250 lines
12 KiB
Markdown
250 lines
12 KiB
Markdown
---
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created_at: '2016-09-24T14:26:27.000Z'
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title: Isaac Asimov Asks, “How Do People Get New Ideas?” (1959)
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url: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/531911/isaac-asimov-asks-how-do-people-get-new-ideas/
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author: ohjeez
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points: 117
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story_text:
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comment_text:
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num_comments: 6
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story_id:
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story_title:
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story_url:
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parent_id:
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created_at_i: 1474727187
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_tags:
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- story
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- author_ohjeez
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- story_12571046
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objectID: '12571046'
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---
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Note from Arthur Obermayer, friend of the author:
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In 1959, I worked as a scientist at Allied Research Associates in
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Boston. The company was an MIT spinoff that originally focused on the
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effects of nuclear weapons on aircraft structures. The company received
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a contract with the acronym GLIPAR ([Guide Line Identification Program
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for Antimissile
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Research](http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1959/1959%20-%200699.html))
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from the Advanced Research Projects Agency to elicit the most creative
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approaches possible for a ballistic missile defense system. The
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government recognized that no matter how much was spent on improving and
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expanding current technology, it would remain inadequate. They wanted us
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and a few other contractors to think “out of the box.”
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When I first became involved in the project, I suggested that [Isaac
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Asimov](http://www.asimovonline.com/asimov_home_page.html), who was a
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good friend of mine, would be an appropriate person to participate. He
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expressed his willingness and came to a few meetings. He eventually
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decided not to continue, because he did not want to have access to any
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secret classified information; it would limit his freedom of expression.
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Before he left, however, he wrote this essay on creativity as his single
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formal input. This essay was never published or used beyond our small
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group. When I recently rediscovered it while cleaning out some old
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files, I recognized that its contents are as broadly relevant today as
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when he wrote it. It describes not only the creative process and the
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nature of creative people but also the kind of environment that promotes
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creativity.
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Isaac Asimov
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Andy Friedman
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**ON CREATIVITY**
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How do people get new ideas?
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Presumably, the process of creativity, whatever it is, is essentially
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the same in all its branches and varieties, so that the evolution of a
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new art form, a new gadget, a new scientific principle, all involve
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common factors. We are most interested in the “creation” of a new
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scientific principle or a new application of an old one, but we can be
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general here.
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One way of investigating the problem is to consider the great ideas of
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the past and see just how they were generated. Unfortunately, the method
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of generation is never clear even to the “generators” themselves.
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But what if the same earth-shaking idea occurred to two men,
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simultaneously and independently? Perhaps, the common factors involved
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would be illuminating. Consider the theory of evolution by natural
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selection, independently created by Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace.
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There is a great deal in common there. Both traveled to far places,
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observing strange species of plants and animals and the manner in which
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they varied from place to place. Both were keenly interested in finding
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an explanation for this, and both failed until each happened to read
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Malthus’s “Essay on Population.”
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Both then saw how the notion of overpopulation and weeding out (which
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Malthus had applied to human beings) would fit into the doctrine of
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evolution by natural selection (if applied to species generally).
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Obviously, then, what is needed is not only people with a good
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background in a particular field, but also people capable of making a
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connection between item 1 and item 2 which might not ordinarily seem
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connected.
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Undoubtedly in the first half of the 19th century, a great many
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naturalists had studied the manner in which species were differentiated
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among themselves. A great many people had read Malthus. Perhaps some
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both studied species and read Malthus. But what you needed was someone
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who studied species, read Malthus, and had the ability to make a
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cross-connection.
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That is the crucial point that is the rare characteristic that must be
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found. Once the cross-connection is made, it becomes obvious. Thomas H.
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Huxley is supposed to have exclaimed after reading On the Origin of
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Species, “How stupid of me not to have thought of this.”
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But why didn’t he think of it? The history of human thought would make
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it seem that there is difficulty in thinking of an idea even when all
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the facts are on the table. Making the cross-connection requires a
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certain daring. It must, for any cross-connection that does not require
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daring is performed at once by many and develops not as a “new idea,”
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but as a mere “corollary of an old idea.”
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It is only afterward that a new idea seems reasonable. To begin with, it
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usually seems unreasonable. It seems the height of unreason to suppose
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the earth was round instead of flat, or that it moved instead of the
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sun, or that objects required a force to stop them when in motion,
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instead of a force to keep them moving, and so on.
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A person willing to fly in the face of reason, authority, and common
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sense must be a person of considerable self-assurance. Since he occurs
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only rarely, he must seem eccentric (in at least that respect) to the
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rest of us. A person eccentric in one respect is often eccentric in
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others.
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Consequently, the person who is most likely to get new ideas is a person
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of good background in the field of interest and one who is
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unconventional in his habits. (To be a crackpot is not, however, enough
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in itself.)
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Once you have the people you want, the next question is: Do you want to
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bring them together so that they may discuss the problem mutually, or
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should you inform each of the problem and allow them to work in
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isolation?
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My feeling is that as far as creativity is concerned, isolation is
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required. The creative person is, in any case, continually working at
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it. His mind is shuffling his information at all times, even when he is
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not conscious of it. (The famous example of Kekule working out the
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structure of benzene in his sleep is well-known.)
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The presence of others can only inhibit this process, since creation is
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embarrassing. For every new good idea you have, there are a hundred, ten
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thousand foolish ones, which you naturally do not care to display.
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Nevertheless, a meeting of such people may be desirable for reasons
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other than the act of creation itself.
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No two people exactly duplicate each other’s mental stores of items. One
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person may know A and not B, another may know B and not A, and either
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knowing A and B, both may get the idea—though not necessarily at once or
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even soon.
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Furthermore, the information may not only be of individual items A and
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B, but even of combinations such as A-B, which in themselves are not
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significant. However, if one person mentions the unusual combination of
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A-B and another the unusual combination A-C, it may well be that the
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combination A-B-C, which neither has thought of separately, may yield an
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answer.
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It seems to me then that the purpose of cerebration sessions is not to
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think up new ideas but to educate the participants in facts and
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fact-combinations, in theories and vagrant thoughts.
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But how to persuade creative people to do so? First and foremost, there
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must be ease, relaxation, and a general sense of permissiveness. The
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world in general disapproves of creativity, and to be creative in public
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is particularly bad. Even to speculate in public is rather worrisome.
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The individuals must, therefore, have the feeling that the others won’t
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object.
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If a single individual present is unsympathetic to the foolishness that
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would be bound to go on at such a session, the others would freeze. The
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unsympathetic individual may be a gold mine of information, but the harm
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he does will more than compensate for that. It seems necessary to me,
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then, that all people at a session be willing to sound foolish and
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listen to others sound foolish.
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If a single individual present has a much greater reputation than the
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others, or is more articulate, or has a distinctly more commanding
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personality, he may well take over the conference and reduce the rest to
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little more than passive obedience. The individual may himself be
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extremely useful, but he might as well be put to work solo, for he is
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neutralizing the rest.
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The optimum number of the group would probably not be very high. I
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should guess that no more than five would be wanted. A larger group
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might have a larger total supply of information, but there would be the
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tension of waiting to speak, which can be very frustrating. It would
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probably be better to have a number of sessions at which the people
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attending would vary, rather than one session including them all. (This
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would involve a certain repetition, but even repetition is not in itself
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undesirable. It is not what people say at these conferences, but what
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they inspire in each other later on.)
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For best purposes, there should be a feeling of informality. Joviality,
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the use of first names, joking, relaxed kidding are, I think, of the
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essence—not in themselves, but because they encourage a willingness to
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be involved in the folly of creativeness. For this purpose I think a
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meeting in someone’s home or over a dinner table at some restaurant is
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perhaps more useful than one in a conference room.
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Probably more inhibiting than anything else is a feeling of
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responsibility. The great ideas of the ages have come from people who
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weren’t paid to have great ideas, but were paid to be teachers or patent
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clerks or petty officials, or were not paid at all. The great ideas came
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as side issues.
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To feel guilty because one has not earned one’s salary because one has
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not had a great idea is the surest way, it seems to me, of making it
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certain that no great idea will come in the next time either.
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Yet your company is conducting this cerebration program on government
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money. To think of congressmen or the general public hearing about
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scientists fooling around, boondoggling, telling dirty jokes, perhaps,
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at government expense, is to break into a cold sweat. In fact, the
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average scientist has enough public conscience not to want to feel he is
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doing this even if no one finds out.
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I would suggest that members at a cerebration session be given sinecure
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tasks to do—short reports to write, or summaries of their conclusions,
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or brief answers to suggested problems—and be paid for that, the payment
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being the fee that would ordinarily be paid for the cerebration session.
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The cerebration session would then be officially unpaid-for and that,
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too, would allow considerable relaxation.
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I do not think that cerebration sessions can be left unguided. There
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must be someone in charge who plays a role equivalent to that of a
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psychoanalyst. A psychoanalyst, as I understand it, by asking the right
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questions (and except for that interfering as little as possible), gets
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the patient himself to discuss his past life in such a way as to elicit
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new understanding of it in his own eyes.
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In the same way, a session-arbiter will have to sit there, stirring up
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the animals, asking the shrewd question, making the necessary comment,
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bringing them gently back to the point. Since the arbiter will not know
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which question is shrewd, which comment necessary, and what the point
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is, his will not be an easy job.
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As for “gadgets” designed to elicit creativity, I think these should
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arise out of the bull sessions themselves. If thoroughly relaxed, free
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of responsibility, discussing something of interest, and being by nature
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unconventional, the participants themselves will create devices to
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stimulate discussion.
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Published with permission of Asimov Holdings.
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