CREATIVITY

Book summary:

The Intuitive Edge: Understanding Intuition and Applying It in Everyday Life

Philip Goldberg Tarcher Inc LA 1983

Empiricism is a fine method, as it freed us from reified religious dogma, but scientism eventually enslaved us in turn; so we tried to use methods/metaphors that worked so well to understand the physical world where they did not work so well: society, the psyche and spiritual matters (18). Logic came to = sanity. But after Heisenberg and Kuhn, room for intuition returned “The really valuable thing is intuition” --Einstein. The formal logical proofs are not what create knowledge, they come after (21).

Education focuses on teaching students to memorize the products of science, and the method it teaches of solving problems (even the lab?) do not replicate the process of true discovery, but prescribe a problem with a set beginning and end point, and then also prescribe the proper method to solve it (21). Rational mode works fine when we can quantify and define and control variables, and have complete info (25). Unfortunately the world is growing more complex, and we must make decisions that have very high stakes.

83% of scientists say they rely on intuition, though its accuracy varies dramatically. The intuitive and rational complement each other: eureka moments often follow periods of rational loading up of info, and can happen suddenly or in stages. Often breakthroughs are the connections of very different or even opposite ideas (48). Intuition has an evaluative function, recognizing that an idea is worth pursuing (cf. Von Oech’s judge). Intuition often comes when you’re away from the problem (traveling or bathing show up frequently in the history), perhaps because of elimination of fatigue, stress, the removal of habitual methods, selective forgetting (an early plan in short-term memory screens out new ideas until it’s forgotten), nonconscious synthesis, or incidental input (often a new metaphor) (65). Often creative people describe the intuitive experience as being a recipient or channel. Athletes in “the zone” aren’t rationally planning their moves. Writers in the zone often describe characters taking over the novel: “These things continued to fall together, as by the neat action of their own weight and form, even while their commentator [Henry James, writing of himself] scratched his head about them; he easily sees now that they were always well in advance of him. As the case completed itself he had, in fact, from a good way behind, to catch up with them, breathless and a little flurried as best he could’ (70).

Intuition will usually manifest itself in the form we prefer, visual verbal etc. Self-quiz on intuition pg 85 and 110- .

USING INTUITION: load up on data. Trust yourself. Use writing, especially mindmaps to get stuff down without evaluating it. Even if nothing happens during or after writing (or playing a musical instrument or drawing a situation), you’re setting your mind up to work on the problem on the back burner. Use analogies deliberately (de Bono and Von oech say to use random stimuli/metaphors to shake up your thinking (e.g., the second blue object you see, a random word in a dictionary etc). Direct and record your dreams.

Why we ignore intuition (and when we should) on 195- How to use an intuition journal 209-

Henry James' advice to writers: “Be one of those on whom nothing is wasted.” 165

“Expect nothing, be prepared for anything” Zen sword master 167

“You can’t be intuitive if you’re trying to be right” Peter Senge MIT 168