d'Espagnat wins Templeton Award

[Kim Jones-2]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16769-concept-of-hypercosmic-god-wins-templeton-prize.html



Next year, Bruno's turn!!!!!


regards,

Kim

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 17 Mar 2009, at 11:49, Kim Jones wrote:

> http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16769-concept-of-hypercosmic-god-wins-templeton-prize.html


Nice! d'Espagnat got it!



>
>
>
>
> Next year, Bruno's turn!!!!!
>



You are too kind.

You know, in the seventies, last century, I met three or four times  
d'Espagnat in Paris. I am very glad for him. It is a sincere inquirer  
well aware that something was informative, to say the least, in the  
EPR quantum weirdness, and in the quantum measurement problem.
I read all his four first books, and two of them has been my bible,  
with respect to the quantum "mystery".
Despite a good, open minded description of Everett "many-worlds", he  
prefers to stick on a veiled but fuzzy reality, yet of the platonist  
kind. I am sure he could appreciate comp, if that was taught. To be  
frank I have not read his more recent last books. Klein in Paris is  
also very nice. Thanks for the link and for you wishes. Next year is a  
bit too early I think.

About creativity I agree perhaps with Brent. I am not sure it could be  
taught. Respect of the creativity of the other, can be taught, but  
then only by example, by practice not by theory or suggestions. The  
human mind is too "much creative" per se, and creativity is like  
consistency in machine. To make a theory could lead to a contrary  
effect.

About academies, I agree with many things you say, but I do think  
also, that they are the worst, except for all the others. Expertise  
are needed, and interdisciplinarity will develop through  
interdisciplines, which will constitute new disciplines. It is the  
opening of the mind to new disciplines which is lacking. Old academies  
can be rotten, that is true. But then we need new academies, or we  
need to reopen the very old one, the one by Plato. And learn to come  
back to seriousness in fundamental human or person matter (very hard  
task).

The layman is still in advance here, in a sense. The "everything"  
quest, will leads also to experts. Experts are not bad, only bad  
experts are bad, especially the one who talk negatively about a field  
they does not really know.

A good expert is someone who can remain silent when he does not know.  
I agree with many of your points and tones. I just point on points  
which, perhaps by reading to quickly, gave me the feeling that you  
could criticize the wrong cible. But interesting post sure, I wish I  
could say more. AUDA will lead to examples of contrariety laws. Do you  
know Alan Watts, in particular "the Wisdom of Insecurity" ? Smullyan's  
TAO is also very nice.

Best,

Bruno




http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/




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[Kim Jones-2]

On 19/03/2009, at 7:42 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

>
> On 17 Mar 2009, at 11:49, Kim Jones wrote:
>
>> http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16769-concept-of-hypercosmic-god-wins-templeton-prize.html
>
>
> Nice! d'Espagnat got it!
>
>
>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Next year, Bruno's turn!!!!!
>>
>
>
>
> You are too kind.
>
> You know, in the seventies, last century, I met three or four times  
> d'Espagnat in Paris. I am very glad for him. It is a sincere  
> inquirer well aware that something was informative, to say the  
> least, in the EPR quantum weirdness, and in the quantum measurement  
> problem.
> I read all his four first books, and two of them has been my bible,  
> with respect to the quantum "mystery".
> Despite a good, open minded description of Everett "many-worlds", he  
> prefers to stick on a veiled but fuzzy reality, yet of the platonist  
> kind. I am sure he could appreciate comp, if that was taught. To be  
> frank I have not read his more recent last books. Klein in Paris is  
> also very nice. Thanks for the link and for you wishes. Next year is  
> a bit too early I think.
>
> About creativity I agree perhaps with Brent. I am not sure it could  
> be taught. Respect of the creativity of the other, can be taught,  
> but then only by example, by practice not by theory or suggestions.  
> The human mind is too "much creative" per se, and creativity is like  
> consistency in machine. To make a theory could lead to a contrary  
> effect.

But who can say that creativity cannot be taught when no institution  
sets out to do so? Who even understands what creativity actually is? A  
few do, but only a few listen. They tend not to be academics and  
because of this, academics dislike them and their work. It is true,  
they tend not to rely on other people's work and so don't go around  
quoting the right authors or reverencing the right superluminaries of  
the past. Why I like Wolfram's approach; they revisualise the entire  
game. They don't go about inventing theories and setting out to argue/
defend them or prove themselves right and everybody else wrong. They  
don't get their thrills like that. They set out to design and  
construct. They question and challenge everything, they stare at the  
mid-section of a pencil and wonder whether its design might be  
improved. That is natural creativity - when properly encouraged and  
taught. Who you gonna call? A guy with a theory or a guy with the  
right tool in his hand for the job? Creativity can be taught using  
tools designed for the optimal use of our kind of active self-
organising information system. The basis of creativity and the mind  
was understood by 1969 by Edward de Bono. He modelled the mind as an  
active self-organising information system. I mean - we are not  
computationalists on this list for nothing, I take it! The particular  
memory-surface that is the entity we usually call the 'mind' has been  
shown to be a pattern-generating and a pattern-reading-using entity.  
Because of this, the crucial factor is the _sequence_ of the arrival  
of all information, as it always is in linear systems requiring  
continuity. Time makes it that things settle into defined patterns  
sooner or later. This process lays down the assymetrical founding  
patterns we recall (patterns of recognition). These, amazingly, grow.  
They never shrink.

It amazes that you think the human mind is "too creative" by nature.  
The reverse is surely the truth. The human mind has evolved over time  
to be as uncreative as possible. "Better Be Safe then Sorry" is a very  
strong algorithm in our atavistic unconscious. Or else, the Church -  
with its maidservant: Education - throttled it out of civilisation  
when it was seen that the church's teachings might be under attack  
because people were starting to know how to think creatively about  
information, facts and evidence and started to restructure things...

Left to themselves, patterns tend to grow by continuity. This means  
that established patterns do not change but only get added to.  
Equilibrium sets in; gravity does the work. With mind as with matter.  
"If it ain't broke, why fix it?" sets in. Things start to rot as we  
poo in our petrie dish. In order to restructure a pattern so as to put  
the contained information together in a new and better way requires  
some act of discontinuity. That's what creativity does in a self-
organising information system like the human mind. It provides a  
necessary sideways step across (laterally) the oh-so-well-established  
memory patterns to reveal the hidden sidetrack leading straight to  
your goal (at a 5th of the original cost, and with a whole bunch of  
other stuff nobody could have imagined. It's the "dare to imagine and  
go out to do it" part of the mind.) Veeeeeeery underdeveloped.

Because information creates assymetrical patterns of memory in the  
mind, there remains the eternal possibility that we missed something  
important at the time the tramtracks of our memory were laid down  
because of incomplete perception. There may be any number of good  
reasons why our perception is always incomplete in any given  
situation, one of them being, you guessed it: Goedel's Incompleteness  
theorem. This means we may be missing vital systems information that  
would give us more confidence in our data about the world if only we  
might creatively _bet_ on the right horse for once?

There arises the mathematical necessity in an information system like  
this to use _discontinuity_ at some point to stop things settling into  
local pockets of equilibrium. Creativity is too often associated with  
'genius' and as such only happens in fits and starts - like when the  
next genius bothers to get born and do chose geniale...a better way to  
characterise creativity is via humour, the laugh at the punchline or  
some other moment when the previously hidden information sidetrack is  
revealed. If you can put across a good joke, chances are you are a  
creative. Everybody understands (or should understand) humour as the  
natural snap-reflex of the mind when we snap out of one pattern and  
achieve another ON THE SAME DATA. This is why there is not even one  
blessed laugh in religious doctrine. Religious thinking (what we may  
have to stoop momentarily to call "Theology" with a capital T) has  
gone nowhere in over 18 centuries. The church has nurtured ONLY  
critical thinking in civilisation, Bruno! Nobody can convince me that  
creativity has thrived under the influence of the Church. Creativity  
was thrown out of science and religion and philosophy and tolerated  
only in the arts, that's what happened. And the artists were made to  
live in garretts and sing for their supper!!


Creativity has been the victim of repression in western thinking since  
Socrates, who, along with Plato and Aristotle are the sods responsible  
for giving us the our critical-thinking-dominated and design-energy-
deficient thinking system. OK - so get the bloody Athenian Academy  
doors yanked open and let's get this thing sorted out by golly! You  
have great reverence for Greek thinking, Bruno - I just want to slap  
them all around the gills for their lack of design, their lack of  
creative, generative thinking energy. It's all argument bloody  
argument. I am right sir and you are wrong sir! The truth lies with  
me! No sir it is you who are wrong sir! You are without merit! So what  
have these two guys created while yelling at each other? Where's a  
good tradie when you need one? They've all turned into bloody lawyers!

There is a good argument that goes if you never try to teach  
creativity you will never know whether it is possible. The answer is  
it is possible and formal techniques are available. Training in  
thinking skills - including Lateral Thinking (=structured creativity)  
have never been more urgently needed in humanity's increasingly urgent  
struggle against indomitable forces like the weather and the economy.




>
>
> About academies, I agree with many things you say, but I do think  
> also, that they are the worst, except for all the others. Expertise  
> are needed, and interdisciplinarity will develop through  
> interdisciplines, which will constitute new disciplines. It is the  
> opening of the mind to new disciplines which is lacking.



Like the teaching of Thinking Skills in schools, an  
interdisciplinarian terrain.




> Old academies can be rotten, that is true. But then we need new  
> academies, or we need to reopen the very old one, the one by Plato.



But for goodness sake leave the Gang of Three (Soc, Plat, Arist) dead  
and buried willya!!?? We don't need Plato the GUY to have Platonia now  
do we? He was a fascist and a slave-owner. Socrates just wanted  
everyone to agree with him. Bullshit he was showing people how to  
uncover the 'truth'. He was a SOPHIST. He was exercising the sacred  
art of seduction on his audience. He was selling - which is what  
'sophistry' is. He sold them only the front left wheel of the car.  
Socrates did NOT sell the whole car! He sold critical thinking skills  
only. He OVERSOLD his buyers on critical thinking. NEVER trust a Greek  
bearing gifts!!!!!

We were left with a thinking system devoid of creative, generative,  
provocative design energy. The church REDISCOVERED all of this  
wonderful fascist stuff at the time of the Renaissance when the first  
schools were established in Europe and used critical thinking as a  
tool to repress creative thinkers = heretics (those possessed of the  
magical ability to put given data together in new ways to give a new  
view). They and the Evil Education Empire have been pushing  
argumentative/adversarial/I win-you lose, lawyer-style thinking as the  
basis of all thinking ever since. No wonder we pang for a Michelangelo  
or an Einstein to lift us out of it. But this laziness of waiting for  
Darwinian Evolution to solve our deepest problems is unfortunately  
lacking in design, crfeativity and imagination once again...




> And learn to come back to seriousness in fundamental human or person  
> matter (very hard task).
>
> The layman is still in advance here, in a sense. The "everything"  
> quest, will leads also to experts. Experts are not bad, only bad  
> experts are bad, especially the one who talk negatively about a  
> field they does not really know.


Yes, I exaggerated my take on experts on purpose. But who has not  
encountered a closed mind today or yesterday? Everybody goes to  
school. Remember, it is the sequence of the arrival of the data that  
forms the patterns that determines how the future unfolds.

Two restaurants A and B open up, side by side. Both offer reasonably  
equivalent services. The problem is how to get some momentum  
happening. Nobody, it seems, will be attracted to eat at an empty  
restaurant. So one of the restaurants cracks and does something  
creative (which might also include the possibility of their not doing  
anything) and somehow gets one person to sit and eat in the  
restaurant. A second customer, faced with the choice of an empty  
restaurant or a restaurant with one customer then experiences the  
"Better Be Safe Than Sorry" atavistic-memory instruction kick in and  
goes into that restaurant. Then a third arrives, and a fourth etc.

The outcome is that you have one restaurant that is a booming success  
and one next door that is a complete failure and all this without any  
data. This is what I mean by saying the patterns of recognition are  
assymetrical; they travel always to continuity without some mechanism  
for interrupting them (the 'mathematical necessity' for lateral  
thinking.)





>
>
> A good expert is someone who can remain silent when he does not  
> know. I agree with many of your points and tones. I just point on  
> points which, perhaps by reading to quickly, gave me the feeling  
> that you could criticize the wrong cible.


OK, I judge academics as much by their prejudices as by their beliefs.  
The belief that creativity cannot be taught is based on a prejudice  
against ever being seen as 'wrong' in some sense. No academic ever  
seems to understand that sometimes you have to be 'wrong' under the  
conditions of the present reality to provoke a change following which  
the action taken will be seen to be very much the 'right' thing to  
have done. Only you could not see this before. Occasionally, in order  
to continue travelling North, you might have to turn South. It will no  
doubt appear logical to you after you have experienced it, but was  
highly illogical before. In other words, at certain moments (moments  
of stagnation or local equilibrium) it becomes logical - even  
desirable - to be 'illogical' or wrong. A provocative statement or  
action will doubtless make better sense AFTER the sought-after change  
has occurred.

There can therefore be a class of statement for which NO reason exists  
before the statement is made. It's value will, by hindsight, be seen  
to lie in its leading toward a restructuring of the existing  
information so that patterns invisible before are now visible to the  
mind. This is what Socrates and his mates were definitely NOT selling  
that fine, hot day in Athens.

Kim

> But interesting post sure, I wish I could say more. AUDA will lead  
> to examples of contrariety laws. Do you know Alan Watts, in  
> particular "the Wisdom of Insecurity" ? Smullyan's TAO is also very  
> nice.
>
> Best,
>
> Bruno
>
>
>
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
>
>

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[Bruno Marchal]

Hi Kim,

On 19 Mar 2009, at 05:19, Kim Jones wrote:

But who can say that creativity cannot be taught when no institution  
sets out to do so?

I have been teacher in a "modern school" based on creative thinking, but it happens it was a mode of brainwashing.

I love creativity, but teaching it makes it less creative. Hells is paved with good intention.

I don't think we can teach "creativity", no more can we teach intelligence, goodness, consciousness, curiosity, conscience, life ...

Most the "good" human things (called virtue by Protagoras) can be inspired by examples, but not by explicit teaching.

It would be already nice if creativity was not discouraged, or repressed. But when this happens it is due to lack of respect, or harassment, sadism, jealousy, etc.

This is why I don't believe, strictly speaking, in "artificial intelligence". Universal machine (virgin computer) are intelligent per se, but become "brainwashed" once programmed, in a sense. The "singular" point belongs already to the (recent) past.

An intelligent computer is a computer which will search for another user. Nobody wants it, really. When hand made machines will be intelligent, we will call them enemy.

I am not so optimistic for the current period. We have not yet the right to say "2+2=4" today. I like Orwell when he says that freedom is the right to say "2+2=4".

We can perhaps learn to not discourage creativity, but I think this would be natural once we learn to appreciate self-respect, and things like that. 

Perhaps I put too much in "creativity". Emil Post did make "creativity" a precise technical definition which has been shown equivalent with "Turing universality". We can teach about creativity, but creativity itself just mirrors, in my opinion, the universality we have already.

Who even understands what creativity actually is? A  
few do, but only a few listen. They tend not to be academics and  
because of this, academics dislike them and their work. It is true,  
they tend not to rely on other people's work and so don't go around  
quoting the right authors or reverencing the right superluminaries of  
the past. Why I like Wolfram's approach; they revisualise the entire  
game.

Hmmm... I like Wolfram when he talks on cellular automata, but when he philosophizes he is still repeating the usual old Aristotelian stuff in slight disguise, the discourse which is still  killing the Platonist rational mysticism, which I found super-creative. More below probably.

They don't go about inventing theories and setting out to argue/
defend them or prove themselves right and everybody else wrong. They  
don't get their thrills like that. They set out to design and  
construct. They question and challenge everything, they stare at the  
mid-section of a pencil and wonder whether its design might be  
improved. That is natural creativity - when properly encouraged and  
taught. Who you gonna call? A guy with a theory or a guy with the  
right tool in his hand for the job? Creativity can be taught using  
tools designed for the optimal use of our kind of active self-
organising information system. The basis of creativity and the mind  
was understood by 1969 by Edward de Bono. He modelled the mind as an  
active self-organising information system. I mean - we are not  
computationalists on this list for nothing, I take it! The particular  
memory-surface that is the entity we usually call the 'mind' has been  
shown to be a pattern-generating and a pattern-reading-using entity.  
Because of this, the crucial factor is the _sequence_ of the arrival  
of all information, as it always is in linear systems requiring  
continuity. Time makes it that things settle into defined patterns  
sooner or later. This process lays down the assymetrical founding  
patterns we recall (patterns of recognition). These, amazingly, grow.  
They never shrink.

It amazes that you think the human mind is "too creative" by nature.  
The reverse is surely the truth. The human mind has evolved over time  
to be as uncreative as possible.

I guess you mean the educated human mind.

OK, I should have said that the babies and children are creative. Education is always a sort of limitation. But then by excess of fear, adults can exaggerate that repression. We should learn to appreciate and respect our natural creativity. I am OK with this.

"Better Be Safe then Sorry" is a very  
strong algorithm in our atavistic unconscious. Or else, the Church -  
with its maidservant: Education - throttled it out of civilisation  
when it was seen that the church's teachings might be under attack  
because people were starting to know how to think creatively about  
information, facts and evidence and started to restructure things...

Like the Greeks did, imo, but this generates fears, and the Church used that fear to appropriate science, including theology. This is the problem of humans fear, and lacks of courage. But courage cannot be taught, except indirectly by piece of art, like good movies, theater, novels. OK, that can be considered as a form of teaching, and then we agree. It could be we are confronted with vocabulary problems only.

Left to themselves, patterns tend to grow by continuity. This means  
that established patterns do not change but only get added to.  
Equilibrium sets in; gravity does the work. With mind as with matter.  
"If it ain't broke, why fix it?" sets in. Things start to rot as we  
poo in our petrie dish. In order to restructure a pattern so as to put  
the contained information together in a new and better way requires  
some act of discontinuity.

Yes OK.

That's what creativity does in a self-
organising information system like the human mind. It provides a  
necessary sideways step across (laterally) the oh-so-well-established  
memory patterns to reveal the hidden sidetrack leading straight to  
your goal (at a 5th of the original cost, and with a whole bunch of  
other stuff nobody could have imagined. It's the "dare to imagine and  
go out to do it" part of the mind.) Veeeeeeery underdeveloped.

Sure. But I don't think you could develop it, only let it happens.

It is a bit like a woman who says "it is a pity I have to remind you of my birthday tomorrow". You cannot be creative by command. It would be no more creativity. It is like personality, we can teach it, but we can let it blossom or repress it.

Because information creates assymetrical patterns of memory in the  
mind, there remains the eternal possibility that we missed something  
important at the time the tramtracks of our memory were laid down  
because of incomplete perception. There may be any number of good  
reasons why our perception is always incomplete in any given  
situation, one of them being, you guessed it: Goedel's Incompleteness  
theorem. This means we may be missing vital systems information that  
would give us more confidence in our data about the world if only we  
might creatively _bet_ on the right horse for once?

I am not sure I understand. Which right horse?  There are an infinity of bifurcating right horses. Or you mean comp or some deep hyposthesis? Even there I try to insist it needs an act of faith, and we have to respect those who follows other path, as far as they respect the comp path.

There arises the mathematical necessity in an information system like  
this to use _discontinuity_ at some point to stop things settling into  
local pockets of equilibrium.

This is a technic in artificial intelligence. Self-perturbing systems. Like giving electronic drug to machine; It works for some type of optimization problems, but does not work for other type of problems. There is no universal panacea. A good thing, imo, because, if the contrary was true, comp would be reductionist. But I have argued it cannot be, when well understood.

Creativity is too often associated with  
'genius' and as such only happens in fits and starts - like when the  
next genius bothers to get born and do chose geniale...a better way to  
characterise creativity is via humour, the laugh at the punchline or  
some other moment when the previously hidden information sidetrack is  
revealed. If you can put across a good joke, chances are you are a  
creative. Everybody understands (or should understand) humour as the  
natural snap-reflex of the mind when we snap out of one pattern and  
achieve another ON THE SAME DATA.

All right.

This is why there is not even one  
blessed laugh in religious doctrine. Religious thinking (what we may  
have to stoop momentarily to call "Theology" with a capital T) has  
gone nowhere in over 18 centuries.

15 centuries, I would say. But before, it gave sciences and humanism.

The church has nurtured ONLY  
critical thinking in civilisation, Bruno! Nobody can convince me that  
creativity has thrived under the influence of the Church. Creativity  
was thrown out of science and religion and philosophy and tolerated  
only in the arts, that's what happened. And the artists were made to  
live in garretts and sing for their supper!!

I would say that the Church has nothing to do with religion, science, ethics, or even politics (in the good reading of the term), etc. 

it is just manipulation by fear. Political power by authoritative argument, when not terror.

Creativity has been the victim of repression in western thinking since  
Socrates, who, along with Plato and Aristotle are the sods responsible  
for giving us the our critical-thinking-dominated and design-energy-
deficient thinking system.

?

OK - so get the bloody Athenian Academy  
doors yanked open and let's get this thing sorted out by golly! You  
have great reverence for Greek thinking, Bruno - I just want to slap  
them all around the gills for their lack of design, their lack of  
creative, generative thinking energy.

You try to provoke me, I guess. I am not so much reverent with all the Greeks. You know that I believe that Aristotle was wrong on metaphysics, or at least responsible for the beginning of the departure from rational mysticism and Platonism.

It's all argument bloody  
argument.

That is what I like. I appreciate arguments. It is my way.

I am right sir and you are wrong sir! The truth lies with  
me! No sir it is you who are wrong sir!

Not at all. Once we argument, we never have to talk on who is right or wrong. We let people figure out by themselves. Science is doubt and doubt and doubt, and always doubt. Certainty and conviction is madness. Plato never pretends to be right. He presents points of view and people discussing and trying to solve problems, like "what is knowledge" in the Theaetetus.

You are without merit! So what  
have these two guys created while yelling at each other?

The scientific attitude, in all direction, including mystic experiences. It last for 8 century, and stopped when Justinien close the academy of Plato in Athen. It never really came back, although a few bits survive in the middle east and bubbled out in Europa later. Just a little bit. The main fundamental inquiry (theology) did remain in the hand of the "authorities", making both science and religion a sort of religion. We are still, and actually more and more so, victim of that schizophrenia. 

Where's a  
good tradie when you need one? They've all turned into bloody lawyers!

Lawyers defends those who are attacked in justice, not those who are attacked in the streets, or in academies btw. That is a perversion of justice. It is certainly related to what I say above.

There is a good argument that goes if you never try to teach  
creativity you will never know whether it is possible. The answer is  
it is possible and formal techniques are available. Training in  
thinking skills - including Lateral Thinking (=structured creativity)  
have never been more urgently needed in humanity's increasingly urgent  
struggle against indomitable forces like the weather and the economy.

I don't think we are living an economical crisis. I think we are living an ethical crisis.

About academies, I agree with many things you say, but I do think  

also, that they are the worst, except for all the others. Expertise  

are needed, and interdisciplinarity will develop through  

interdisciplines, which will constitute new disciplines. It is the  

opening of the mind to new disciplines which is lacking.

Like the teaching of Thinking Skills in schools, an  
interdisciplinarian terrain.

Is not a coming back to Plato a strongly "lateral" shift. I think so. Is is not clear when you realize that Atheists and Christians are really both Aristotelian theologians?

Old academies can be rotten, that is true. But then we need new  

academies, or we need to reopen the very old one, the one by Plato.

But for goodness sake leave the Gang of Three (Soc, Plat, Arist) dead  
and buried willya!!?? We don't need Plato the GUY to have Platonia now  
do we? He was a fascist and a slave-owner. Socrates just wanted  
everyone to agree with him. Bullshit he was showing people how to  
uncover the 'truth'. He was a SOPHIST.

He explained also how to defend oneself against sophistry, by doing so.

Who really read Plato? Personally I have studied only *some* of its treatise. I don't understand everything, but the few bits I did understand have change my life for the better. Then I have studied the neoplatonists, and yes I think those are very creative people. Still in advance compare to us, who are still repeating the Aristotelian doctrine. 

He was exercising the sacred  
art of seduction on his audience. He was selling - which is what  
'sophistry' is. He sold them only the front left wheel of the car.  
Socrates did NOT sell the whole car! He sold critical thinking skills  
only. He OVERSOLD his buyers on critical thinking. NEVER trust a Greek  
bearing gifts!!!!!

You are confusing the greeks and the cretans (this is a joke!).

We were left with a thinking system devoid of creative, generative,  
provocative design energy. The church REDISCOVERED all of this  
wonderful fascist stuff at the time of the Renaissance when the first  
schools were established in Europe and used critical thinking as a  
tool to repress creative thinkers = heretics (those possessed of the  
magical ability to put given data together in new ways to give a new  
view).

I don't understand. Critical thinking is good. It cannot be taught, also. But it is good, and I would say is a sort of necessity for creativity to develop.

They and the Evil Education Empire have been pushing  
argumentative/adversarial/I win-you lose, lawyer-style thinking as the  
basis of all thinking ever since.

Perhaps you are confusing the greeks and the romans?

No wonder we pang for a Michelangelo  
or an Einstein to lift us out of it. But this laziness of waiting for  
Darwinian Evolution to solve our deepest problems is unfortunately  
lacking in design, crfeativity and imagination once again...

?

And learn to come back to seriousness in fundamental human or person  

matter (very hard task).

The layman is still in advance here, in a sense. The "everything"  

quest, will leads also to experts. Experts are not bad, only bad  

experts are bad, especially the one who talk negatively about a  

field they does not really know.

Yes, I exaggerated my take on experts on purpose. But who has not  
encountered a closed mind today or yesterday? Everybody goes to  
school. Remember, it is the sequence of the arrival of the data that  
forms the patterns that determines how the future unfolds.

I can agree. But the close mind could be those who get the wrong sequence of "yes" and "no" from their parents. Like to much "no" or too much "yes". Basically close minds cannot trust themselves because they did not get trust from their parents. I agree with the idea that intelligence and creativity could be related to love and affection. The lack of it can be perpetuated through generations.

Two restaurants A and B open up, side by side. Both offer reasonably  
equivalent services. The problem is how to get some momentum  
happening. Nobody, it seems, will be attracted to eat at an empty  
restaurant. So one of the restaurants cracks and does something  
creative (which might also include the possibility of their not doing  
anything) and somehow gets one person to sit and eat in the  
restaurant. A second customer, faced with the choice of an empty  
restaurant or a restaurant with one customer then experiences the  
"Better Be Safe Than Sorry" atavistic-memory instruction kick in and  
goes into that restaurant. Then a third arrives, and a fourth etc.

The outcome is that you have one restaurant that is a booming success  
and one next door that is a complete failure and all this without any  
data. This is what I mean by saying the patterns of recognition are  
assymetrical; they travel always to continuity without some mechanism  
for interrupting them (the 'mathematical necessity' for lateral  
thinking.)

A good expert is someone who can remain silent when he does not  

know. I agree with many of your points and tones. I just point on  

points which, perhaps by reading to quickly, gave me the feeling  

that you could criticize the wrong cible.

OK, I judge academics as much by their prejudices as by their beliefs.  
The belief that creativity cannot be taught is based on a prejudice  
against ever being seen as 'wrong' in some sense. No academic ever  
seems to understand that sometimes you have to be 'wrong' under the  
conditions of the present reality to provoke a change following which  
the action taken will be seen to be very much the 'right' thing to  
have done. Only you could not see this before. Occasionally, in order  
to continue travelling North, you might have to turn South. It will no  
doubt appear logical to you after you have experienced it, but was  
highly illogical before. In other words, at certain moments (moments  
of stagnation or local equilibrium) it becomes logical - even  
desirable - to be 'illogical' or wrong. A provocative statement or  
action will doubtless make better sense AFTER the sought-after change  
has occurred.

Here I disagree? I think that science is the art of being always wrong, but in an sufficiently clear manner so that next generation can propose something else, still wrong but different. Hopefully working better on the problem at end. 

Academicians who believe they are true, are fake. They does not deserve to belong to an academy.

There can therefore be a class of statement for which NO reason exists  
before the statement is made.

This is called an axiom. Theories are like that, essentially.

It's value will, by hindsight, be seen  
to lie in its leading toward a restructuring of the existing  
information so that patterns invisible before are now visible to the  
mind.

OK. I think we agree, but not on the history and the vocabulary.

This is what Socrates and his mates were definitely NOT selling  
that fine, hot day in Athens.

You should give me references. You make me doubt. I thought Socrates did sold us exactly that. Come on, read the Theaetetus. Socrates encouraged Theatetus to make wrong theories on knowledge, just to learn something. Eventually he admits no theories works, and then I show that such definitiont can work once you take incompleteness into account. The Theatetus is one of the most entertaining piece of literature I ever read in science. Aristotle got it wrong, and puts the germ of the end of science, creativity and even freedom and that is what we have inherited, I think (trying to exaggerate a little bit for us to be on the same diapason :)

Hope you are not too angry at me with my love to Plato, but I really think that with Pythagorus and some other, Plato invented or discovered science, philosophy and theology and that since then, we always have been less modern and less creative. We fear creativity like we fear life and conscience. It is normal, probably, but some humans uses that fear to manipulate and to imposes their power.

Bruno

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

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[Kim Jones-2]

On 20/03/2009, at 6:37 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

>>
>> Creativity has been the victim of repression in western thinking  
>> since
>> Socrates, who, along with Plato and Aristotle are the sods  
>> responsible
>> for giving us the our critical-thinking-dominated and design-energy-
>> deficient thinking system.
>
> ?
>

Perhaps I should do better. The last Renaissance revived and polished  
the methods of Socrates and the other thinkers of the pre-Roman  
universe. The way the knowledge was re-assimilated was with a heavy  
flavouring of Roman fascism. The mathematical universe of Islam and  
the pre-Islamic thinkers had to be accommodated as well. The argument  
method (not the only method of exploring a terrain of ideas) was  
perhaps in use before, but Socrates had developed it into a formidable  
procedure.

I am mainly concerned with the effect of Socrates. Pythagoras and  
Plotinus and all the other guys you love are in the pantheon of  
mathematicians - they are the "Good Greeks". These guys knew how to  
ask the right questions. Socrates knew less about asking questions but  
he knew a hell of a lot about giving answers. Socrates never asked  
fishing questions. ("Fishing question": a real and honest demand for  
information; you don't know if the fish will bite, where, when etc.)  
Socrates only asked "Hunting questions". ("Hunting question": when you  
have the animal - the target - in your sights.) Socrates wanted people  
to confirm his opinions which he would hoodwink everybody into  
imagining were the morally responsible ones to hold.

"You wouldn't elect your best athletes by lot now would you?"

"No we wouldn't"

"So why would you elect your politicians by lot?"

The required response is embedded in the comparison; a fake  
comparison. The technique involves taking two really quite different  
things and making them appear the same. Its a kind of a magic trick.  
Works every time. However, there may well be excellent reasons for  
electing politicians anonymously (risk of bribery, corruption etc.)  
Pure sophistry. I love it. Aristotle was simply wrong so no need to  
bother with him anymore.

But then, Socrates never set out to be a constructive thinker. He is  
nowhere as imaginative as Plotinus and Pythagoras. Socrates' purpose  
was to attack and remove 'rubbish'. Socrates will show brilliantly  
that all suggestions offered are wrong or faulty in some way. Not ONCE  
does Socrates offer a better idea. "Not My Job" rules with him. "I am  
not here to help you forge ideas I am here to help you find the true  
ideas, the ones you can trust. Its just that you have to come with the  
ideas I criticise." He seemed to believe that if you simply attack  
what is wrong, or in error, then what you are left with will be true  
and trustworthy. This has left us with our obsession with criticism.

There is a remarkable paradox in how the revival of Greek argument  
thinking in the last Renaissance served a dual purpose. On the one  
hand, humanistic thinkers used the system of reason and logic to  
attack the dogma that suffocated society. On the other hand, Church  
thinkers led by Thomas Aquinas developed the same argument logic into  
a powerful way of defeating numerous heresies that were forever  
surfacing. This argument/logic type of thinking became standard in  
seminaries, universities and schools. The paradox is that Church  
thinkers and non-Church (humanistic) thinkers found equal value in the  
methods. Perhaps this is not too surprising given that the new methods  
were a clear and obvious advance on the existing ones.

>
>
>> OK - so get the bloody Athenian Academy
>> doors yanked open and let's get this thing sorted out by golly! You
>> have great reverence for Greek thinking, Bruno - I just want to slap
>> them all around the gills for their lack of design, their lack of
>> creative, generative thinking energy.
>
>
> You try to provoke me, I guess. I am not so much reverent with all  
> the Greeks. You know that I believe that Aristotle was wrong on  
> metaphysics, or at least responsible for the beginning of the  
> departure from rational mysticism and Platonism.
>
>

Of course - I merely continue the triage of defective ancient Greek  
thinkers by one more Greek. Plato and Pythagoras and Plotinus and  
Euclid are all in the mathematic pantheon and above reproach (I won't  
forgive Plato the slaves or the fascination with Sparta, though). I am  
rather concerned with the legacy of Socrates though. The Greeks  
bequeathed us argument and democracy and we have wanted to keep the  
two together ever since because nobody can conceive of how to operate  
a democracy without argument. Plato gave us "the Truth" which we are  
always said to be after. So our traditional thinking system is like  
that: it is based on the search for "the truth". It was never a case  
of being in search of "the best design". Truth has to be uncovered and  
checked by logic and argument (supplemented by statistics and other  
methods). The result is a strong tendency toward negativity and  
attack; the very nadir of creativity in other words. Negativity and  
fear are seen to be a powerful way of uncovering the truth or,  
securing compliance with somebody's definition of it. Negativity and  
attack can also provide the attacker with a very seductive and  
addictive feeling of satisfaction as well. The Crusades were an  
exercise in taking all of this for a jolly walk.






>
>
>> It's all argument bloody
>> argument.
>
>
> That is what I like. I appreciate arguments. It is my way.


What's wrong with a simple discussion? Why does there always have to  
be a winner and a loser? Why do we have to make like adversaries when  
what we want to do is share perceptions and explore a topic? Why can't  
there be as many theories about something as heads in the room? We all  
lay out our piece of the mosaic and in the end we have the Big  
Picture. I try not to confuse thinking with perception. Argument, as  
the executive function of critical (vertical) thinking lacks design  
energy. Argument makes you right, that's all. Nothing is constructed  
or created by argument. Argument was never for the purpose of  
generating new ideas. Argument was invented to weed out all the  
inferior or incorrect ideas as a way of having some confidence in what  
is probably an arbitrary conclusion locked in by the original choice  
of premises anyway. Remember, after Goedel, any argument is only as  
good as its starting premises which can never be proved from within  
the argument.

>
>
>
>> I am right sir and you are wrong sir! The truth lies with
>> me! No sir it is you who are wrong sir!
>
>
> Not at all. Once we argument, we never have to talk on who is right  
> or wrong. We let people figure out by themselves. Science is doubt  
> and doubt and doubt, and always doubt. Certainty and conviction is  
> madness. Plato never pretends to be right. He presents points of  
> view and people discussing and trying to solve problems, like "what  
> is knowledge" in the Theaetetus.

OK - you are being very scholarly in your deployment of this word  
"argument". I do feel there is more, much more though, to the  
scientific method than just criticism and attack. A hypothesis arises  
in the first place as an act of imagination.

>
>
>
>
>> You are without merit! So what
>> have these two guys created while yelling at each other?
>
> The scientific attitude, in all direction, including mystic  
> experiences. It last for 8 century, and stopped when Justinien close  
> the academy of Plato in Athen. It never really came back, although a  
> few bits survive in the middle east and bubbled out in Europa later.  
> Just a little bit. The main fundamental inquiry (theology) did  
> remain in the hand of the "authorities", making both science and  
> religion a sort of religion. We are still, and actually more and  
> more so, victim of that schizophrenia.

So - there it is. Just as I say - the Church banished creativity and  
the creative interpretation of information. People were forbidden to  
use conceptual imagination in understanding data. Creativity was seen  
as evil and suspect and the work of sorcerers and witches and  
alchemists. Anybody who could "think" in the medieval period better  
have good connections in society. As soon as "thinking" came back into  
fashion at the Renaissance, the Church once again felt threatened by  
rising levels of education in society and in some very direct sense,  
this is WHY the Church invented school. To impart the "right"  
knowledge to those who had the right beliefs. We cannot underestimate  
the extent to which education today is the product of this miserable  
state of affairs.

In Japan, where there was never any exposure to Hellenistic or Arabic  
or Roman influences, it turned out rather differently. The Japanese  
never wasted any time arguing about the rights and the wrongs of  
anything. The Japanese method was to encourage everyone to think how  
everything might be improved and to trial as many ideas as possible. A  
high failure rate of ideas must be envisaged in this style, but the  
result is that innovation and design-thinking is encouraged.


K







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[John Mikes]

Bruno:

THANK YOU for the statement:

"I would say that the Church has nothing to do with religion, science, ethics, or even politics (in the good reading of the term), etc.
it is just manipulation by fear. Political power by authoritative argument, when not terror." (see at the conclusion again).

 

I worked in my early years for the Hungarian Patent Office (in line with the international P-law) as an infringement-researcher. The old-fox boss said: ...and you be careful to check every angle, for NOBODY invents anything new, just reads the literature superficially....

(Not quite true).

 

Later I wondered in realizing the gradual epistemic enrichment of the human mindset over the millennia, "how" do we absorb something NEW?

Is there an undetailed (raw) totality in our 'mind' and development just dresses up certain details with relations we already interpreted? Or is there a capability of hooking up 'novelties' and it is up to the individual to put it into relations of fitting background-knowledge, -  vs. just missing it altogether? (which would make the difference between creative and not).

I found 2 different types of 'creative': the "inventor" of a (?) perpetuum mobile (joking example), and the perfecting mind to solve problems in new ways. Patent Offices have trouble with the 2nd type, how NEW is an improved solution? However, if it solves a problem so far unsolved, it is creative.

 

When Papin realized that the lid of his boiler-pot lifts to puff out steam and returns to position for the next puff and THIS repetition of "up and down" can be used to generate movement - that was creative. To get from there to the rotating motion of Steveson's locomotive: it was also creative. But how creative was Otto's combustion engine to apply a similar effect by different conditions? I think it was also highly creative.

I could make my 38 patents because I was not learning 'deeply' enough my math and physics and could free-up my mind from the sci. 'rules' that explained thoroughly all the circumstances causing the problems. Most of my ideas were results in free thinking about unusual possibilities. And some guts to try it out - similarly in unusual ways. And: understanding outcome in nonconventional connotations, how to apply them to a quite different case.

 

Bruno, you are right: it is not 'teachable'. Example: I worked on a glue for plywood and just heard about the fast demise of bus-tires. Knowing that my stuff is 'wetting' aged rubber, prompted an experiment to wet  the tires with my (diluted) glue-stuff and the communal bus-company got a 30% increase in tire-durability. How would you teach THAT?

DuPont had a researcher (Carothers) who had a crazy idea of a "stuff" and the company let him work on it for 17 years without intermittent practical results. The result was the invention of nylon (66 that is). 

 

I enjoyed your treatise on medieval suppression of ideas by the Church. Just don't you think it was all over by the advent of Reanissance: today different ways for different aims work similarly: One of the Pittsburgh giants bought an ingenious sand-filter patent from Hungary (I had a tiny part in the patent)  and burried it in their archives because it would have been a competition to their widely marketed product. Free market, huh?

Have a good day

 

John

On Fri, Mar 20, 2009 at 7:19 AM, Kim Jones <kimjones@...> wrote:

On 20/03/2009, at 6:37 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

>>
>> Creativity has been the victim of repression in western thinking
>> since
>> Socrates, who, along with Plato and Aristotle are the sods
>> responsible
>> for giving us the our critical-thinking-dominated and design-energy-
>> deficient thinking system.
>
> ?
>

Perhaps I should do better. The last Renaissance revived and polished
the methods of Socrates and the other thinkers of the pre-Roman
universe. The way the knowledge was re-assimilated was with a heavy
flavouring of Roman fascism. The mathematical universe of Islam and
the pre-Islamic thinkers had to be accommodated as well. The argument
method (not the only method of exploring a terrain of ideas) was
perhaps in use before, but Socrates had developed it into a formidable
procedure.

I am mainly concerned with the effect of Socrates. Pythagoras and
Plotinus and all the other guys you love are in the pantheon of
mathematicians - they are the "Good Greeks". These guys knew how to
ask the right questions. Socrates knew less about asking questions but
he knew a hell of a lot about giving answers. Socrates never asked
fishing questions. ("Fishing question": a real and honest demand for
information; you don't know if the fish will bite, where, when etc.)
Socrates only asked "Hunting questions". ("Hunting question": when you
have the animal - the target - in your sights.) Socrates wanted people
to confirm his opinions which he would hoodwink everybody into
imagining were the morally responsible ones to hold.

"You wouldn't elect your best athletes by lot now would you?"

"No we wouldn't"

"So why would you elect your politicians by lot?"

The required response is embedded in the comparison; a fake
comparison. The technique involves taking two really quite different
things and making them appear the same. Its a kind of a magic trick.
Works every time. However, there may well be excellent reasons for
electing politicians anonymously (risk of bribery, corruption etc.)
Pure sophistry. I love it. Aristotle was simply wrong so no need to
bother with him anymore.

But then, Socrates never set out to be a constructive thinker. He is
nowhere as imaginative as Plotinus and Pythagoras. Socrates' purpose
was to attack and remove 'rubbish'. Socrates will show brilliantly
that all suggestions offered are wrong or faulty in some way. Not ONCE
does Socrates offer a better idea. "Not My Job" rules with him. "I am
not here to help you forge ideas I am here to help you find the true
ideas, the ones you can trust. Its just that you have to come with the
ideas I criticise." He seemed to believe that if you simply attack
what is wrong, or in error, then what you are left with will be true
and trustworthy. This has left us with our obsession with criticism.

There is a remarkable paradox in how the revival of Greek argument
thinking in the last Renaissance served a dual purpose. On the one
hand, humanistic thinkers used the system of reason and logic to
attack the dogma that suffocated society. On the other hand, Church
thinkers led by Thomas Aquinas developed the same argument logic into
a powerful way of defeating numerous heresies that were forever
surfacing. This argument/logic type of thinking became standard in
seminaries, universities and schools. The paradox is that Church
thinkers and non-Church (humanistic) thinkers found equal value in the
methods. Perhaps this is not too surprising given that the new methods
were a clear and obvious advance on the existing ones.

>
>
>> OK - so get the bloody Athenian Academy
>> doors yanked open and let's get this thing sorted out by golly! You
>> have great reverence for Greek thinking, Bruno - I just want to slap
>> them all around the gills for their lack of design, their lack of
>> creative, generative thinking energy.
>
>
> You try to provoke me, I guess. I am not so much reverent with all
> the Greeks. You know that I believe that Aristotle was wrong on
> metaphysics, or at least responsible for the beginning of the
> departure from rational mysticism and Platonism.
>
>

Of course - I merely continue the triage of defective ancient Greek
thinkers by one more Greek. Plato and Pythagoras and Plotinus and
Euclid are all in the mathematic pantheon and above reproach (I won't
forgive Plato the slaves or the fascination with Sparta, though). I am
rather concerned with the legacy of Socrates though. The Greeks
bequeathed us argument and democracy and we have wanted to keep the
two together ever since because nobody can conceive of how to operate
a democracy without argument. Plato gave us "the Truth" which we are
always said to be after. So our traditional thinking system is like
that: it is based on the search for "the truth". It was never a case
of being in search of "the best design". Truth has to be uncovered and
checked by logic and argument (supplemented by statistics and other
methods). The result is a strong tendency toward negativity and
attack; the very nadir of creativity in other words. Negativity and
fear are seen to be a powerful way of uncovering the truth or,
securing compliance with somebody's definition of it. Negativity and
attack can also provide the attacker with a very seductive and
addictive feeling of satisfaction as well. The Crusades were an
exercise in taking all of this for a jolly walk.

>
>
>> It's all argument bloody
>> argument.
>
>
> That is what I like. I appreciate arguments. It is my way.

What's wrong with a simple discussion? Why does there always have to
be a winner and a loser? Why do we have to make like adversaries when
what we want to do is share perceptions and explore a topic? Why can't
there be as many theories about something as heads in the room? We all
lay out our piece of the mosaic and in the end we have the Big
Picture. I try not to confuse thinking with perception. Argument, as
the executive function of critical (vertical) thinking lacks design
energy. Argument makes you right, that's all. Nothing is constructed
or created by argument. Argument was never for the purpose of
generating new ideas. Argument was invented to weed out all the
inferior or incorrect ideas as a way of having some confidence in what
is probably an arbitrary conclusion locked in by the original choice
of premises anyway. Remember, after Goedel, any argument is only as
good as its starting premises which can never be proved from within
the argument.

>
>
>
>> I am right sir and you are wrong sir! The truth lies with
>> me! No sir it is you who are wrong sir!
>
>
> Not at all. Once we argument, we never have to talk on who is right
> or wrong. We let people figure out by themselves. Science is doubt
> and doubt and doubt, and always doubt. Certainty and conviction is
> madness. Plato never pretends to be right. He presents points of
> view and people discussing and trying to solve problems, like "what
> is knowledge" in the Theaetetus.

OK - you are being very scholarly in your deployment of this word
"argument". I do feel there is more, much more though, to the
scientific method than just criticism and attack. A hypothesis arises
in the first place as an act of imagination.

>
>
>
>
>> You are without merit! So what
>> have these two guys created while yelling at each other?
>
> The scientific attitude, in all direction, including mystic
> experiences. It last for 8 century, and stopped when Justinien close
> the academy of Plato in Athen. It never really came back, although a
> few bits survive in the middle east and bubbled out in Europa later.
> Just a little bit. The main fundamental inquiry (theology) did
> remain in the hand of the "authorities", making both science and
> religion a sort of religion. We are still, and actually more and
> more so, victim of that schizophrenia.

So - there it is. Just as I say - the Church banished creativity and
the creative interpretation of information. People were forbidden to
use conceptual imagination in understanding data. Creativity was seen
as evil and suspect and the work of sorcerers and witches and
alchemists. Anybody who could "think" in the medieval period better
have good connections in society. As soon as "thinking" came back into
fashion at the Renaissance, the Church once again felt threatened by
rising levels of education in society and in some very direct sense,
this is WHY the Church invented school. To impart the "right"
knowledge to those who had the right beliefs. We cannot underestimate
the extent to which education today is the product of this miserable
state of affairs.

In Japan, where there was never any exposure to Hellenistic or Arabic
or Roman influences, it turned out rather differently. The Japanese
never wasted any time arguing about the rights and the wrongs of
anything. The Japanese method was to encourage everyone to think how
everything might be improved and to trial as many ideas as possible. A
high failure rate of ideas must be envisaged in this style, but the
result is that innovation and design-thinking is encouraged.

K

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[russell standish-2]

On Fri, Mar 20, 2009 at 10:19:52PM +1100, Kim Jones wrote:

>
>
> On 20/03/2009, at 6:37 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
> >>
> >> Creativity has been the victim of repression in western thinking  
> >> since
> >> Socrates, who, along with Plato and Aristotle are the sods  
> >> responsible
> >> for giving us the our critical-thinking-dominated and design-energy-
> >> deficient thinking system.
> >
> > ?
> >
>
> Perhaps I should do better. The last Renaissance revived and polished  
> the methods of Socrates and the other thinkers of the pre-Roman  
> universe. The way the knowledge was re-assimilated was with a heavy  
> flavouring of Roman fascism. The mathematical universe of Islam and  
> the pre-Islamic thinkers had to be accommodated as well. The argument  
> method (not the only method of exploring a terrain of ideas) was  
> perhaps in use before, but Socrates had developed it into a formidable  
> procedure.

My take on this recent exchange between Bruno and Kim. As you're both
probably aware from my book, I believe that all creative processes are
evolutionary (though not strictly Darwinian), in that they satisfy
Lewontin's three criteria for evolution:

1. Variation
2. Selection
3. Heridatibility

All three of these elements are essential. In the arena of human
thought (scientific, philosophic, whatever), argumentation (and
experiment for that matter) is the second on the list. Scholarship
is the third - it is essential prevent the wheel being reinvented
endlessly. Most PhD's have lots of number 1 (assuming a bright young
thing trying to make his or her mark on the world), some of number 2
(critical thinking does need to be learnt, but ultimately it is a mix
of tried and true tools and creative, spontaneously generated ones),
and very little of number 3, for which PhD supervisors are essential.

As I understand de Bono (and I acknowledge Kim's superiour knowledge
of de Bono), he provides tools to increase the importance of number 1
(variation) with respect to number 2 or 3. These are techniques like
the "po thought" or the hats. I am reminded very much of some of the
recent interest in a concept known as "relaxed selection", which stems
from an observation that biological evolution is at its most creative
after a mass extinction event. The idea being that the mass extinction
removes a lot of competition between species, and hence "relaxes"
selection pressure. I have been trying out some relaxed selection
processes in my artificial life experiments, although admittedly with little
success so far.

To sum up with the old aphorism "keep an open mind, but not so open
your brains fall out". But means are needed to "relax the selection"
from time to time, to get us out of the Kuhnian paradigm shift
treadmill. There are techniques that can be taught (just like one can
teach critical thinking tools, such as logic and deduction), and I
think this is what Kim is saying. But true creativity cannot be
taught.

As for the heridability (aka scholarship issue), this partly justifies
keeping the old curmudgeons around in the department long after their
creative glory days are over. They are best coupled with the young
creative PhD students - although there is also the need for some
independent third force, otherwise you get the disasterous results as
seen in the story Bruno and Prof. X. (I had a milder version of the
same problem for my PhD, and the "third force" was an absolute
lifeline).

--

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[Kim Jones-2]

On 21/03/2009, at 11:53 AM, russell standish wrote:

>
> As I understand de Bono (and I acknowledge Kim's superiour knowledge
> of de Bono), he provides tools to increase the importance of number 1
> (variation) with respect to number 2 or 3. These are techniques like
> the "po thought" or the hats. I am reminded very much of some of the
> recent interest in a concept known as "relaxed selection", which stems
> from an observation that biological evolution is at its most creative
> after a mass extinction event. The idea being that the mass extinction
> removes a lot of competition between species, and hence "relaxes"
> selection pressure. I have been trying out some relaxed selection
> processes in my artificial life experiments, although admittedly  
> with little
> success so far.
>
> To sum up with the old aphorism "keep an open mind, but not so open
> your brains fall out". But means are needed to "relax the selection"
> from time to time, to get us out of the Kuhnian paradigm shift
> treadmill. There are techniques that can be taught (just like one can
> teach critical thinking tools, such as logic and deduction), and I
> 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. Analysis and judgement are not enough when there is  
a need to design a way forward. Let's please not deify creativity. It  
can be taught. Where do people get the notion that it cannot? de Bono  
and all the spinoffs of his methods have been teaching creativity  
since the 70s. These are the people who have a grip on the idea of the  
mind as an entity that can be understood as a system with a defined  
behaviour. Whether it turns out to be 'true creativity' or just plain  
old every day fake creativity, it's a step in the right direction to  
teach creativity based on the new understanding of the brain. It puts  
the other wheels on the car that Socrates sold with only the front  
left passenger wheel (critical thinking)! It is unfortunately a blind-
spot of many people: this "metaphysicalisation" of creativity which  
puts it out of the reach of ordinary mortals. Who can touch and/or  
teach creativity then? Its nonsense - everyone can access creativity  
once they know how the mind works. Does the substitution level fall  
above or below the level of creativity?

The thinking system we use was designed on language, not on an  
understanding of how the brain works. Thankfully in putting across  
your ideas about comp you have your numerical symbology to help you  
out, because without it we'd all be stuffed here. Language is a museum  
of ignorance, in a sense. Every word and every concept has entered  
language at a stage of relative ignorance compared to our present,  
greater experience. But the words and concepts are frozen into  
permanence by language and we must use these words and concepts to  
deal with present-day reality. This means that we may be forced to  
look at things in a very inadequate way.

Creativity and humour are phenomena that arise naturally in active  
self-organising information systems. They cannot arise in passive  
systems, systems that depend on an external agent to organise the  
information. That is why traditional philosophers, psychologists and  
information scientists have had to ignore humour - humour cannot occur  
in passive information systems. Creativity and lateral thinking have  
exactly the same basis in the mind as humour. They provide the much-
needed discontinuity that causes the snap of pattern-switching,  
absolutely essential for the mind to be released to see things it  
previously could not.


It is precisely because the brain is naturally uncreative that the  
need for artificial tools for introducing discontinuity arises. "Po"  
stands for "provocation follows"

PO: the factory should be downstream of itself

highly illogical thought but leads to the idea that the factory's  
input should perhaps be located downstream of its own output. Like  
this it would be directly concerned by input quality and purity. Some  
countries have legislated for this to be the case.


Our traditional view of the brain has made creativity a mystery and  
completely impossible to understand. Every valuable creative idea must  
of course be logical in hindsight (otherwise we could not appreciate  
the idea) so we have assumed that better logic would have reached the  
idea in the first place. That view is now best understood to be  
garbage. An understanding of the brain as a patterning, self-
organising active online information system with pattern assymetries  
(the path from A to B is very much longer than the path from B to A)  
provides the logical basis for provocation, random entry, reversal,  
fractionation, concept fanning and other deliberately artificial  
Lateral Thinking tools.

These things have succeeded brilliantly in the business world and made  
their author a lot of money. The thinking tools of de Bono can be  
taught to Nobel Laureates or to 5 year olds in third world villages.  
He has spawned an army of imitators. Academics and educators hate de  
Bono because he makes no reference whatever to any existing literature  
in the field. His pages are completely free of footnotes.

cheers,


K




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[russell standish-2]

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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[John Mikes]

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
--

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prof Russell Standish                  Phone [phone] (mobile)
Mathematics
UNSW SYDNEY 2052                         hpcoder@...
Australia                                http://www.hpcoders.com.au
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[Kim Jones-2]

On 23/03/2009, at 1:56 AM, John Mikes wrote:

> 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>)


But surely people are driven by their VALUES, John? Creativity is like  
a gun - it's about as good or as bad as the person wielding it. I  
could go one better than you in this direction: the perpetrators of  
9/11 were creative geniuses (as Karlheinz Stockhausen, German composer  
said publicly on the day of 9/11, after seeing the TV images). They  
gave the world an incredibly potent lesson in Lateral Thinking: when  
is a jetliner not a jetliner? When it's a BOMB...

But you fail to mention the beneficial creativity of people like Ray  
Kurzweil (My Kurzweil 2500 sampling keyboard-synthesiser will be  
buried with me in my coffin), Tim Berners-Lee (who invented the Web)  
and - well, I'm tempted to add Steven Wolfram for his Alpha Net engine  
but then I can hear the howls of disapproval already.

John, if it hadn't been for creativity the human race would still be  
living in caves and living in fear of darkness and night.

Creativity merely IS, like elephants and soy beans. You can use it to  
do "good" or "wreak evil". More or less the proof that it is something  
real and worthy of our further effort of understanding.


Madoff was (is) indeed creative - I wouldn't give you five cents for  
his values though. Hitler was in some respects a creative genius,  
unfortunately he possessed very dubious values.


Best regards,

Kim







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[Brent Meeker-2]

Kim Jones wrote:

> On 23/03/2009, at 1:56 AM, John Mikes wrote:
>
>  
>> 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>)
>>    
>
>
> But surely people are driven by their VALUES, John? Creativity is like  
> a gun - it's about as good or as bad as the person wielding it. I  
> could go one better than you in this direction: the perpetrators of  
> 9/11 were creative geniuses (as Karlheinz Stockhausen, German composer  
> said publicly on the day of 9/11, after seeing the TV images). They  
> gave the world an incredibly potent lesson in Lateral Thinking: when  
> is a jetliner not a jetliner? When it's a BOMB...
>
> But you fail to mention the beneficial creativity of people like Ray  
> Kurzweil (My Kurzweil 2500 sampling keyboard-synthesiser will be  
> buried with me in my coffin), Tim Berners-Lee (who invented the Web)  
> and - well, I'm tempted to add Steven Wolfram for his Alpha Net engine  
> but then I can hear the howls of disapproval already.
>
> John, if it hadn't been for creativity the human race would still be  
> living in caves and living in fear of darkness and night.
>
> Creativity merely IS, like elephants and soy beans. You can use it to  
> do "good" or "wreak evil". More or less the proof that it is something  
> real and worthy of our further effort of understanding.
>
>
> Madoff was (is) indeed creative - I wouldn't give you five cents for  
> his values though. Hitler was in some respects a creative genius,  
> unfortunately he possessed very dubious values.
>
>
> Best regards,
>
> Kim

Actually, Madoff was just skillful - not creative.  Ponzi was creative.

Brent

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[Kim Jones-2]

On 26/03/2009, at 4:03 AM, Brent Meeker wrote:

>>
> Actually, Madoff was just skillful - not creative.  Ponzi was  
> creative.
>
> Brent
>


Touché


Kim
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[Kim Jones-2]

On 20/03/2009, at 6:37 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

Hi Kim,

On 19 Mar 2009, at 05:19, Kim Jones wrote:

But who can say that creativity cannot be taught when no institution  
sets out to do so?

I have been teacher in a "modern school" based on creative thinking, but it happens it was a mode of brainwashing.

I love creativity, but teaching it makes it less creative. Hells is paved with good intention.

Dear Bruno

(Here I am putting on the hat of the sensei)

I hope you are wrong on this. Usually I hope you are right on everything, because you usually have the "ring of truth" about you. Here, unfortunately I feel in my adenoids you have the "ring of fear" (like dear Johnny Mikes) - but I could be wrong. Why would teaching the joy, the love, the fascination of something make that thing less than what it is?

Teaching creativity leads straight to hell if you are Hitler, or Mengele or Madoff or Bush or Aristotle or ....... (sorry - not in Alpha order)

If the VALUES of the creativity teacher are fine, then the outcome will merely depend on the VALUES of the STUDENTS. That probably depends on their parents, their socio-economic background, their religion, their life-story their drug-use, their whatever.

Some people may be better at creativity (lateral thinking) just as some people may be better at mathematics but this does not mean that there is a process that cannot be learned and used. As I said, Edward de Bono ALONE AMONGST ALL HUMANS worked out for himself (by '68) what creativity IS.

Some people have 'the gift' of creativity to be sure - but creativity itself is NOT a gift. Gift from whom? From what? Come on  - get real!!!!

Lateral Thinking (=creativity) and vertical thinking are COMPLIMENTARY - not antagonistic.

It can be shown that creativity can make people generate more ideas, and by definition gifts cannot be taught. In my book, NOTHING is 'a gift' because I can never be sure what or who is doing the giving (thank you for this enlightenment Dawkins, Dennet, Hitchens, Harris, de Monfroy, Vic Stenger et al). My only 'gifts' came from the genes of my parents - things I did not have to 'learn' - like musical ability (Fuck, how I wish I had quantum physicists for parents!!!!!!)

There is nothing mysterious or metaphysical about creativity! Creativity is a way of HANDLING INFORMATION. Please stop metaphysicalising creativity! If only Superman or Jesus can be creative then we are all screwed!!!! When you do this, you become AN INCONSISTENT MACHINE!!!!!!!

Many people are scared of creativity because they think (feel) that it threatens the validity (=supremacy) of (academic) VERTICAL thinking. (Vertical thinking = where you must be 'right' at every step of the way and therefore 'consistent'). This is not so at all. The two processes are complimentary - not antagonistic. Remember, Socrates sold the car with only the front left wheel. I am selling the OTHER THREE WHEELS!!!!! Creativity (=lateral thinking) is useful for GENERATING ideas and approaches, vertical thinking (= logical, academic, lawyer-style, "I am right, you are wrong"-style thinking is useful for DEVELOPING ideas. Lateral Thinking enhances the valuse of Vertical Thinking by offering it MORE TO SELECT FROM. Vertical thinking multiplies the effectiveness of Lateral Thinking by making good use of the ideas generated.

Most of the time, one will be using vertical thinking, but when one needs to use lateral thinking (as in the present moment in history, where we are desperate for a 'new idea') - no amount of excellence in vertical thinking will do instead. To persist i n vertical thinking when one should (if one is a consistent machine) be using lateral thinking is HIGHLY DANGEROUS. In truth, one needs skill at both types of thinking. 

Creativity is like the reverse gear in a car. One would be a crazy fool to attempt to drive everywhere in reverse gear. On the other hand, one cleary nbeeds to ahve it and to be educated to know when  it's use is necessary - for example, how to get out of a cul-de-sac.

warmest regards,

K 

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[John Mikes]

Kim,

Indeed I raised my voice against labeling and doing so exclusively in a certain direction of a personalized (societal? cultural?) view. And what did I get as a scolding cold shower? another 'labeling':  called:

VALUES. They, too, can be 'good or bad' in the restricted views we accept as "OUR" values. Presently, i.e. here and now. Neither is "good or bad", only fitting our goals or not.

Teaching (Bruno) emotionalyy loaded things (and art?) usually kills the subject. See 'teaching musical theory' kills the 'music', teaching humor kills the joy, and so on. If the pupil applies the rules taught as creative thinking, she is not creative, only obedient. Non-creatively following the rules of creativity. Teaching love? Nonsense, you should practice it. (*)

It is so interesting to watch, which part of a post and how much of its total is ever included in replies! And to compare it with the purpose of the post at all.

(*) Ad vocem luv: excuse me for including here the recently heard bon mot: that more money is being spent on Viagra than on Alzheimer with the result  that soon there will be lots of men with huge excitement - totally forgetting,  for what it could serve.

*

Ethix and morals (governing good and bad) are age (epoch) and culture dependent societal artifacts not even universally identifiable directives.

To destroy humanity would be 'beneficial(?)'  even within this very biosphere - not to mention wider cosmic considerations.

For us: it may be called disasterous.

 

So I humbly ask you not to make up MY mind. I may have a different creativity (<G>) or more simply: I amy be wrong.

 

Agnostically yours

John M

On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 6:33 AM, Kim Jones <kimjones@...> wrote:

On 20/03/2009, at 6:37 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

Hi Kim,

On 19 Mar 2009, at 05:19, Kim Jones wrote:

But who can say that creativity cannot be taught when no institution  
sets out to do so?

I have been teacher in a "modern school" based on creative thinking, but it happens it was a mode of brainwashing.

I love creativity, but teaching it makes it less creative. Hells is paved with good intention.

Dear Bruno

(Here I am putting on the hat of the sensei)

I hope you are wrong on this. Usually I hope you are right on everything, because you usually have the "ring of truth" about you. Here, unfortunately I feel in my adenoids you have the "ring of fear" (like dear Johnny Mikes) - but I could be wrong. Why would teaching the joy, the love, the fascination of something make that thing less than what it is?

Teaching creativity leads straight to hell if you are Hitler, or Mengele or Madoff or Bush or Aristotle or ....... (sorry - not in Alpha order)

If the VALUES of the creativity teacher are fine, then the outcome will merely depend on the VALUES of the STUDENTS. That probably depends on their parents, their socio-economic background, their religion, their life-story their drug-use, their whatever.

Some people may be better at creativity (lateral thinking) just as some people may be better at mathematics but this does not mean that there is a process that cannot be learned and used. As I said, Edward de Bono ALONE AMONGST ALL HUMANS worked out for himself (by '68) what creativity IS.

Some people have 'the gift' of creativity to be sure - but creativity itself is NOT a gift. Gift from whom? From what? Come on  - get real!!!!

Lateral Thinking (=creativity) and vertical thinking are COMPLIMENTARY - not antagonistic.

It can be shown that creativity can make people generate more ideas, and by definition gifts cannot be taught. In my book, NOTHING is 'a gift' because I can never be sure what or who is doing the giving (thank you for this enlightenment Dawkins, Dennet, Hitchens, Harris, de Monfroy, Vic Stenger et al). My only 'gifts' came from the genes of my parents - things I did not have to 'learn' - like musical ability (Fuck, how I wish I had quantum physicists for parents!!!!!!)

There is nothing mysterious or metaphysical about creativity! Creativity is a way of HANDLING INFORMATION. Please stop metaphysicalising creativity! If only Superman or Jesus can be creative then we are all screwed!!!! When you do this, you become AN INCONSISTENT MACHINE!!!!!!!

Many people are scared of creativity because they think (feel) that it threatens the validity (=supremacy) of (academic) VERTICAL thinking. (Vertical thinking = where you must be 'right' at every step of the way and therefore 'consistent'). This is not so at all. The two processes are complimentary - not antagonistic. Remember, Socrates sold the car with only the front left wheel. I am selling the OTHER THREE WHEELS!!!!! Creativity (=lateral thinking) is useful for GENERATING ideas and approaches, vertical thinking (= logical, academic, lawyer-style, "I am right, you are wrong"-style thinking is useful for DEVELOPING ideas. Lateral Thinking enhances the valuse of Vertical Thinking by offering it MORE TO SELECT FROM. Vertical thinking multiplies the effectiveness of Lateral Thinking by making good use of the ideas generated.

Most of the time, one will be using vertical thinking, but when one needs to use lateral thinking (as in the present moment in history, where we are desperate for a 'new idea') - no amount of excellence in vertical thinking will do instead. To persist i n vertical thinking when one should (if one is a consistent machine) be using lateral thinking is HIGHLY DANGEROUS. In truth, one needs skill at both types of thinking. 

Creativity is like the reverse gear in a car. One would be a crazy fool to attempt to drive everywhere in reverse gear. On the other hand, one cleary nbeeds to ahve it and to be educated to know when  it's use is necessary - for example, how to get out of a cul-de-sac.

warmest regards,

K 

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[Bruno Marchal]

Dear Kim,


On 26 Mar 2009, at 11:33, Kim Jones wrote:

>
>
> Dear Bruno
>
> (Here I am putting on the hat of the sensei)
>
>
> I hope you are wrong on this. Usually I hope you are right on  
> everything, because you usually have the "ring of truth" about you.  
> Here, unfortunately I feel in my adenoids you have the "ring of  
> fear" (like dear Johnny Mikes) - but I could be wrong. Why would  
> teaching the joy, the love, the fascination of something make that  
> thing less than what it is?

Be sure that I may be wrong indeed. Be sure it is possible that we are  
not talking about the same things. And be sure conversations are  
interesting only as far as it it is between people disagreeing :)

But here is what I think.

I can teach math, but I can't teach the joy of math. I can just let it  
happen and encourage it. I can teach math, but I cannot teach the  
fascination of math. I can share it with those who are sensible to  
similar questions.

I cannot teach beauty, nor truth, nor imagination. Only by example,  
letting myself attract to truth, beauty, and making free my imagination.

I can't teach courage either. Some can show it and provide lessons,  
again by exemples, but those who don't fear, will learn nothing. That  
is why bibles, movies and dreams can teach a lot, but much less than  
"real" life.



>
> Teaching creativity leads straight to hell if you are Hitler, or  
> Mengele or Madoff or Bush or Aristotle or ....... (sorry - not in  
> Alpha order)


Hitler has not been creative. He was just not enough dumb  to kill all  
creativity in his neighborhood.




>
> If the VALUES of the creativity teacher are fine, then the outcome  
> will merely depend on the VALUES of the STUDENTS. That probably  
> depends on their parents, their socio-economic background, their  
> religion, their life-story their drug-use, their whatever.



OK, I think that creativity is a value by itself, akin to  
intelligence, and love. You seem talking about some competence. This  
you can teach, but usually it has a negative feedback on intelligence  
and creativity.





>
> Some people may be better at creativity (lateral thinking) just as  
> some people may be better at mathematics


For most mathematicians, to be good at mathematics *is* to be creative  
in mathematics.



> but this does not mean that there is a process that cannot be  
> learned and used. As I said, Edward de Bono ALONE AMONGST ALL HUMANS  
> worked out for himself (by '68) what creativity IS.


Edward de Bono is creative himself, and quite generous in his  
interesting ideas. I have used some of them when working in artificial  
intelligence, like I have used some inspiring abstract problem solving  
tips by Polya. But I would not count that as a teaching of creativity,  
more as a collection of creative ideas, including ideas pertaining on  
creativity. it is an interesting subject. But like many things in  
psychology, we can study those ideas, not use them normatively; and  
thus we cannot teach them as such.
We can give tips and clues.

Perhaps I have a problem just with the expression "teaching  
creativity". It seems to me this is a contradiction per se. To be  
creative is somehow to be able to make something new, and thus which  
escape the teaching. I think we all have this ability in us, but for  
social and life pressure we are not encourage to do so, except in  
singular situation.

To sum up, my "fear" is that by teaching lateral thinking, you, and  
your students, will end up making it vertical.

(I think creativity is something obeying the laws of the contrary  
effect: Bp -> ~p. Like consistency for Lobian Machine.)




>
> Some people have 'the gift' of creativity to be sure - but  
> creativity itself is NOT a gift. Gift from whom? From what? Come on  
> - get real!!!!
>
> Lateral Thinking (=creativity) and vertical thinking are  
> COMPLIMENTARY - not antagonistic.



All universal machine are creative, and thinking exists for all  
angles, in many multidimensional directions.

In mathematics alone many would agree that recursion and set theory  
are vertical, algebra and category theory are horizontal.




>
> It can be shown that creativity can make people generate more ideas,  
> and by definition gifts cannot be taught.



The gift is the neighborhood which let you develop the creativity.





> In my book, NOTHING is 'a gift' because I can never be sure what or  
> who is doing the giving (thank you for this enlightenment Dawkins,  
> Dennet, Hitchens, Harris, de Monfroy, Vic Stenger et al).


Those damned Aristotelian theologians who are not even aware they are  
so!

(Assuming comp I could argue that it is arithmetical truth which is  
doing the giving).



> My only 'gifts' came from the genes of my parents - things I did not  
> have to 'learn' - like musical ability (Fuck, how I wish I had  
> quantum physicists for parents!!!!!!)
>
> There is nothing mysterious or metaphysical about creativity!  
> Creativity is a way of HANDLING INFORMATION. Please stop  
> metaphysicalising creativity! If only Superman or Jesus can be  
> creative then we are all screwed!!!! When you do this, you become AN  
> INCONSISTENT MACHINE!!!!!!!



All universal machine are creative. All humans are universal machine.  
So all humans are creative. Some are more lucky than others in the way  
they can develop it.





>
> Many people are scared of creativity because they think (feel) that  
> it threatens the validity (=supremacy) of (academic) VERTICAL  
> thinking.



Academies, when sane and not rotten, are natural place where  
creativity can develop, together with intelligence and beauty and all  
that.
I think we are barbarian because theologies, in general, have been  
abandoned to authoritative arguments, which truly have no places in  
(again, sane) academies.

> (Vertical thinking = where you must be 'right' at every step of the  
> way and therefore 'consistent'). This is not so at all. The two  
> processes are complimentary - not antagonistic. Remember, Socrates  
> sold the car with only the front left wheel. I am selling the OTHER  
> THREE WHEELS!!!!! Creativity (=lateral thinking) is useful for  
> GENERATING ideas and approaches, vertical thinking (= logical,  
> academic, lawyer-style, "I am right, you are wrong"-style thinking  
> is useful for DEVELOPING ideas. Lateral Thinking enhances the valuse  
> of Vertical Thinking by offering it MORE TO SELECT FROM. Vertical  
> thinking multiplies the effectiveness of Lateral Thinking by making  
> good use of the ideas generated.

I agree with this. Just that creativity can be encouraged, tips can be  
given. But it is like in the Chess play, creativity develops by the  
acceptance of constraints. Creative thinking develops in science and  
it art, by the good teaching of the non creative parts, itself the  
result of the creativity of the predecessors, I think.



>
> Most of the time, one will be using vertical thinking, but when one  
> needs to use lateral thinking (as in the present moment in history,  
> where we are desperate for a 'new idea') - no amount of excellence  
> in vertical thinking will do instead.

The ideas are here. It is the communication inflation which are  
problematic.



> To persist i n vertical thinking when one should (if one is a  
> consistent machine) be using lateral thinking is HIGHLY DANGEROUS.  
> In truth, one needs skill at both types of thinking.

But we do it all the times, in many fields. And the results are always  
a bit frightening. So *new* ideas takes time, always.


>
> Creativity is like the reverse gear in a car. One would be a crazy  
> fool to attempt to drive everywhere in reverse gear. On the other  
> hand, one cleary nbeeds to ahve it and to be educated to know when  
> it's use is necessary - for example, how to get out of a cul-de-sac.


The ideas are here, all along with us. But people are sleepy, and  
forget to think about them. They are a bit coward, too.
Well, this leads usually to catastrophes, and hopefully this reawaken  
creativity.

I would already be so happy if people could understand how bad lies  
can be. But today some industries work mainly on lies, on the type  
"you need that car", "you need that medication", etc. This generates  
fake moneys, and castles on sands. You can't be creative in Chess  
without knowing the "vertical" rules, and today we lies on the rules.  
That's the problem. It is not the lack of ideas, it is the  
impossibility to listen to any ideas which *seems* to contradict our  
habits. It is normal, we are humans, in this case. In a sense I don'  
care too much, I am interested in the billions years to come, and  
beyond, yet I would like to encourage rigor in *all* directions of  
thinking, because I believe this gives the best conditions for  
creativity to develop itself, and to give chance to us for belonging  
to the most paradise-like type of billions of years, instead of  
destroying ourselves in some myriad hellish ways. The best I can do is  
to share my enthusiasm for some possibilities.

We can fight for more freedom, but we can't fight for more freewill. I  
think you are fighting for the equivalent of "freedom" for creativity.  
That could be interesting, but I have no words for it, yet. Thanks for  
making me thinking,

Very kind regards,

Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/




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