Read The Act of Creation Online
Authors: Arthur Koestler
The Act of Creation (27 page)
'Full consciousness' must indeed be regarded as the upper limit of a
continuous gradient from focal awareness through peripheral awareness
to total unawareness of an event. Awareness is a matter of degrees; and
only a fraction of our multi-levelled activities at any moment enters
the beam of focal consciousness. But this realization in itself provides
no answer to the question how unconscious guidance works.
We have approached that question in several cautious steps. First, I
have tried to show that unconscious automatisms must not be confused,
as they often are, with unconscious intuitions. To be able to recite the
lines of Kubla Khan 'in one's sleep' is not the same thing as conceiving
them in a dream; it is, in fact, the result of the opposite process. The
formation and gradual automatization of habits of all kinds, of muscular,
perceptual, thinking skills, follows the principle of economy. Once a new
skill has been mastered, the controls begin to function automatically and
can be dispatched underground, out of sight; and under stable conditions
strategy too will tend to become stereotyped. I called this the 'downward'
stream of mental traffic.
The next step led us to inquire how in ordinary, routine thinking
we explore the 'shallows' of our minds -- operating on the twilight
peripheries of awareness, as it were. Galton's oft-quoted metaphor of the
ante-chamber, from which the 'most closely allied' idea is summoned to the
presence-chamber of the mind in a 'mechanically logical way', proved to be
inadequate, because the order of precedence was seen to depend firstly,
on the specific rules of the game in which the mind is engaged at the
time, and secondly, on strategic considerations dependent on the lie
of the land. Purposive thinking, then, may be compared to the scanning
of a landscape with the narrow beam of focal vision -- whether it is a
panorama, a chessboard, or an 'inner landscape'. Those features which
are relevant to the purpose of the operation will stand out as 'members'
of the matrix, while the rest sinks into the background. Thus the first
act in skilled routine-thinking and problem-solving is the 'tuning-in'
of the code appropriate to the task, guided by some obvious similarity
with situations encountered in the past. This leads to the emergence
of a matrix which provides a preliminary selection of
possible
moves; the
actual
moves depend on strategy, guided by feed-back,
and distorted by emotional interferences.
However, the problems which lead to original discoveries are precisely
those which cannot be solved by any familiar rule of the game, because
the matrices applied in the past to problems of similar nature have been
rendered inadequate by new features or complexities in the situation, by
new observational data, or a new type of question. The search for a clue,
for Poincaré's 'good combination' which will unlock the blocked problem,
proceeds on several planes, involving unconscious processes at various
levels of depth.
In a general way this simultaneous activity on various levels,
during the period of incubation, in itself creates a state of
receptivity, a readiness of the 'prepared mind' to pounce on favourable
chance-constellations, and to profit from any casual hint (Gutenberg and
the wine-press, Archimedes, Pasteur, Darwin, Fleming). In discoveries
of this type, where both rational thinking and the trigger-action of
chance play a noticeable part, the function of the unconscious seems
to be mainly to keep the problem constantly on the agenda, even while
conscious attention is occupied elsewhere. In this context the word
'unconscious' refers primarily to processes (such as perceptions and
memories) which occur fairly low down on the gradient of awareness.
But in other types of discovery the unconscious plays a more specific,
guiding role by bringing forms of ideation into play which otherwise
manifest themselves only in dreaming and related states. Their codes
function more or less permanently 'underground', because they govern the
type of thinking prevalent in childhood and in primitive societies, which
has been superseded in the normal adult by techniques of thought which are
more rational and realistic -- or are considered as such. These ancient,
quasi-archaeological layers in the mental hierarchy form a world apart,
as it were, glimpses of which we get in the dream; their existence
is a kind of historic record, which testifies to the facts of mental
evolution; and they must not be confused with automatized skills which,
once mastered, function unawares, for reasons of mental economy. (It
would perhaps be preferable to call these 'archeological' strata of the
mind the '
sub
-conscious', to distinguish them from processes of
which we are merely
un
-conscious because they happen to rank low
on the linear scale of awareness. But the Freudian connotations of the
word subconscious would probably lead to confusion of a different kind.)
The period of incubation represents a
reculer pour mieux sauter
.
Just as in the dream the codes of logical reasoning are suspended,
so 'thinking aside' is a temporary liberation from the tyranny of
over-precise verbal concepts, of the axioms and prejudices engrained in
the very texture of specialized ways of thought. It allows the mind to
discard the strait-jacket of habit, to shrug off apparent contradictions,
to un-learn and forget -- and to acquire, in exchange, a greater fluidity,
versatility, and gullibility. This rebellion against constraints which are
necessary to maintain the order and discipline of conventional thought,
but an impediment to the creative leap, is symptomatic both of the genius
and the crank; what distinguishes them is the intuitive guidance which
only the former enjoys.
Though Poincaré was doubtless one of its beneficiaries, I have
quoted his hypothesis regarding the nature of that guidance -- the
automatic mixing machine in the basement -- as an example of a mechanistic
explanation. In fact, however, the underground games of the mind were seen
to be of a highly sophisticated, visionary and witty nature, although its
rules are not those of formal logic. The dreamer constantly bisociates
-- innocently as it were -- frames of reference which are regarded as
incompatible in the waking state; he drifts effortlessly from matrix to
matrix, without being aware of it; in his inner landscape, the bisociative
techniques of humour and discovery are reflected upside down, like
trees in a pond. The most fertile region seems to be the marshy shore,
the borderland between sleep and full awakening -- where the matrices of
disciplined thought are already operating but have not yet sufficiently
hardened to obstruct the dreamlike fluidity of imagination.*
I have discussed various bisociative devices in which the matchmaking
activities of the unconscious manifest themselves: the substitution of
vague visual images for precise verbal formulations; symbolization,
concretization, and impersonation; mergers of sound and sense, of form
and function; shifts of emphasis, and reasoning in reverse gear;
guidance by nascent analogies. In day-dreaming, and in most dreams of
ordinary mortals, these activities are free-wheeling or serving intimately
personal ends; in the inspired moments of artists and scientists they
are harnessed to the creative purpose.
The moment of truth, the sudden emergence of a new insight, is an act of
intuition. Such intuitions give the appearance of miraculous flashes, or
short-circuits of reasoning. In fact they may be likened to an immersed
chain, of which only the beginning and the end are visible above the
surface of consciousness. The diver vanishes at one end of the chain
and comes up at the other end, guided by invisible links.
Habit and originality, then, point in opposite directions in the two-way
traffic between conscious and unconscious processes. The condensation
of learning into habit, and the automatization of skills constitute
the downward stream; while the upward traffic consists in the minor,
vitalizing pulses from the underground, and the rare major surges of
creation.
NOTES
To
p. 192
. Jung's emphasis on the mandala as the
symbol of the
coincidencia oppositorum
concerns the reconciliation
of opposites in the fully integrated person -- which is an altogether
different question.
p. 202
. Half a century earlier, the cracklings
and sparks produced by rubbing a piece of amber had been compared to
lightning and thunder by Wall, a friend of Boyle's; but as the context
shows, the comparison was meant in a purely metaphorical way.
p. 210
. ' . . . Einstein has reported that
his profound generalization connecting space and time occurred to him
while he was sick in bed. Descartes is said to have made his discoveries
while lying in bed in the morning and both Cannon and Poincaré
report having got bright ideas when lying in bed unable to sleep -- the
only good thing to be said for insomnia! It is said that James Brindley,
the great engineer, when up against a difficult problem, would go to
bed for several days till it was solved. Walter Scott wrote to a friend:
THE SPARK AND THE FLAME
False Inspirations
I have discussed the genesis of the Eureka act -- the sudden shaking
together of two previously uncormected matrices; let us now turn to the
aftermath of it.
If all goes well, that single, explosive contact will lead to a lasting
fusion of the two matrices -- a new synthesis will emerge, a further
advance in mental evolution will have been achieved. On the other hand,
the inspiration may have been a mirage; or premature; or not sufficiently
impressive to be believed in.
A stimulating inquiry by the American chemists Platt and Barker
showed that among those scientists who answered their questionnaire,
eighty-three per cent claimed frequent or occasional assistance from
unconscious intuitions. But at the same time only seven per cent among
them asserted that their intuitions were always correct; the remainder
estimated the percentage of their 'false intuitions' variously at ten
to ninety per cent.
A false inspiration is not an ordinary error committed in the course of
a routine operation, such as making a mistake in counting. It is a kind
of inspired blunder which presents itself in the guise of an original
synthesis, and carries the same subjective conviction as Archimedes's
cry did. Let me quote Poincaré once more:
genius need only listen to his Socratian demon and all will be well. But
the demon is a great hoaxer -- precisely because he is not bound by the
codes of disciplined thought; and every original thinker who relies,
as he must, on his unconscious hunches, incurs much greater risks to
his career and sanity than his more pedestrian colleagues. 'The world
little knows', wrote Faraday, 'how many of the thoughts and theories
which have passed through the mind of a scientific investigator have been
crushed in silence and secrecy; that in the most successful instances
not a tenth of the suggestions, the hopes, the wishes, the preliminary
conclusions have been realized.' [2] Darwin, Huxley, and Planck, among
many others, made similar confessions; Einstein lost 'two years of hard
work' owing to a false inspiration. 'The imagination', wrote Beveridge,
'merely enables us to wander into the darkness of the unknown where, by
the dim light of the knowledge that we carry, we may glimpse something
that seems of interest. But when we bring it out and examine it more
closely it usually proves to be only trash whose glitter had caught our
attention. Imagination is at once the source of all hope and inspiration
but also of frustration. To forget this is to court despair.' [3]
All through his life Kepler hoped to prove that the motions of the
planets round the sun obeyed certain musical laws, the harmonies of the
spheres. When he was approaching fifty, he thought he had succeeded. The
following is one of the rare instances on record of a genius describing
the heady effect ofa false inspiration -- Kepler never discovered that
he was the victim of a delusion:
of beautiful hypotheses by ugly facts. Against this tragedy, at least,
the artist seems to be immune. On the other hand, it is generally
believed that the scientist can at least rely on the verification of
his intuitions by experiment, whereas the artist has no such objective
tests to decide whether or not he should burn his manuscript, or slash
his canvas to pieces.
In fact, however, 'verification by experiment' can never yield absolute
certainty, and when it comes to controversial issues the data can
usually be interpreted in more than one way. The history of medicine
is full of obvious and distressing examples of this. In physics and
chemistry too, the best we can do by so-called 'crucial experiments'
is to confirm a prediction -- but not the theory on which the prediction
is based (see below,
continuous gradient from focal awareness through peripheral awareness
to total unawareness of an event. Awareness is a matter of degrees; and
only a fraction of our multi-levelled activities at any moment enters
the beam of focal consciousness. But this realization in itself provides
no answer to the question how unconscious guidance works.
We have approached that question in several cautious steps. First, I
have tried to show that unconscious automatisms must not be confused,
as they often are, with unconscious intuitions. To be able to recite the
lines of Kubla Khan 'in one's sleep' is not the same thing as conceiving
them in a dream; it is, in fact, the result of the opposite process. The
formation and gradual automatization of habits of all kinds, of muscular,
perceptual, thinking skills, follows the principle of economy. Once a new
skill has been mastered, the controls begin to function automatically and
can be dispatched underground, out of sight; and under stable conditions
strategy too will tend to become stereotyped. I called this the 'downward'
stream of mental traffic.
The next step led us to inquire how in ordinary, routine thinking
we explore the 'shallows' of our minds -- operating on the twilight
peripheries of awareness, as it were. Galton's oft-quoted metaphor of the
ante-chamber, from which the 'most closely allied' idea is summoned to the
presence-chamber of the mind in a 'mechanically logical way', proved to be
inadequate, because the order of precedence was seen to depend firstly,
on the specific rules of the game in which the mind is engaged at the
time, and secondly, on strategic considerations dependent on the lie
of the land. Purposive thinking, then, may be compared to the scanning
of a landscape with the narrow beam of focal vision -- whether it is a
panorama, a chessboard, or an 'inner landscape'. Those features which
are relevant to the purpose of the operation will stand out as 'members'
of the matrix, while the rest sinks into the background. Thus the first
act in skilled routine-thinking and problem-solving is the 'tuning-in'
of the code appropriate to the task, guided by some obvious similarity
with situations encountered in the past. This leads to the emergence
of a matrix which provides a preliminary selection of
possible
moves; the
actual
moves depend on strategy, guided by feed-back,
and distorted by emotional interferences.
However, the problems which lead to original discoveries are precisely
those which cannot be solved by any familiar rule of the game, because
the matrices applied in the past to problems of similar nature have been
rendered inadequate by new features or complexities in the situation, by
new observational data, or a new type of question. The search for a clue,
for Poincaré's 'good combination' which will unlock the blocked problem,
proceeds on several planes, involving unconscious processes at various
levels of depth.
In a general way this simultaneous activity on various levels,
during the period of incubation, in itself creates a state of
receptivity, a readiness of the 'prepared mind' to pounce on favourable
chance-constellations, and to profit from any casual hint (Gutenberg and
the wine-press, Archimedes, Pasteur, Darwin, Fleming). In discoveries
of this type, where both rational thinking and the trigger-action of
chance play a noticeable part, the function of the unconscious seems
to be mainly to keep the problem constantly on the agenda, even while
conscious attention is occupied elsewhere. In this context the word
'unconscious' refers primarily to processes (such as perceptions and
memories) which occur fairly low down on the gradient of awareness.
But in other types of discovery the unconscious plays a more specific,
guiding role by bringing forms of ideation into play which otherwise
manifest themselves only in dreaming and related states. Their codes
function more or less permanently 'underground', because they govern the
type of thinking prevalent in childhood and in primitive societies, which
has been superseded in the normal adult by techniques of thought which are
more rational and realistic -- or are considered as such. These ancient,
quasi-archaeological layers in the mental hierarchy form a world apart,
as it were, glimpses of which we get in the dream; their existence
is a kind of historic record, which testifies to the facts of mental
evolution; and they must not be confused with automatized skills which,
once mastered, function unawares, for reasons of mental economy. (It
would perhaps be preferable to call these 'archeological' strata of the
mind the '
sub
-conscious', to distinguish them from processes of
which we are merely
un
-conscious because they happen to rank low
on the linear scale of awareness. But the Freudian connotations of the
word subconscious would probably lead to confusion of a different kind.)
The period of incubation represents a
reculer pour mieux sauter
.
Just as in the dream the codes of logical reasoning are suspended,
so 'thinking aside' is a temporary liberation from the tyranny of
over-precise verbal concepts, of the axioms and prejudices engrained in
the very texture of specialized ways of thought. It allows the mind to
discard the strait-jacket of habit, to shrug off apparent contradictions,
to un-learn and forget -- and to acquire, in exchange, a greater fluidity,
versatility, and gullibility. This rebellion against constraints which are
necessary to maintain the order and discipline of conventional thought,
but an impediment to the creative leap, is symptomatic both of the genius
and the crank; what distinguishes them is the intuitive guidance which
only the former enjoys.
Though Poincaré was doubtless one of its beneficiaries, I have
quoted his hypothesis regarding the nature of that guidance -- the
automatic mixing machine in the basement -- as an example of a mechanistic
explanation. In fact, however, the underground games of the mind were seen
to be of a highly sophisticated, visionary and witty nature, although its
rules are not those of formal logic. The dreamer constantly bisociates
-- innocently as it were -- frames of reference which are regarded as
incompatible in the waking state; he drifts effortlessly from matrix to
matrix, without being aware of it; in his inner landscape, the bisociative
techniques of humour and discovery are reflected upside down, like
trees in a pond. The most fertile region seems to be the marshy shore,
the borderland between sleep and full awakening -- where the matrices of
disciplined thought are already operating but have not yet sufficiently
hardened to obstruct the dreamlike fluidity of imagination.*
I have discussed various bisociative devices in which the matchmaking
activities of the unconscious manifest themselves: the substitution of
vague visual images for precise verbal formulations; symbolization,
concretization, and impersonation; mergers of sound and sense, of form
and function; shifts of emphasis, and reasoning in reverse gear;
guidance by nascent analogies. In day-dreaming, and in most dreams of
ordinary mortals, these activities are free-wheeling or serving intimately
personal ends; in the inspired moments of artists and scientists they
are harnessed to the creative purpose.
The moment of truth, the sudden emergence of a new insight, is an act of
intuition. Such intuitions give the appearance of miraculous flashes, or
short-circuits of reasoning. In fact they may be likened to an immersed
chain, of which only the beginning and the end are visible above the
surface of consciousness. The diver vanishes at one end of the chain
and comes up at the other end, guided by invisible links.
Habit and originality, then, point in opposite directions in the two-way
traffic between conscious and unconscious processes. The condensation
of learning into habit, and the automatization of skills constitute
the downward stream; while the upward traffic consists in the minor,
vitalizing pulses from the underground, and the rare major surges of
creation.
NOTES
To
p. 192
. Jung's emphasis on the mandala as the
symbol of the
coincidencia oppositorum
concerns the reconciliation
of opposites in the fully integrated person -- which is an altogether
different question.
p. 202
. Half a century earlier, the cracklings
and sparks produced by rubbing a piece of amber had been compared to
lightning and thunder by Wall, a friend of Boyle's; but as the context
shows, the comparison was meant in a purely metaphorical way.
p. 210
. ' . . . Einstein has reported that
his profound generalization connecting space and time occurred to him
while he was sick in bed. Descartes is said to have made his discoveries
while lying in bed in the morning and both Cannon and Poincaré
report having got bright ideas when lying in bed unable to sleep -- the
only good thing to be said for insomnia! It is said that James Brindley,
the great engineer, when up against a difficult problem, would go to
bed for several days till it was solved. Walter Scott wrote to a friend:
The half-hour between waking and rising has all my life proved
propitious to any task which was exercising my invention. . . . It
was always when I first opened my eyes that the desired ideas thronged
upon me.
(Beveridge, W.I.B., 1950, pp. 73-4).
THE SPARK AND THE FLAME
False Inspirations
I have discussed the genesis of the Eureka act -- the sudden shaking
together of two previously uncormected matrices; let us now turn to the
aftermath of it.
If all goes well, that single, explosive contact will lead to a lasting
fusion of the two matrices -- a new synthesis will emerge, a further
advance in mental evolution will have been achieved. On the other hand,
the inspiration may have been a mirage; or premature; or not sufficiently
impressive to be believed in.
A stimulating inquiry by the American chemists Platt and Barker
showed that among those scientists who answered their questionnaire,
eighty-three per cent claimed frequent or occasional assistance from
unconscious intuitions. But at the same time only seven per cent among
them asserted that their intuitions were always correct; the remainder
estimated the percentage of their 'false intuitions' variously at ten
to ninety per cent.
A false inspiration is not an ordinary error committed in the course of
a routine operation, such as making a mistake in counting. It is a kind
of inspired blunder which presents itself in the guise of an original
synthesis, and carries the same subjective conviction as Archimedes's
cry did. Let me quote Poincaré once more:
I have spoken of the feeling of absolute certitude accompanying theThe previous chapters may have given the mistaken impression that the
inspiration; often this feeling deceives us without it being any the
less vivid. . . . When a sudden illumination seizes upon the mind of the
mathematician, it usually happens that it does not deceive him, but it
also sometimes happens, that it does not stand the test of verification;
well, we almost always notice that this false idea, had it been true,
would have gratified our natural feeling for mathematical elegance. [1]
genius need only listen to his Socratian demon and all will be well. But
the demon is a great hoaxer -- precisely because he is not bound by the
codes of disciplined thought; and every original thinker who relies,
as he must, on his unconscious hunches, incurs much greater risks to
his career and sanity than his more pedestrian colleagues. 'The world
little knows', wrote Faraday, 'how many of the thoughts and theories
which have passed through the mind of a scientific investigator have been
crushed in silence and secrecy; that in the most successful instances
not a tenth of the suggestions, the hopes, the wishes, the preliminary
conclusions have been realized.' [2] Darwin, Huxley, and Planck, among
many others, made similar confessions; Einstein lost 'two years of hard
work' owing to a false inspiration. 'The imagination', wrote Beveridge,
'merely enables us to wander into the darkness of the unknown where, by
the dim light of the knowledge that we carry, we may glimpse something
that seems of interest. But when we bring it out and examine it more
closely it usually proves to be only trash whose glitter had caught our
attention. Imagination is at once the source of all hope and inspiration
but also of frustration. To forget this is to court despair.' [3]
All through his life Kepler hoped to prove that the motions of the
planets round the sun obeyed certain musical laws, the harmonies of the
spheres. When he was approaching fifty, he thought he had succeeded. The
following is one of the rare instances on record of a genius describing
the heady effect ofa false inspiration -- Kepler never discovered that
he was the victim of a delusion:
The thing which dawned on me twenty-five years ago before I had yetT. H. Huxley has said that the tragedies of science are the slayings
discovered the five perfect bodies between the heavenly orbits; which
sixteen years ago I proclaimed as the ultimate aim of all research;
which caused me to devote the best years of my life to astronomical
studies, to join Tycho Brahe and to choose Prague as my residence --
that I have, with the aid of God, who set my enthusiasm on fire and
stirred in me an irrepressible desire, who kept my life and intelligence
alert -- that I have now at long last brought to light. Having perceived
the first glimmer of dawn eighteen months ago, the light of day three
months ago, but only a few days ago the plain sun of a most wonderful
vision -- nothing shall now hold me back. Yes, I give myself up to
holy raving. If you forgive me, I shall rejoice. If you are angry,
I shall bear it. Behold, I have cast the dice, and I am writing a
book either for my contemporaries, or for posterity. It is all the
same to me. It may wait a hundred years for a reader, since God has
also waited six thousand years for a witness. [4]
of beautiful hypotheses by ugly facts. Against this tragedy, at least,
the artist seems to be immune. On the other hand, it is generally
believed that the scientist can at least rely on the verification of
his intuitions by experiment, whereas the artist has no such objective
tests to decide whether or not he should burn his manuscript, or slash
his canvas to pieces.
In fact, however, 'verification by experiment' can never yield absolute
certainty, and when it comes to controversial issues the data can
usually be interpreted in more than one way. The history of medicine
is full of obvious and distressing examples of this. In physics and
chemistry too, the best we can do by so-called 'crucial experiments'
is to confirm a prediction -- but not the theory on which the prediction
is based (see below,
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