Physical Sciences
(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org, please feel free to visit the school website)
Continued from Part 1. Click Here.
We do know that
the neuron synapses in our brains are “trained,” that with each
new experience or thought pattern, new connections and pathways are established.
This is the equivalent of adding more and more processors to your hard drive.
As no one has ever successfully maxed out their capacity, it seems safe
to say that this process, for all practical purposes if not in fact, is
unlimited…infinite. As a matter of fact, Pyotr Anokhin of Moscow
University staggered the scientific world when, in 1968, he demonstrated
that the minimum number of thought patterns capable by the average
brain is the number 1 followed by 10.5 million kilometers of typewritten
zeros.
Even at the rate of age-related degradation that supposedly exists in our
faculties, one could learn seven facts per second, every second of their
entire life and still have plenty of room for even more. Couple this “factual”
ability with the idea that your brain is incredibly more flexible and multidimensional
than any supercomputer ever built, and you begin to see that we really have
no excuse for not being creative. The lowest and meekest of us
in the scale of abilities has the potential to function as the most revolutionary
thinking device ever conceived!
The first “modern” scientific research occurred in the 19th
century when German physiologist and physicist Herman Helmholtz described
his “scientific” discoveries (which were actually mere behavioral
observations) of the creative function by assigning the process to 3 specific
stages: Saturation, Incubation and Illumination.
According to Hemholtz, creativity is instigated when we are saturated with
all known information and data related to a problem. What follows is an
incubation period during which conscious and unconscious thought sorts,
processes, categorizes and examines this information. The end of the incubation
process (which varies in length of time) is described as Illumination (that
Eureka! or Aha! moment). It is this point of “illumination”
at which we find creativity…the dawning of a new thought or realization.
In 1908, a fourth element was added: Verification. Verification refers to
the act of implementing the illumined or inspired solution in actual practice.
Then, in the 1960’s Jacob Getzels contributed to Hemholtz’s
theories by suggesting that there is another stage that precedes Helmholtz’s
Saturation. This is a preliminary stage of Finding or Formulating; however,
this seems merely a practical specification and does not really contribute
anything “new” in relation to revealing the mysteries of creativity.
Getzels’ unique contribution lies in his suggestion that “creativity
is not just problem solving of a kind, but the active searching out of problems
that need to be solved.”
As the sum of scientific research into creativity remains relatively unchanged
from the 19th century until this point, Getzels’ observation stands
out. On its own merit, however, it is distinctive in that for the first
time there appears an attempt to characterize or delineate the actual state
of being creative by introducing the ideas of observation and inquisitiveness.
Thus, we now have an assertion that perhaps creativity is not a passive
but an active state. And certainly observation and inquisitiveness are skills
rather than talents, which means that they might somehow be nurtured and
developed.
At this point, certain advances in technology and research began to reveal
a little more about the brain, and concentration on the problem of creativity
tediously focused along “natural” science; that is, looking
to the physical medium of the brain. This type of research led to a rise
in popular opinion of the notion of Left Brain/Right Brain thinking, a theory
that supposes portions of the brain maintain functional neurological specialization.
The Left Brain/Right Brain theory became popular the day a scientist realized
that when someone uses their left hand, the right side of the brain was
active, and vice versa. Through the magic of electrodes, it seemed “proven”
that just as men are from Mars and women are from Venus, that the Left brain
handled logical, linear thinking and the Right brain was “creative.”
What the testing “indicated” [not proved], was that the left
hemisphere of the brain routes all Linear, Logical and Language-Based thinking.
Conversely, the right hemisphere of the brain registered activity during
Visual, Spatial and Relational Thinking situations.
The clinical tests, however, show patients who have suffered acute damage
to one or the other side of their brain defying this tendency during a relearning
process. Therefore, the whole Right Brain-Left Brain hypothesis emerges
more as a mode of thinking about creativity in relation to the brain rather
than to limitations or predictions about actual “sides of the brain”
being responsible for our ability or inability to be creative. As is obvious
when reading the collective body of work about the brain, we know so little
of the actual functioning of the brain that we can’t really specify
such things with any great authority. Probably the metaphor of Yin and Yang
is more accurate to describe a categorical “type” of thinking
than is “left” or “right” brained thinking.
The interesting part of this theory is the almost alarming degree with which
it caught on in popular thinking, indicating the sincere and deep desire
to understand the ability to be creative, and, perhaps, to eradicate any
seeming inability to be creative. Despite the fact that this research was
first made public in the late seventies and pretty much erroneously entered
into popular thinking, it persists to this day in both casual and corporate
decision making as a reference to creativity and the ability to be creative.
The problem with all Science to this point, including the Left Brain/Right
Brain theory, is that 1) it makes creativity an almost predetermined, physical
and genetic function that excludes what we actually know through observation
about all creatures being able to respond and learn from stimuli, effectively
“problem solving,” i.e. being creative, and 2) the research
and theories ignore the very valuable and revealing observations of people
known to demonstrate high levels of creativity. As an analogy, if the brain
is a machine, and no two machines are alike, then why do we see many machines
able to demonstrate this ability? Or, if the brain is a “computer,”
then perhaps it is not the hardware (brain) but the software (experience,
learning, etc…) that determine creative ability.