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Isaac Asimov: How Do People Get New Ideas?
HughPickens.com writes: Arthur Obermayer, a friend of the Isaac Asimov, writes that he recently rediscovered an unpublished essay by Asimov written in 1959 while cleaning out some old files. Obermayer says it is "as broadly relevant today as when he wrote it. It describes not only the creative process and the nature of creative people but also the kind of environment that promotes creativity." Here's an excerpt from Asimov's essay, which is well worth reading in its entirety:
"A person willing to fly in the face of reason, authority, and common sense must be a person of considerable self-assurance. Since he occurs only rarely, he must seem eccentric (in at least that respect) to the rest of us. A person eccentric in one respect is often eccentric in others. Probably more inhibiting than anything else is a feeling of responsibility. The great ideas of the ages have come from people who weren't paid to have great ideas, but were paid to be teachers or patent clerks or petty officials, or were not paid at all. The great ideas came as side issues." A couple more quotes:
"My feeling is that as far as creativity is concerned, isolation is required. The creative person is, in any case, continually working at it. His mind is shuffling his information at all times, even when he is not conscious of it. The presence of others can only inhibit this process, since creation is embarrassing. For every new good idea you have, there are a hundred, ten thousand foolish ones, which you naturally do not care to display."
"Presumably, the process of creativity, whatever it is, is essentially the same in all its branches and varieties, so that the evolution of a new art form, a new gadget, a new scientific principle, all involve common factors. It is only afterward that a new idea seems reasonable. What is needed is not only people with a good background in a particular field, but also people capable of making a connection between item 1 and item 2 which might not ordinarily seem connected. To begin with, it usually seems unreasonable. It seems the height of unreason to suppose the earth was round instead of flat, or that it moved instead of the sun, or that objects required a force to stop them when in motion, instead of a force to keep them moving, and so on."
"A person willing to fly in the face of reason, authority, and common sense must be a person of considerable self-assurance. Since he occurs only rarely, he must seem eccentric (in at least that respect) to the rest of us. A person eccentric in one respect is often eccentric in others. Probably more inhibiting than anything else is a feeling of responsibility. The great ideas of the ages have come from people who weren't paid to have great ideas, but were paid to be teachers or patent clerks or petty officials, or were not paid at all. The great ideas came as side issues." A couple more quotes:
"My feeling is that as far as creativity is concerned, isolation is required. The creative person is, in any case, continually working at it. His mind is shuffling his information at all times, even when he is not conscious of it. The presence of others can only inhibit this process, since creation is embarrassing. For every new good idea you have, there are a hundred, ten thousand foolish ones, which you naturally do not care to display."
"Presumably, the process of creativity, whatever it is, is essentially the same in all its branches and varieties, so that the evolution of a new art form, a new gadget, a new scientific principle, all involve common factors. It is only afterward that a new idea seems reasonable. What is needed is not only people with a good background in a particular field, but also people capable of making a connection between item 1 and item 2 which might not ordinarily seem connected. To begin with, it usually seems unreasonable. It seems the height of unreason to suppose the earth was round instead of flat, or that it moved instead of the sun, or that objects required a force to stop them when in motion, instead of a force to keep them moving, and so on."
Not just the common-or-garden Isaac Asimov, but THE Isaac Asimov !!!
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
Who cares? He wasn't writing about genius (or mimicking it), but about creativity and the ability to see relationships or make connections where others haven't.
intelligence without creativity is a dead end, sterile.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
The great ideas of the ages have come from people who weren't paid to have great ideas, but were paid to be teachers or patent clerks or petty officials, or were not paid at all. The great ideas came as side issues.
I'd really feel better if he had some actual data here, instead of speculation. The legacy of Bell Labs kind of runs contrary to this idea, because they were not only paid to come up with ideas, but also told to come up with ideas that would be profitable. Then there were the guys in the Advanced Institute who got paid to do nothing else but come up with great ideas.
The only thing I would even dare venture to guess is that the great ideas of the ages have come from people who were looking for things, even if they found something other than what they were looking for (like Penicillin).
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I think actually the article would be more accurately titled,
How I Get New Ideas
By Isaac Asimov
It worked for him.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
We can see evidence of this in how copyright treats derivative works. All works build on other works, as Asimov wrote when he described connecting A to B to C, yet some forms of such building are forbidden by law.
The dude who invented the round wheel didn't invent the wheel by "resist common sense", or did he?
If everyone else is rolling heavy loads on logs, and someone else figures out that it's better to just use two sections of logs and another smaller one as an axle, well, that's going against common sense. Until you figure out how to use two or more of these supporting a platform and throwing a bit of bear fat on the "axles" as lube and actually show them your new cart ...
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
So maybe you need to be more creative to find a way that doesn't infringe the law :-)
But how can a layman know where the line is for a particular use? The uncertainty itself has a chilling effect on creativity.
so you're skeptic of the skeptics? skeptics of what?
or what the fuck? maybe light too travelled distance per year in Noahs time? that kind of thing?
the problem with saying that people who go against common logic and science are creative geniuses is that.. the more time goes on and the better the established science goes, the more of the people who are skeptical of science are just morons - not creative geniuses. and there's a lot of morons with too high self confidence and self esteem filling up the youtubes already with all kinds of crap theories - that is to say that a moron with high self confidence is a pretty common sight.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
El Senior Isaac Asimov. :-P
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
> Asimov's essay, which is well worth reading in its entirety:
No, it isn't. John Cleese's thoughts on the matter are much more thoughtful and thought provoking. He's had a lifetime to consider it. Although he didn't make much progress, it was more than Asimov.
http://petapixel.com/2014/10/2...
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
The great ideas of the ages have come from people who weren't paid to have great ideas, but were paid to be teachers or patent clerks or petty officials, or were not paid at all.
There is a long tradition of finding secure but undemanding jobs for creative talents who, for political or ideological reasons, could not be subsidized openly.
Common Sense is the opposite of creativity. Common Sense is generalizing information into convenient packages, without critical thought. That's just common sense is used as a reason to not think. Creativity is ignoring the standard and seeing it as new. Common sense may be useful sometimes, but it's not "creative".
Learn to love Alaska
I wonder if he was also a friend of the Bruce Dickinson. The secret to creativity is... more cowbell.
I don't often Isaac Asimov.
But when I do, it's The Isaac Asimov.
Not much different from Edward de Bono's writings on Lateral Thinking, which of course go into somewhat more depth and systematize a method for doing the creative/lateral thinking.
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
Back then, people generally wrote "his", "he" etc when writing about people, male and female, in general. They did not need to qualify every single reference to a person with (m/f), or write his/her instead of his, the way we do these days, verbally bending over backwards to avoid the dreaded accusation of misogyny.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Didn't someone call Henry James a female Jane Austen?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
A failure to understand humanity. All things have their place in the social cooperative effort that is humanity. Intelligence, common sense and creativity. Creativity comes from people willing to do nothing more than spending a great deal of time sitting and thinking, why because due to genetics their brains directly reward them with desirably brain chemicals for sitting and thinking.
Creativity is the primary problem-solving skill. It's a prerequisite for civilization, not a result of it. The default means of solving problems is to bash it with a rock. Even bash it with a stick required creativity, the first time anyway. After that, good old imitation would do.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Nobody expects the grammar inquisition!
You haven't been on /. long if you didn't expect the grammar inquisition.
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
Mod parent up for being absolutely fabulous. Those Dos Equis ad references never get old.
I wouldn't say "never". I agree that they don't get old often.
But when they do...
He was "essay-izing" the plot of his novella, Sucker Bait, written 5 years earlier. Its entire premise is based on a corps of "Mnemonics" who are trained from birth to seek correlations in data. They do this with the full knowledge that these unexpected connections are what drives progress.
I read the essay yesterday and the first thought I had was, "sounds like that one book of his." God I miss his storytelling...
Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice!