The Act of Creation (2 page)
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Authors: Arthur Koestler
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
The first part of this book proposes a theory of the act of creation
-- of the conscious and unconscious processes underlying scientific
discovery, artistic originality, and comic inspiration. It endeavours
to show that all creative activities have a basic pattern in common,
and to outline that pattern.
The aim of Book Two is to show that certain basic principles operate
throughout the whole organic hierarchy -- from the fertilized egg to the
fertile brain of the creative individual; and that phenomena analogous
to creative originality can be found on all levels.
Anyone who writes on a complex subject must learn that he cannot aim
one arrow at two targets. Book One is aimed at the general reader;
some of the chapters in Book Two presuppose a closer acquaintance with
current trends in biology and experimental psychology, and are rather
technical. There is an unavoidable difference in style between the two
parts: in the first, I avoided pedantry at the cost of occasional lapses
into a loose terminology; in the second this was not possible. Readers
who find certain passages in the second part too technical can safely skip
them and pick up the thread later on without losing sight of the general
idea. Its leitmotifs are restated on various levels throughout the book.
It may seem a presumptuous undertaking to inquire into the biological
origins of mental creativity when we are still unable to define the
chemistry of a simple muscle twitch. But often in the history of ideas
we find two opposite methods at work: the 'downward' approach from the
complex to the elementary, from the whole to its component parts, and the
'upward' approach from part to whole. The emphasis on either of these
methods may alternate according to philosophical fashion, until they
meet and merge in a new synthesis. It would have been as impossible to
build theoretical physics on a foundation of its elementary particles
(which turn out to be more and more baffling) as it has proved impossible
to build a theory of psychology on 'elementary reflexes' and 'atoms
of behaviour'. Vice versa, without the assumption that complex matter
consisted of atomic parts, whatever they are, physics and chemistry
could not have evolved.
I have tried to combine both methods by choosing as my starting point
a phenomenon which is at the same time complex and simple, in which
a subtle intellectual process is signalled by a gross physiological
reflex: the phenomenon of laughter. Humour is an elusive thing, so is
the rainbow; yet the study of coloured spectra provided clues to the
elementary structure of matter.
A preliminary outline of this theory was published in 1949 under
the title
Insight and Outlook
. It was intended as the first of two
volumes, and its preface contained the optimistic sentence: 'Volume Two
is in preparation and will, it is hoped, appear twelve months after
the first.' The twelve months have grown into fifteen years. Partly
because I became involved with other subjects; but mainly because I felt
dissatisfied with that first attempt, and felt the need to base the theory
on a broader foundation. I kept returning to it in between other books,
but each time the broadening process necessitated an excursion into some
related field and, as often happens, these excursions acquired a momentum
of their own. One chapter on 'man's changing vision of the universe' grew
into a separate book of more than six hundred pages; [1] so did another
chapter, on Eastern mysticism. [2] And when at last I felt ready to write
that long-postponed second volume I found that I had to scrap the first
and begin again at the beginning. The whole theoretical framework had
to be revised and even the tmninology changed. Readers acquainted with
Insight and Outlook
will notice, however, that I have taken over,
or paraphrased, passages from it which seem to have weathered the time;
to avoid tedium I have omitted quotation marks. I have also incorporated
into the text extracts from lectures given at English and American
universities, with the kind permission of the authorities concerned.
Summaries appear at irregular intervals at the ends of chapters or
sections where I felt that they might be helpful. Asterisks refer to
text notes, index numbers to source references.
I have no illusions about the prospects of the theory I am proposing: it
will suffer the inevitable fate of being proven wrong in many, or most,
details, by new advances in psychology and neurology. What I am hoping
for is that it will be found to contain a shadowy pattern of truth,
and that it may stimulate those who search for unity, in the diverse
manifestations of human thought and emotion.
I am deeply indebted to Professor Sir Cyril Burt, and to Professor Holger
Hyden, University of Gothenburg, for reading the manuscript, for their
corrections, criticisms and encouragement; to Professor Dennis Gabor,
Imperial College, London, Dr. Alan McGlashan, St. George's Hospital,
and Professor Michael Polanyi, Oxford, for many stimulating discussions
on the subject of this book. My grateful thanks are further due to
Dr. J. D. Cowan, Imperial College, for his criticism from the standpoint
of Communication Theory; to Dr. Rodney Maliphant for surveying the
literature on the psycho-physiology of weeping; to Dr. Christopher
Wallis for compiling a bibliography on the same subject; and to Miss
Edith Horsley for her patient and careful editorial work.
London, December 1963
The Act of Creation
BOOK ONE
THE ART OF DISCOVERY
AND THE DISCOVERIES OF ART
PART ONE
THE JESTER
I
THE LOGIC OF LAUGHTER
The Triptych
The three panels of the rounded triptych shown on the frontispiece
indicate three domains of creativity which shade into each other
without sharp boundaries: Humour, Discovery, and Art. The reason for
this seemingly perverse order of arrangement -- the Sage flanked by the
Jester and the Artist on opposite sides -- will become apparent as the
argument unfolds.
Each horizontal line across the triptych stands for a pattern of creative
activity which is represented on all three panels; for instance: comic
comparison -- objective analogy -- poetic image. The first is intended
to make us laugh; the second to make us understand; the third to make us
marvel. The logical pattern of the creative process is the same in all
three cases; it consists in the discovery of hidden similarities. But
the emotional climate is different in the three panels: the comic simile
has a touch of aggressiveness; the scientist's reasoning by analogy is
emotionally detached, i.e. neutral; the poetic image is sympathetic or
admiring, inspired by a positive kind of emotion. I shall try to show
that all patterns of creative activity are tri-valent: they can enter
the service of humour, discovery, or art; and also, that as we travel
across the triptych from left to right, the emotional climate changes
by gradual transitions from aggressive to neutral to sympathetic and
identificatory -- or, to put it another way, from an absurd through an
abstract to a tragic or lyric view of existence. This may look like a
basketful of wild generalizations but is meant only as a first indication
of the direction in which the inquiry will move.
The panels on the diagram meet in curves to indicate that there are
no clear dividing lines between them. The fluidity of the boundaries
between Science and Art is evident, whether we consider Architecture,
Cooking, Psychotherapy, or the writing of History. The mathematician
talks of 'elegant' solutions, the surgeon of a 'beautiful' operation,
the literary critic of 'two-dimensionar characters. Science is said
to aim at Truth, Art at Beauty; but the criteria of Truth (such as
verifiability and refutability) are not as clean and hard as we tend
to believe, and the criteria of Beauty are, of course, even less so. A
glance at the chart on p. 332
[Figure 10a]
will indicate that we can arrange neighbouring provinces of science
and art in series which show a continuous gradient from 'objective' to
'subjective', from 'verifiable truth' to 'aesthetic experience'. One
gradient, for instance, leads from the so-called exact sciences like
chemistry through biochemistry to biology, then through medicine --
which is, alas, a much less exact science -- to psychology, through
anthropology to history, through biography to the biographical novel,
and so on into the abyss of pure fiction. As we move along the sloping
curve, the dimension of 'objective verifiability' is seen to diminish
steadily, and the intuitive or aesthetic dimension to increase. Similar
graded series lead from construction engineering through architecture
and interior design to the hybrid 'arts and crafts' and finally to the
representative arts; here one variable of the curve could be called
'utility', the second 'beauty'. The point of this game is to show that
regardless of what scale of values you choose to apply, you will move
across a continuum without sharp breaks; there are no frontiers where the
realm of science ends and that of art begins, and the
uomo
universale
of the Renaissance was a citizen of both.
On the other side of the triptych the boundaries between discovery and
comic invention are equally fluid -- as the present chapter will show
-- although at first sight this is less obvious to see. That the Jester
should be brother to the Sage may sound like blasphemy, yet our language
reflects the close relationship: the word 'witticism' is derived from
'wit' in its original sense of ingenuity, inventiveness.* Jester and
savant must both 'live on their wits'; and we shall see that the Jester's
riddles provide a useful back-door entry, as it were, into the inner
workshop of creative originality.
The Laughter Reflex
Laughter is a reflex. The word reflex, as Sir Charles Sherrington said,
is a useful fiction. However much its definitions and connotations
differ according to various schools -- it has in fact been the central
battleground of psychology for the last fifty years -- no one is likely
to quarrel with the statement that we are the more justified to call
an organism's behaviour 'reflex' the more it resembles the action of
a mechanical slot-machine; that is to say, the more instantaneous,
predictable, and stereotyped it is. We may also use the synonyms
'automatic', 'involuntary', etc., which some psychologists dislike;
they are in fact implied in the previous sentence.
Spontaneous laughter is produced by the coordinated contraction of fifteen
facial muscles in a stereotyped pattern and accompanied by altered
breathing. The following is a description abridged from Sully's classic
essay on the subject.
Smiling involves a complex group of facial movements. It may suffice
to remind the reader of such characteristic changes as the drawing
back and slight lifting of the corners of the mouth, the raising of
the upper lip, which partially uncovers the teeth, and the curving
of the furrows betwixt the corners of the mouth and the nostrils
(the naso-labial furrows). To these must be added the formation
of wrinkles under the eye, which is a further result of the first
movement . . . and the increased brightness of the eyes.
These facial changes are common to the smile and the laugh, though
in the more violent forms of laughter the eyes are apt to lose under
their lachrymal suffusion the sparkle which the smile brings.
We may now pass to the larger experience of the audible laugh. That
this action is physiologically continuous with the smile has already
been suggested. . . . How closely connected are smiling and moderate
laughing may be seen by the tendency we experience when we reach
the broad smile and the fully open mouth to start the respiratory
movements of laughter. As Darwin and others have pointed out, there
is a series of gradations from the faintest and most decorous smile
up to the full explosion of the laugh.
. . . The series of gradations here indicated is gone through, more
or less rapidly, in an ordinary laugh. . . . The recognition of this
identity of the two actions is evidenced by the usages of speech. We
see in the classical languages a tendency to employ the same word for
the two. . . . This is particularly clear in the case of the Latin
ridere
, which means to smile as well as to laugh, the form
subridere
being rare (Italian,
ridere
and
sorridere
;
French
rire
and
sourire
; German
lachen
and
lächeln
).
We may now turn to the distinguishing characteristics of laughing;
that is, the production of the familiar series of sounds. . . . [1]
But these do not concern us yet. The point to retain is the continuity
of the scale leading from the faint smile to Homeric laughter,
confirmed by laboratory experiments. Electrical stimulation of the
'zygomatic major,' the main lifting muscle of the upper lip, with
currents of varying intensity, produces expressions ranging from smile
to broad grin to the facial contortions typical of loud laughter. [2]
Other researchers made films of tickled babies and of hysterics
to whom tickling was conveyed by suggestion. They again showed the
reflex swiftly increasing from the first faint facial contraction
to paroxysms of shaking and choking -- as the quicksilver in a
thermometer, dipped into hot water, rapidly mounts to the red mark.
These gradations of intensity not only demonstrate the reflex character
of laughter but at the same time provide an explanation for the rich
variety of its forms -- from Rabelaisian laughter at a spicy joke to the
rarefied smile of courtesy. But there are additional reasons to account
for this confusing variety. Reflexes do not operate in a vacuum; they are
to a greater or lesser extent interfered with by higher nervous centres;
thus civilized laughter is rarely quite spontaneous. Amusement can be
feigned or suppressed; to a faint involuntary response we may add at
will a discreet chuckle or a leonine roar; and habit-formation soon
crystallizes these reflex-plus-pretence amalgams into characteristic
properties of a person.
The first part of this book proposes a theory of the act of creation
-- of the conscious and unconscious processes underlying scientific
discovery, artistic originality, and comic inspiration. It endeavours
to show that all creative activities have a basic pattern in common,
and to outline that pattern.
The aim of Book Two is to show that certain basic principles operate
throughout the whole organic hierarchy -- from the fertilized egg to the
fertile brain of the creative individual; and that phenomena analogous
to creative originality can be found on all levels.
Anyone who writes on a complex subject must learn that he cannot aim
one arrow at two targets. Book One is aimed at the general reader;
some of the chapters in Book Two presuppose a closer acquaintance with
current trends in biology and experimental psychology, and are rather
technical. There is an unavoidable difference in style between the two
parts: in the first, I avoided pedantry at the cost of occasional lapses
into a loose terminology; in the second this was not possible. Readers
who find certain passages in the second part too technical can safely skip
them and pick up the thread later on without losing sight of the general
idea. Its leitmotifs are restated on various levels throughout the book.
It may seem a presumptuous undertaking to inquire into the biological
origins of mental creativity when we are still unable to define the
chemistry of a simple muscle twitch. But often in the history of ideas
we find two opposite methods at work: the 'downward' approach from the
complex to the elementary, from the whole to its component parts, and the
'upward' approach from part to whole. The emphasis on either of these
methods may alternate according to philosophical fashion, until they
meet and merge in a new synthesis. It would have been as impossible to
build theoretical physics on a foundation of its elementary particles
(which turn out to be more and more baffling) as it has proved impossible
to build a theory of psychology on 'elementary reflexes' and 'atoms
of behaviour'. Vice versa, without the assumption that complex matter
consisted of atomic parts, whatever they are, physics and chemistry
could not have evolved.
I have tried to combine both methods by choosing as my starting point
a phenomenon which is at the same time complex and simple, in which
a subtle intellectual process is signalled by a gross physiological
reflex: the phenomenon of laughter. Humour is an elusive thing, so is
the rainbow; yet the study of coloured spectra provided clues to the
elementary structure of matter.
A preliminary outline of this theory was published in 1949 under
the title
Insight and Outlook
. It was intended as the first of two
volumes, and its preface contained the optimistic sentence: 'Volume Two
is in preparation and will, it is hoped, appear twelve months after
the first.' The twelve months have grown into fifteen years. Partly
because I became involved with other subjects; but mainly because I felt
dissatisfied with that first attempt, and felt the need to base the theory
on a broader foundation. I kept returning to it in between other books,
but each time the broadening process necessitated an excursion into some
related field and, as often happens, these excursions acquired a momentum
of their own. One chapter on 'man's changing vision of the universe' grew
into a separate book of more than six hundred pages; [1] so did another
chapter, on Eastern mysticism. [2] And when at last I felt ready to write
that long-postponed second volume I found that I had to scrap the first
and begin again at the beginning. The whole theoretical framework had
to be revised and even the tmninology changed. Readers acquainted with
Insight and Outlook
will notice, however, that I have taken over,
or paraphrased, passages from it which seem to have weathered the time;
to avoid tedium I have omitted quotation marks. I have also incorporated
into the text extracts from lectures given at English and American
universities, with the kind permission of the authorities concerned.
Summaries appear at irregular intervals at the ends of chapters or
sections where I felt that they might be helpful. Asterisks refer to
text notes, index numbers to source references.
I have no illusions about the prospects of the theory I am proposing: it
will suffer the inevitable fate of being proven wrong in many, or most,
details, by new advances in psychology and neurology. What I am hoping
for is that it will be found to contain a shadowy pattern of truth,
and that it may stimulate those who search for unity, in the diverse
manifestations of human thought and emotion.
I am deeply indebted to Professor Sir Cyril Burt, and to Professor Holger
Hyden, University of Gothenburg, for reading the manuscript, for their
corrections, criticisms and encouragement; to Professor Dennis Gabor,
Imperial College, London, Dr. Alan McGlashan, St. George's Hospital,
and Professor Michael Polanyi, Oxford, for many stimulating discussions
on the subject of this book. My grateful thanks are further due to
Dr. J. D. Cowan, Imperial College, for his criticism from the standpoint
of Communication Theory; to Dr. Rodney Maliphant for surveying the
literature on the psycho-physiology of weeping; to Dr. Christopher
Wallis for compiling a bibliography on the same subject; and to Miss
Edith Horsley for her patient and careful editorial work.
London, December 1963
The Act of Creation
BOOK ONE
THE ART OF DISCOVERY
AND THE DISCOVERIES OF ART
PART ONE
THE JESTER
I
THE LOGIC OF LAUGHTER
The Triptych
The three panels of the rounded triptych shown on the frontispiece
indicate three domains of creativity which shade into each other
without sharp boundaries: Humour, Discovery, and Art. The reason for
this seemingly perverse order of arrangement -- the Sage flanked by the
Jester and the Artist on opposite sides -- will become apparent as the
argument unfolds.
Each horizontal line across the triptych stands for a pattern of creative
activity which is represented on all three panels; for instance: comic
comparison -- objective analogy -- poetic image. The first is intended
to make us laugh; the second to make us understand; the third to make us
marvel. The logical pattern of the creative process is the same in all
three cases; it consists in the discovery of hidden similarities. But
the emotional climate is different in the three panels: the comic simile
has a touch of aggressiveness; the scientist's reasoning by analogy is
emotionally detached, i.e. neutral; the poetic image is sympathetic or
admiring, inspired by a positive kind of emotion. I shall try to show
that all patterns of creative activity are tri-valent: they can enter
the service of humour, discovery, or art; and also, that as we travel
across the triptych from left to right, the emotional climate changes
by gradual transitions from aggressive to neutral to sympathetic and
identificatory -- or, to put it another way, from an absurd through an
abstract to a tragic or lyric view of existence. This may look like a
basketful of wild generalizations but is meant only as a first indication
of the direction in which the inquiry will move.
The panels on the diagram meet in curves to indicate that there are
no clear dividing lines between them. The fluidity of the boundaries
between Science and Art is evident, whether we consider Architecture,
Cooking, Psychotherapy, or the writing of History. The mathematician
talks of 'elegant' solutions, the surgeon of a 'beautiful' operation,
the literary critic of 'two-dimensionar characters. Science is said
to aim at Truth, Art at Beauty; but the criteria of Truth (such as
verifiability and refutability) are not as clean and hard as we tend
to believe, and the criteria of Beauty are, of course, even less so. A
glance at the chart on p. 332
[Figure 10a]
will indicate that we can arrange neighbouring provinces of science
and art in series which show a continuous gradient from 'objective' to
'subjective', from 'verifiable truth' to 'aesthetic experience'. One
gradient, for instance, leads from the so-called exact sciences like
chemistry through biochemistry to biology, then through medicine --
which is, alas, a much less exact science -- to psychology, through
anthropology to history, through biography to the biographical novel,
and so on into the abyss of pure fiction. As we move along the sloping
curve, the dimension of 'objective verifiability' is seen to diminish
steadily, and the intuitive or aesthetic dimension to increase. Similar
graded series lead from construction engineering through architecture
and interior design to the hybrid 'arts and crafts' and finally to the
representative arts; here one variable of the curve could be called
'utility', the second 'beauty'. The point of this game is to show that
regardless of what scale of values you choose to apply, you will move
across a continuum without sharp breaks; there are no frontiers where the
realm of science ends and that of art begins, and the
uomo
universale
of the Renaissance was a citizen of both.
On the other side of the triptych the boundaries between discovery and
comic invention are equally fluid -- as the present chapter will show
-- although at first sight this is less obvious to see. That the Jester
should be brother to the Sage may sound like blasphemy, yet our language
reflects the close relationship: the word 'witticism' is derived from
'wit' in its original sense of ingenuity, inventiveness.* Jester and
savant must both 'live on their wits'; and we shall see that the Jester's
riddles provide a useful back-door entry, as it were, into the inner
workshop of creative originality.
The Laughter Reflex
Laughter is a reflex. The word reflex, as Sir Charles Sherrington said,
is a useful fiction. However much its definitions and connotations
differ according to various schools -- it has in fact been the central
battleground of psychology for the last fifty years -- no one is likely
to quarrel with the statement that we are the more justified to call
an organism's behaviour 'reflex' the more it resembles the action of
a mechanical slot-machine; that is to say, the more instantaneous,
predictable, and stereotyped it is. We may also use the synonyms
'automatic', 'involuntary', etc., which some psychologists dislike;
they are in fact implied in the previous sentence.
Spontaneous laughter is produced by the coordinated contraction of fifteen
facial muscles in a stereotyped pattern and accompanied by altered
breathing. The following is a description abridged from Sully's classic
essay on the subject.
Smiling involves a complex group of facial movements. It may suffice
to remind the reader of such characteristic changes as the drawing
back and slight lifting of the corners of the mouth, the raising of
the upper lip, which partially uncovers the teeth, and the curving
of the furrows betwixt the corners of the mouth and the nostrils
(the naso-labial furrows). To these must be added the formation
of wrinkles under the eye, which is a further result of the first
movement . . . and the increased brightness of the eyes.
These facial changes are common to the smile and the laugh, though
in the more violent forms of laughter the eyes are apt to lose under
their lachrymal suffusion the sparkle which the smile brings.
We may now pass to the larger experience of the audible laugh. That
this action is physiologically continuous with the smile has already
been suggested. . . . How closely connected are smiling and moderate
laughing may be seen by the tendency we experience when we reach
the broad smile and the fully open mouth to start the respiratory
movements of laughter. As Darwin and others have pointed out, there
is a series of gradations from the faintest and most decorous smile
up to the full explosion of the laugh.
. . . The series of gradations here indicated is gone through, more
or less rapidly, in an ordinary laugh. . . . The recognition of this
identity of the two actions is evidenced by the usages of speech. We
see in the classical languages a tendency to employ the same word for
the two. . . . This is particularly clear in the case of the Latin
ridere
, which means to smile as well as to laugh, the form
subridere
being rare (Italian,
ridere
and
sorridere
;
French
rire
and
sourire
; German
lachen
and
lächeln
).
We may now turn to the distinguishing characteristics of laughing;
that is, the production of the familiar series of sounds. . . . [1]
But these do not concern us yet. The point to retain is the continuity
of the scale leading from the faint smile to Homeric laughter,
confirmed by laboratory experiments. Electrical stimulation of the
'zygomatic major,' the main lifting muscle of the upper lip, with
currents of varying intensity, produces expressions ranging from smile
to broad grin to the facial contortions typical of loud laughter. [2]
Other researchers made films of tickled babies and of hysterics
to whom tickling was conveyed by suggestion. They again showed the
reflex swiftly increasing from the first faint facial contraction
to paroxysms of shaking and choking -- as the quicksilver in a
thermometer, dipped into hot water, rapidly mounts to the red mark.
These gradations of intensity not only demonstrate the reflex character
of laughter but at the same time provide an explanation for the rich
variety of its forms -- from Rabelaisian laughter at a spicy joke to the
rarefied smile of courtesy. But there are additional reasons to account
for this confusing variety. Reflexes do not operate in a vacuum; they are
to a greater or lesser extent interfered with by higher nervous centres;
thus civilized laughter is rarely quite spontaneous. Amusement can be
feigned or suppressed; to a faint involuntary response we may add at
will a discreet chuckle or a leonine roar; and habit-formation soon
crystallizes these reflex-plus-pretence amalgams into characteristic
properties of a person.
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