that they might accept them as the truth. The more facts they accept as truth, the less creative the children might be. Thus, let them know that sometimes the facts can be wrong is helpful.

With respect to scientific research, a similar phenomenon emerges. Students (especially graduates) are often asked to read tons of papers before they start their research in a certain field. If they often accept what they read from the papers as the truth, it will be difficult for them to bring up creative ideas in that field. It is VERY important for their advisers to educate their students that conclusions in the papers can be wrong, even the papers were written by the advisers themselves.

Some scholars tend to tell their students what is true and what is not true based on the tons of literature stored in their mind. I personally don't like this. In my opinion, if one wants to know the answer to a certain question, the best way is not to find the answer in a book or in a paper. Instead, one may want to bring up a hypothesis and then find a way to test the hypothesis. By doing those two steps (of course one need creativity to do so), the creativity can be improved. One can start with simple questions.

Hei Zhi, good point but interdisciplinarity solves some of it. Lots of knowledge in one field but then "jump" into another field, one may see novel connections and possibilities, i.e. one's expertise in one field can lead to creative new solutions in another field/topic. Despite, bright students doubt the assumptions - that is often a good source to shake "facts".

Dear Gerit, I quite agree with the content of your comment. If I may, I’d like to go further and say that even the interdisciplinary method, conceived also to give an answer to the ‘reductivist’ inconsistencies and fragmentation of the scientistic paradigm, appears no longer adequate for the epistemology of complexity that describes the present scientific age. I am convinced that It is necessary to switch to a transdisciplinary approach, which crosses and overtakes the elementary principles of the individual sciences in order to find his uniting basis. I’d remind of the existence since several decades of a number of meta-sciences (meta-logic, meta-mathematics, meta-biology, etc.) which have tried to frame a specific discipline within a context of more general principles than those of the discipline itself, thus allowing to give a precise answer to a problem when there are two opposite solutions that both seem apparently valid.

Zhi Li, interesting comment.

How transmitting knowledge to the others could boost or knock their innovative capacity.. We can tell the children that is only a known answer to the question, it is not the absolute response, or to the students that papers, books, literature are only attempts from scientists and experts to describe a part of the nature with the tools and data they have or obtain at different epoch. May be this knowledge is not an absolute fact, and may be many things need to be improved

Hi Fairouz, thanks for your support.

Hi Gerit, I totally agree with you that interdisciplinarity helps to find/borrow solutions. I recently heard a story from a WHYY program. A scientist studying a certain human disease (which cannot be fully treated) found important clues in a paper (published several decades ago) reporting a treatment of the same (or very similar) disease in animals. Because that paper was published in an animal research journal, it was apparently ignored by scientists studying human disease.

It would be very helpful to have wider knowledge. But, it is not an easy task. I guess there might be more than a thousand new papers published everyday (and many are not informative or even leading to incorrect conclusions). We have to read a lot to keep up with the exploded knowledge and we also need to figure out what is reasonable and what is not. However, it is very difficult, especially in a field that you are not familiar with.

One more thing I want to add with respect to the relationship between creativity and education. A Chinese old saying states that it is better to teach one how to fish than just give one a lot of fish. Here, teaching one how to fish is equivalent to teaching one how to solve a problem or how to find the answer to a certain problem. In contrast, giving one a lot of fish is equivalent to telling one the answers to a lot of problems. Whereas both are important, the former is more important.

I believe creativity can be improved by solving problems because one often need creativity to solve a problem. And, often, there are different ways to solve a single problem. So teaching children the basic principles of how to solve a problem and them let them to solve the problem using their creativity.

Another story from the WHYY program: an expert of children education responded to a question: What is the best toy for kids. And her answer was BLOCK. I agree with her, because BLCOK is a very good way to train creativity.

On Creativity

When trying to understand the creative process it is important not to bring any assumptions to the table. It is tempting to think that creativity is some sort of special process. It might be, however, that creativity is a very basic process that sometimes gives rise to remarkable things.

We often underestimate the huge leaps of creative learning that we make when we are very young. The fact that all children are able to negotiate these leaps makes the leaps seem un-remarkable. Each of us may begin a sentence with only the vaguest idea of how the sentence is to be completed, and yet, like great artists, we all seem to have the faith that our minds will conjure words from feelings, experience and thin air to make sense of the moment.

Think of the unborn child. Perhaps, somewhere in that primordial part of ourselves, we can still remember that simple state of unthinking faith: when all the world and all of time was warmth and the comforting murmer of our mother’s biology. Imagine the existential shock when the earth moved and we were thrust screaming into the world. From the tight papoose of the womb we found ourselves overcome by new sensations and degrees of freedom that threatened to swallow us up in the roar of unprecedented and unpredictable experience. Without the cushion of knowing and predicting that experience provides, even a little water upon the brow of a baby can throw its’ consciousness into convulsions.

The child, so rudely thrust into the world is, I suggest, quite shaken into pieces. Without a ‘self’ with which to unify and negotiate a suddenly changing world, each new and unexpected sensation brings with it a new sate of being! What I am suggesting is that the creative learning process is the process by which he brain (and consciousness) can re-attain unity and continuity.

Is this where creativity and learning begins? Is the fundamental drive to learn an intuitive drive to return to that unborn unified state? Is all natural mental development actually an attempt to return to a state where the mind can predict what is to come next in order to avoid the ‘shock of the new’ and the consequent discontinuities of consciousness?

Of course, that ideal state is never attained. With each new stage of learning about the world, new worlds of complexity; new unresolved problems confront us. We are all attempting to encompass the world with understanding but it is an ever receding rainbow that we are chasing.

So, perhaps creativity (or learning) is the consequence of the attempt to attain continuity of consciousness via predictive and continuous cognition. Through learning we are able to anticipate and ensure our futures and our continued existence.

All societies attempt to offer its citizens a variety of home-grown wombs of predictability and safety; the little nests that we feather with our lives. Yet, there are those few among us who’s journey takes them on a longer and a higher arc. They seem to find no resolution to the fractures of their beings within the context of conventional lives. They are driven to ‘discover’ or ‘create’ and push the boundaries of ‘what is’ and ‘what is possible’. When we think of creativity it is usually these types of people that we are thinking about.

As a child, the modernist American composer, Charles Ives, along with his siblings, was made to sing in one key whilst his father played the piano in another. Charles Ives went on to compose wild clashing and dissonant music.

It is difficult to accommodate this kind of idiosyncratic genius within some simple theory of aesthetics. However, the example of Charles Ives demonstrates that there can be unprecedented and unpredictable psychological components consequent upon the artist’s individual forming and formative experiences that make the particular problem for which the art functions as catharsis unique. This being conceded, it may still be claimed that it is the fundamental drive to unification and coherence that gives rise even to idiosyncratic art.

But creativity need not be confined to the act of a single individual.

Let us suppose that we take two large sets of ceramic artifacts from two different ancient cultures. If we familiarize ourselves with these artifacts over some considerable period of time, then, it would not surprise me if, when presented with a group of artifacts that we had not encountered before, we could correctly identify from which of the two cultures each of the artifacts originated - with some significant degree of success.

Our success would, in the most part, be consequent upon our having identified (intuitively/) and being able to distinguish the two cultural aesthetics that were implicit in the two original sets of artifacts. From this we might speculate that aesthetics serves cognition in some way - this speculation being strengthened by the observation that there is a deep connection between beauty and "perceptibility".

We might further speculate that the aesthetic sensibility of the ancient craftsmen and craftswomen were, in some part at least, determined (or inspired) by the cultural artifacts that they found around them when they were growing up. It would seem that aesthetics may well be a self-perpetuating and normalizing process that can span generations.

Let us further suppose that a modern artist discovers a cache of ceramic artifacts from a long forgotten culture. Our unscrupulous artist presents the artifacts as a modern work of art entitled – “Ashes of a Way of Being”. Notwithstanding the fickle nature of the modern art critic, it is not beyond the scope of possibility that this ‘work of art’ would be hailed as a modern masterpiece. The discerning critics would note the unique aesthetics that united the work and made it so believable. They would note how ‘the piece’ inspired the imagination to speculate upon the character of a culture that never actually existed!

It seems from the above that great art can be consequence of a thousand little steps taken by a thousand different people! Indeed aesthetics pops up in practically every aspect of social behavior. All languages have evolved aesthetics that can be most easily heard from people outside of the language. Even fields of scientific study have their unique nomenclatures with recognizable aesthetics. Indeed, we can look beyond the bounds of humanity at the locomotion of creatures as diverse as centipedes and cheetahs to discover that life and aesthetics are intimately related.

There is a further fundamental component to this speculation upon the nature of creativity not yet touched upon. It seems that aesthetics are a means by which the level of consciousness may be raised. By and large, our days are fractured by the tedium of contingencies. Our lives are written with an ‘occasional pen’ – in moments. But art provides a soil that allows cognition and consciousness to flourish - even for a moment! Rarely do our lives so meaningfully unfold as do the lives of characters within a novel. In art the world can shine in fabulous flames of form and reason.

So, creativity, in as far as it is the means by which we create the aesthetic, is not only the means by which we ensure the unity and continuity of consciousness by creating stimulus that allows for successful predictive cognition, but also, it is a means by which the moment of our being can be made much brighter. The artist arranges reality for the express purpose that it be experienced. The artist utilizes the aesthetic in order that his/her audience can experience a greater degree of complexity – in the moment. This is clearly evident in music- where each note is enriched by the harmonic structures that have gone before and those delicious moments that we come to anticipate as the melody logically unfolds – cognition is given its’ reign in a domain enriched with structure.

The scientist, on the other hand expresses the fundamental drive to coherence and conscious enlightenment in a slightly different way:-

Einstein understood Newton to his marrow.

Einstein understood Maxwell to his marrow.

Newton and Maxwell did not fit together – Einstein did not fit together!

Relativity was catharsis!

Where the creativity of the artist arranges reality to achieve cognitive/psychological coherence, the scientist leaves reality as it is and seeks explicitly to change himself (via creative leaps of understanding) to reveal the coherence of the universe.

The argument thus far suggests that there should be a strong relationship between ‘discontinuity’ and creativity for it is only through virtue of a discontinuity that there be any reason for any sort of creative catharsis, coherence and continuity.

Beyond the trauma of our births un-imagined strange misfortunes may befall the individual:- misfortunes that might require many and untold strange but creative solutions, and yet, it is also true that each age is characterized by its own great schisms and the lives of individuals are over-arched by the traumas of the age. How else could Newton and Leibnitz have discovered the calculus at the same moment had not their minds been shaped by some unresolved question that had been hanging in their shared academic air? In America a different sort of schism inspired a different sort of resolution. Music from two very different sources, European and African, found a common language in the blues.

This analysis suggests that creativity is a very fundamental process which is primarily associated with the functioning of the brain, but which nevertheless operates at different levels of temporal and social scale. Creativity manifests itself in such a way as to suggest that there is a physical ‘economy’ associated with brain functioning that manifests as a tendency to promote coherence, continuity and the enhancement of the consciousness and cognition.

To further explore the relationship between creativity, thermodynamics and fixed-points and catalysis:-

Davia, C.J (June 2006), "Life, Catalysis and Excitable Media: A Dynamic Systems Approach to Metabolism and Cognition", in Tuszynski, J.A, The Emerging Physics of Consciousness (The Frontiers Collection), Springer, pp. 255–292, ISBN 978-3540238904

How do you explain that we do not have genious compositors like Mozart,Bethoven,etc.etc. in these century??? Acording Darwins evolution theory we should be more smart than our ancesters.

Penso que a criatividade é inerente ao ser humano inteligente.Os estímulos ambientais, a motivação, o desejo de auto realização levam a pessoa a criar.Pode ser em qualquer área de atuação, até mesmo pessoas ociosas podem criar.Um requisito importante é ter energia para inovar.

Lots of room for varied comments when the subject matter is creativity, each commenting from their own personal experiences and each creative in their own rights. I would prefer to say that you are born intuitive, rather than suggest you are born creative. My assumption is that the question regards those who function at a higher level of creativity, stemming from a higher level functioning intuitive. Common characteristics of these intuitives are; risk taking, not put off by failure, introvert, always seeking new possibilities, comfortable with theory, especially comfortable in their own heads and comfortable with change.

Having the potential for creativity (genetic) and developing that creativity (environment) are two separate issues, but I certainly agree with Zhi that a person's level of creativity can be enhanced by simple challenges and experiences in life. Thank you Martha for suggesting that a creative passion is not limited to the field of science.

Also, I'm not quite convinced that being creative is intellectual. It appears to be simply one of many gifts, but certainly that sense of intellectualism is a motivating factor for many creative minds. Perhaps that narcissistic factor mentioned by Dimitrios is due in part to the social rejection of peers growing up?

This world around us is a wonderful playground for all those who share in this passion.

Creativity is inherited, an innate trait. But like anything else, it may be improved and fine tuned.

Just a thought, but would it make sense to explore the nature of creativity in the context of a system TRIZ (TIPS)? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIZ

It approaches the issue by examining the effects of invention (creativity) and refinement.

I would like to widen the issue on creativity by saying that often, in the comments that I read and that have been made by researchers who belong to the same group and to whom we are ready to offer cues to creativity in ideas and hypotheses for further study, I was able to find that creative people are essential for the development and maturation of ideas. Frequently, in the correspondence with my fellow researchers belonging to these groups, and of which I was able to reflect on their thoughts leave a significant mark of their thinking .

Often colleagues - researchers that I could read in RG - leave the imprint of their thinking and, therefore I welcome the utility that the original ' creators ' of RG have set out to achieve with the help of all.

Incidentally, I find very useful that the 'space ' generated by RG for various research topics, creating a sort of ' web ' and connections continues to expand, reaching a deeper understanding of human relations.

In connection with previous comments about RG I mentioned ' serendipian ' creativity. But , of course , creativity does not occur and only operates in this way. Conventional creativity - to distinguish it from the ' serendipian ' one - starts from issues proposed by other researchers, or suggested by the state of the art providing a divergent solution , working along what psychological research called ‘lateral thinking’. Creativity deals with reality through the facts, actions and feelings of the characters , giving it - through them - even the truth of the present age and history. Scientific rationality is not exclusive and significant are also the human, ethical, humanistic, cultural and social aspects .

In my opinion, there is a form of ' education ' to creativity especially towards those who have left the mark of their imagination . I think we can find aspects of creativity in terms of formulation of analogies that had not been noted previously and that bring out unexpected aspects of reality. Thus, the ethical value of the need for creativity and adherence to reality manifest itself.

I notice that those who manage to control the universe of creativity, feelings and emotional expressions such as, for example, the leaps forward and memories, get hold of those features necessary for the free expression of creativity , including the inner quality which consists in being 'open’ to wider horizons.

It helps in thinking about this question to distinguish between summative tests versus formative assessments. In an “outcomes-based” curriculum such as those in place in our country as part of No Child Left Behind (No Child Left Untested), testing is used to sort students into winners and losers. The Common Core Standards released in 2010 – and yet to be implemented – call for students to engage in project-based activities of considerable substance and duration. In this context, formative assessment makes sense, as a process for looking at learning while it is happening, to monitor, to provide feedback, and to adjust instructional support. My colleagues and I have developed a model for this situation in which inquiry is the assessment process, embedded in ongoing project activities. No tests, only teachers prepared as professionals to “see thinking.” A few papers on these topics can be found on the Stanford School of Education web Assessment can make a difference in what is taught in several ways, as can testing. Testing generally limits the curriculum and restricts instruction. Assessment is a quickly emerging area, but promises to radically change the potential for teachers to support high level learning.

I believe that creativity is the result of several factors, among them intelligence, spontaneity, consciousness, emotions, self-realization, will produce creative new things;

To me, creativity and curiosity are closely related. My boss once told me that I was the most creative person he had ever met, and I agree that I am creative. I am also am very curious. I have an insatiable desire to know more about everything I come into contact with. I am also a scatter-brain, tending to go off in multiple directions at one time. My creative process are varied. Sometimes I see a problem that needs a solution, so I will create an solution (engineer) whereas others will overlook the problem entirely. Sometimes, I wonder what would happen if I put A and B together (curiosity), and so will try it in my mind, and then in practice. Sometimes, several seemingly unrelated ideas will come together in a way that has pratical benefits ( scatter-brained). Sometimes ideas will come to me out of the blue sky, (inner consciousness) which suggests that my brain, subconsciously,had been playing around with some concepts and they rose to the surface. One of the aspects of creativity is that I see objects in multiple levels; a pencil is a device to write with, but visualized in is component characteristics (size, shape, material) is also can be an axel for a toy car, a lever, a device for poking holes is paper or cloth, a straight edge, fuel for a small fire, a condutor of electricity (the carbon core) a soft finger for touching without damaging them (the eraser). I can go on for pages but you get the idea. Sometimes, I get good ideas by reasoning by analogy: A acts on B by mechanism C; then perhaps X will act on Y by mechanism C, even though there differences between A and X, and between B and Y. If not, there may be a similar mechanism Z, which is only slightly different from C. I have noticed that I see analogies where nobody else does, as did my mother, but not my father. I also get many bad ideas, but usually eliminate them quickly. Sometimes other people have to point out my bad ideas. Lastly, I am artistic, with relatively little skill. I have written good short stories and tried my hand at novels (with little success because I get bored, produce computer graphical images that stir people on some level, and have created yard-sized sculptures using a wide variety of materials, and I take photographs rather than snapshots. In the latter case, I have no volition; I can't make myself just take a snap; I have to frame it correctly, balance the the light and dark areas, the colors watch both forground and background.

So there you have the complete answer (yeah, riiiiight) from a creative genius.

Also, my brain runs faster than my hands so I make typing misteaks. Can I edit a post?

G. Tucci has a good point; good ideas come from conversations with others, even though the conversation might be on a slightly different subject. Sorry to make so many posts, but as I said, I am scatter-brained.

Hello Wang,

Upto my knowldge creativity is came from both inheritend and trained. Maternal enviornment also may be influence on creativity.

It has been conclusively proven that creativity is 80% genetic although not directly passed from parent to child, i.e. it depends on a combination of genes but that sequence is not directly transferred from your parents. Read this and other downloads from that site: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiwwuf9lonKAhVG7B4KHeXQCEcQFggfMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.winovations.com%2Farticles%2Fmyths.doc&usg=AFQjCNEjETG5VHPWUTH_99OdKZABzLSnXA&sig2=TvsL5h4vYzlrT2eejarKMw

The Need: no need, no creativity

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The Need: If there is no need, there is no creativity

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La Necesidad: si no hay necesidad, no hay creatividad

Dr Wang,

The attached is an incomplete paper. There may be some ideas here that are of interest to you.

The paper requires much more work to be done regarding 'fixed point' transitions. Also, I plan to do work on what might be termed 'The Cognitive Stance'. Basically, this refers to a technique in the field of problem solving that involves the recognition and subsequent manipulation of the underlying perceptual 'field' or 'frame' within which the problem is contextualised.

Chris