Physical Science
(This is
an excerpt
from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course
at www.umsonline.org,
please feel free to visit the school website)
Everybody knows
the story of Sir Isaac Newton and the apple. He created the term “gravity”
after an apple fell on his head from a tree. Teachers love to tell it, and
we all remember it, long after we forget the chemical symbol for table salt
(NaCl) or what a logarithm is. And why do we remember it? Ask yourself who
discovered that the moon reflects the sun, rather than giving off its own
light? Or that the earth spins on its axis? Copernicus? Kepler? Galileo?
Why do we not remember these important discoveries so well?
Simply, we like the logical narrative of the apple story. We can “see
the mystery” if you will. Sir Isaac Newton sits under the tree. The
apple falls. Aha! There must be gravity. It’s so simple, anyone should
have thought of it. Anyone could have thought of it. Even we could have
seen that moment and made the discovery ourselves. In his book, Self Reliance,
Ralph Waldo Emerson says, “In the work of every genius we recognize
our own rejected thoughts,” and to a great extent, that seems to hold
true. The discovery of gravity anecdote lends itself to our facile understanding
and comprehension. However, look up in the sky and it is not so apparent
that the earth is moving and that the sun is not. The signs are there to
read, for anyone with the interest, aptitude and inclination. But that “Aha”
moment is not nearly so transparent, and so it mystifies, confounds or perhaps
even intimidates us. Better Newton and the apple, something we can almost
share credit for in our imaginative subconscious, than a bunch of complex
mathematics to prove something intangible to the naked eye.
The “Aha!” moment is what happens when a creative idea is born.
Imagine you saw the apple fall. You’ve seen hundreds of apples fall.
That’s the way of it. That’s the natural order of things. Apples
fall. Leaves fall. Rain falls. Everything falls. Do you really all of a
sudden feel inspired by a realization that there is a powerful physical
force exerting itself upon all the objects of earth that keep them from
flying off into space? Hardly. We pick up the apple and go on about things.
But it’s that “Aha!” moment that we long for, perhaps
even lust after. We want it to be that simple as we imagine with Newton
and the apple. We want to have it again and again at will, without even
thinking about it. If it is not so easy as we thought, then how do we get
it?
“Everything is getting to be inherited these days,” bemoans
Frank Barron in Creators On Creating (1997). There is no scientific evidence
that creativity is inherited. However, in a more mundane meaning of “inherited,”
one may expect that those who are fostered by or live in a community of
highly creative people will have a greater predisposition to accessing their
own creativity. They will have both experience and exposure in the norm-rejecting,
rule-challenging thinking that fosters creativity.
When we find ourselves challenged creatively, through either a problem to
be solved or an activity to be accomplished, we may find that it is the
moment of “insight” that becomes impossible to proscribe or
formulate. The inciting event, the “Aha” moment that gives us
either a well-ordered path to take, a clear image of the finished product,
or an ideal solution to work toward. This is, of course, somewhat due to
the internal struggles in patterns of thinking. Our conscious selves struggle
to have concrete, linear and verbal assurities that, for the most part in
a material worldview, represent order and action. We rebel against the “intangible”
nature of instinctive leaps, emotional processing and free form associations
because, for the most part, it is elusive and seemingly unexplainable. Creativity
steps outside the norm, bringing in something new.
Science is an arrogant thing, sometimes. It was as arrogant when doctors
and barbers were the same profession as it is now. The physician who employed
leeches to rid the blood of foul humours was as certain of his science as
is the present day physician. The wisest men of their day trembled to sail
west from Europe because of the danger of dropping off a flat earth. The
point is, Science presumes to know and explain everything. That which it
can’t explain, it theorizes over. And, if looked at comprehensively,
Science would be found to be, at any given moment in historical time, at
least 80% wrong, according to the discoveries and knowledge that come after.
If we adopt the view that Science, as we currently understand it, maintains
this record based upon knowledge that will come in our future, than we should
use it intelligently and skeptically, especially in dealing with the realms
of thinking and consciousness of which creativity is a part.
For the how’s and why’s of creativity, the scientific rationale
is that creativity involves thinking, which is an activity of the brain.
Therefore, it must become understandable through the understanding of the
brain and its physical functioning. As of yet, however, the brain has remained
a monumental mystery. We have seen the spheres and labeled the lobes. By
pricking needles and electrodes here and there, now we know that certain
parts of the brain do certain things. A certain area “X” seems
to be involved somehow with speech, or an area “Y” in the moving
of arms and legs, and so forth. Then again, people with damaged brains have
been known to re-learn certain skills, indicating that other parts of the
brain can adapt and take over.
Continued in part 2. Click Here.
Biography of Isaac Newton, a picture of sir Isaac Newton : the history of and the life of the great invention, through short quote unlocked the fact gift of invention.