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Re: d'Espagnat wins Templeton Award

by John Mikes :: Rate this Message:

Russell,

you are not alone as the target of this remark...

Many people consider 'creativity' (like "change", "quality" etc.) a POSITIVE concept. - WRONG. -

Just consider the recent creative financial genius Maddoff, with his b$50 scam - he was creative. And so are tyrants, criminals, galore. (Don't forget politicians<G>)

I condone: 'good' and 'bad' are relative epithets, depending on the point of view one looks at it, but the choir celebrates the 'creative' ones from the position of a presently ongoing general value-system - in "our own" (the writer) interest. Societal values,as we 'like' to think about 'us'.

Agreeing with your agreement: in "free" and "critical" ways of thinking I may go a step further and propose the two as separate types rather than aspects only.

Respectfully

John M

On Sat, Mar 21, 2009 at 7:53 PM, Russell Standish <lists@...> wrote:

On Sat, Mar 21, 2009 at 05:15:05PM +1100, Kim Jones wrote:
>
> > think this is what Kim is saying. But true creativity cannot be
> > taught
>
>
> If you are right then we are doomed because creative thinking is the
> only shot left in the locker for humans. More of the same will no
> longer get us far.

True creativity is an innate property of some people. As a proportion
of the population, there are as many geniuses now as there were in the
Golden Age of Greece. In fact, because the population is so much
larger now, there are many more of them walking the planet now than then.

What we can influence is the structure of society to help or hinder
these creative people actually contributing to society (ie enable
creative people to become recognised geniuses). We can all think of
repressive societies that lacked any form of expressive creativity
(yet they must still have the same proportion of creative individuals
living in them as everyone else). Getting the right balance between
"free thinking" and "critical thinking" is one very important aspect
of this, so I'm certainly not disagreeing with you Kim.

Cheers
--

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Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Mathematics
UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder@...
Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au
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« Return to Thread: d'Espagnat wins Templeton Award