There were several concepts presented by Dr. Simonton, both in the articles in and at our morning meeting, that I find applicable to my practice of creativity.
First, Dr. Simonton’s poses that a creative idea or concept must meet all three of the following criteria; original, novel or surprising, adaptive or functional, and the added 3rd criteria taken from the US patent office, that the idea must be a non-obvious extension. This definition refined my concept of what constitutes creativity.
Dr. Simonton explains that Blind Variation Selective Retention (BVSR), or divergent thinking, is a process that encourages variants unjustified, undirected, unguided, haphazard, unconstrained, random, or serendipitous ideas. He believes the creator must engage in a systematic process in which the outcome of any given trial is uncertain. As he stated in our morning meeting, “blindness is the key to creativity”, and at the night lecture “there will be lots of trips down blind alley” for the creative person. This part of the creative process encourages a “combinatorial process” that involves some degree of chance or unpredictability, and therefore in increased chance of an idea meeting his 3 criteria of creativity. For me, this concept was worth the price of the class. As a creator, I have struggled with the ‘American’ idea that time is money, and time spent on divergent paths is a waste of time. Now, it has been scientifically proven that time spent on ‘blind alleys’ lead to a better, more creative end product.
Dr. Simonton’s theory about creative hierarchy raised this question for me. If reducing restraints on creativity for those in hard sciences and creative endeavors improves their creative performance, does the opposite hold true for those on the ‘bottom’ of the hierarchy? Is it beneficial to those on the ‘lower’ end to constrain our creativity in some cases, and go ‘up’ the ladder, to create better structure for our ideas and concepts?
Last, Dr. Simonton’s points out that defocused attention, an individual’s inability to filter out extraneous information is one telling correlate to a person’s creativity. While this inability can be a handicap in everyday life, it can be a tangible asset in creativity. Noticing what others fail to notice provides the primary basis for serendipitous discoveries, and can stimulate associations that might not otherwise emerge, associations that then end in a creative synthesis. To this fact I say, finally!
While I did not agree with everything Dr. Simonton presented, I did learn several things that I will take with me into the creative problem finding I love so much.