When you solve problems over the full range of situations in life, you likewise use a wide repertoire of association loops, varying from the commonplace to the esoteric, poised at various levels of consciousness, and you connect them at some very implausible intersections. And when 1 speak of "loops" in the above context, the word is quite literally correct, for the links made by free associations connect nerve cells in the cortex of the frontal lobes up in front, for example, with those back in the occipital lobes, forward from there to the temporal lobes, up from there to the parietal lobes, down to subcortical nerve cells, over to the opposite cerebral hemisphere, back again-on and on in multiple swirling successions. Indeed, to give birth to even the simplest thought, not one but multiple neuronal circuits will be involved even before the primitive idea starts to float up into the more conscious mind's eye or ear. Each circuit is unlikely to be a simple one, because each nerve cell may have up to 10,000 connections, and therefore, big clusters of stimulated cells will be drawn along and invest each association loop.
If professorial types often appear absentminded, the fact is that they are-off on cloud nine, preoccupied, daydreaming about something else. Daydreams are cloud-hopping trips on random looping, frequently visual, associations.
Whenever and however they come, and whatever the source, there is no need to downgrade subconscious mental activities. Scientific types tend to do so because they try to keep things "rational," "within reason" (that is, consciously workable). Moreover, it is hard for anyone to escape from the firm grip of the Protestant ethic, which holds that logical work which comes hardest (again, "conscious" work) must be the most laudable. Nonsense. Our concern is largely misplaced in time. Doubly misplaced. For, the conscious effort properly occurs during the long early period of education, self-education, and filing away. Or, as we shall see in a later chapter, there is a second extended period during which conscious processes are fully engaged-later on during the creative follow-through. During this subsequent period, any investigator will be all too conscious of his hard work. His awareness will help remove any lingering guilt feelings that have arisen when his earlier subconscious efforts were too fruitful, and produced what may seem to be an "unearned run."
One who has restored proper dignity to the unique contributions of the subconscious is the mathematician, Henri Poincare:
The subliminal self is in no way inferior to the conscious self; it is not purely automatic; it is capable of discernment; it has tact, delicacy; it knows how to choose, to divine. Among the great numbers of combinations blindly formed by the subliminal self, almost all are without interest and without utility; but just for that reason they are also without effect upon the esthetic sensibility. Consciousness will never know them, only certain ones are harmonious, and consequently, at once useful and beautiful.'
With this introduction, let us go on to look more closely at the flash of creative inspiration. It will be the essence of all the symbolic possibilities in the prelude, a distillate of rare ideas from a vast memory bank, surging up-tugged up-because they were invested long ago with special affective connotations.
31
Moments of Creative Inspiration
As usual, I stepped over the stretched out body. At this precise moment the insight struck me. When, a moment later, I entered the hospital, I held the solution to the problem.
Charles Nicolle
In these few lines, Nicolle describes how he suddenly realized, in a flash, that typhus was transmitted to humans by a louse.' Sometimes, in such seconds of rare intensity, everything falls easily, beautifully, into place. In this state of enhanced awareness, old faint trails of facts spring into wide open avenues of information. The mind steers itself unerringly through all the traffic to the proper, harmonious combination.
The puzzle seems to solve itself. With only the lightest unintentional touch of a few keys on the organ, a major chord has burst forth to shake the cathedral. So facile is this process, so free and uncontrived, that one almost gains the impression that the solution has come from without. Among the accompanying feelings are an exalted sense of revelation and a melting away of all internal tensions, an intense admixture of certainty and serenity. And this chord will not be lost in the future; it will be replayed.
A flash of intuition or insight startles us, not only because it is abrupt, but also because it may possess the special quality of reversing our preexisting assumptions.2 It thrusts up from our unconscious a quick, sharp wedge of reorganized material that fits precisely into the focal area of our conscious mind where we fruitlessly struggled earlier, and renders obsolete our old rational beliefs. Indeed, it is sometimes obvious that the more we hungered earlier for a solution, the more passion we committed to the previous intellectual struggle, the more profoundly we are relieved when the struggle is resolved. "Ali a!" we say.
What really happens during a major creative flash of inspiration? In his 1999 review, Martindale describes it in words as a state when "attention is defocused," and one's associative thought processes are simultaneously "activating a large number of mental representations."' Is the depth of feeling the result solely of a kind of cognitive relief? Probably not. What may also occur is that our brain automatically completes the jigsaw puzzle with one missing piece electric with symbolism-a forgotten, highly charged memory circuit in which long ago we made a heated emotional investment. What we experience in the present may seem to be a fresh, shining thought structure, so novel in shape that it all seems newly forged. Only rarely do we sense that in its amalgam are rusty old links of metal, heat-tempered years before.
When a major bolt of inspiration flashes into your mind, nothing remains quite the same thereafter. Your mental topography changes in two ways. First there occurs that abrupt sharpening of perception during the "peak" moment itself when, with a subtle jar, something clicks into place like a keystone into the waiting arch.; This moment is saturated from base to peak with a rare clarity of feeling lasting seconds, minutes, or more. What comes next-the second phase-is a residue of enhanced perceptual awareness mingled with a pervasive sense of awe, a serene but lesser "high" that lingers for hours or days thereafter. With the initial turning over of the mind, we felt something internally fall neatly into place. Now, everything internally shifts gracefully a bit closer toward some natural center of gravity where it seems to belong. Simultaneously, we perceive ourselves in a more open and free interrelationship with the external world. The delayed feeling of well-being associated with the spectrum of inspiration/intuition/insight may go on for two or three days; that associated with a major revelation may rarely last many years. When contrasted with the "sea level" feeling of ordinary existence, the lesser high can nevertheless constitute a newer, higher plane of sustained conscious experience, a "plateau" in a sense.'
We envisioned the flash itself as related to the discharge of a number of nerve cells. As they send neurotransmitter messengers across innumerable circuits, these neurons forge a very special pattern of remembered experience. But what explains the later ongoing residue? For at least the early part, one might turn to recent studies showing how close the coupling is between electrophysiology and metabolism. It turns out that many transmitters have metabolic effects outlasting the fraction of a second occupied by the message of a single nerve impulse. In fact, neurotransmitters from one cell turn on enzyme systems, called cyclases, in the other nerve cells they contact. These enzymes then synthesize the second messengers: cyclic AMP and cyclic GMP." These chemicals, and other molecules in turn, participate in a cascade of biochemical changes. The result literally restructures the pores and channels of the membranes on the outside of the next nerve cell. When a membrane is remodeled in this manner, it changes the way charged ions (like calcium, sodium, potassium) traverse that cell. After a while, these slower metabolic processes go on. to influence the nerve cell's subsequent excitability for much longer periods of time. New levels of perception, fresh attitudes, and, ultimately, patterns of behavior could start in mo
tion when the second and third messenger systems set whole circuits of nerve cells at newer levels of excitability. A Nobel Prize went to Neher and Sakmann in 1991 for their pioneering studies of these tunnel-like ion passageways, and later to Rodbell and Gilman in 1994 for their work on special receptor proteins (called G proteins) that also change the nerve cell's excitability through delayed metabolic mechanisms.
Our stereotyped view is that poets create chiefly from inspiration. Lewis Carroll describes it well:
I was walking on a hillside, alone, one bright summer day, when suddenly there came into my head one line of verse-one solitary line-"For the Snark was a Boojum, you see." I knew not what it meant, then: I know not what it means, now:' but I wrote it down: and, some time afterwards, the rest of the stanza occurred to me, that being its last line: and so by degrees, at moments during the next year or two, the rest of the poem pieced itself together....7
But this is not the only way poets create, for Edgar Allen Poe's magnificent The Raven was alleged to have been composed with the heavily reasoned systematic precision of a long mathematical equation, and Poe himself disclaimed any inspiration in it.
So, we must be careful not to attribute too much to a second of creative inspiration, for though vividly recalled, these seconds are relatively uncommon. In fact, bearing in mind the fact that there are 604,800 seconds in a week (in even a nonproductive week), these inspired moments are rare in anyone's lifetime.
And again, let us stress that the moments are not all exactly the same, either from person to person or within the experience of each person. Indeed, we see this fact demonstrated in the many different approaches described by contributors to the books The Creative Process and The Creative Experience.' In a sense, the titles are misnomers; they could as well be titled the Creative Processes and Creative Experiences. As Koestler observes:
At one end of the scale we have discoveries which seem to be due to more or less conscious, logical reasoning, and at the other end sudden insights which seem to emerge spontaneously from the depth of the unconscious. The same polarity of logic and intuition will be found to prevail in the methods and techniques of artistic creation. It is summed by two opposite pronouncements: Bernard Shaw's "Ninety percent perspiration, ten percent inspiration," on the one hand, Picasso's "I do not seek-I find (je ne cherche pas, je trouve)," on the other.'
The investigator must be both Shaw and Picasso, and all the men in between. He must swing back and forth from the freest flights of imagination to the most rigorous grinding logic. He may be struck by an intense flash of creative inspiration that hits with lightninglike impact. Or, he may pursue the vaguest of hunches, driven by an intuition corresponding to the faintest glow of one lone ember in the hearth. Then again, he may experience his enlightenment through a sequence of small sparks, each of lesser intensity and amplitude, which successively leap upward into consciousness. These, too, can collectively solve the problem with new ideas of all sizes and shapes which spring forth at intervals of hours, days, weeks, or longer.
Inspiration has been evoked using an astonishing range of techniques. These run the gamut from poets (Grey, Racine, Milton) who first quietly read passages from their favorite great masters, to those who compose on horseback (Goethe, Scott, and Burns), and to some who prefer different colors of paper for various types of literary work. (Dumas used blue for novels, pink for journalistic work, and yellow for poetry.)If you have found, as I have, that music helps your creative performance, you will be glad to know that this has now been verified experimentally.''
The muse strikes at unforeseen times, places, and persists for unpredictable periods. I have learned to respect the creative spurt, whenever it arrives, to seize the moment, write it down quickly, and then be carried along making the most of it.
So there is not only a single flash-there are many variations on the creative theme. Let's look at three of several that have been identified;'' others are listed separately.'
Closure. This means devising a whole new major scientific theory. An example from part I of this book was the articulation by Hers of the general concept that deposition diseases are caused by deficient lysosomal enzymes.
Partial solutioning. This involves breaking down a large insoluble problem into smaller parts, some of which can then be solved. Most diseases, including MLD, GLD, MSD, and MPS VI, are solved in this manner.
Transfer. Here, one applies a solution from one field to another problem in an apparently different field. The creative act lies in recognizing that similar problems may have similar solutions. An example would be the idea that a sulfatase B deficiency might explain a disease of sulfated mucopolysaccharides," just as a sulfatase A deficiency previously explained MLD, a disease of sulfated lipids.
The investigator is generally an eclectic, and his creative moments will have to be diversified. But, in addition, he will need a great deal more than a single flash of inspiration if his work is ever to bear fruit. Neither his intellect nor his passion can supply the missing ingredient. For what he needs now is that element of character termed will, a degree of dogged perseverance toward a seemingly finite goal that amounts to an obsession. He needs this for a simple reason: the goalposts keep moving away from him.
In Japan, children play with a Darunta doll, a tangible symbol of the way this degree of persistence can overcome all obstacles. The doll represents Bodhidharma, the Indian monk legendary both for the years he persisted in open-eyed meditation and for his bringing the essence of Zen Buddhism to ancient China. Because the doll is heavily weighted at its rounded base, Daruma always returns upright no matter how many times it is pushed over. Hence the saying: "Seven times down, [but] eight times up!"
32
Follow Through; A More Personal View
Neither the bounties from insight nor the bounties from chance, however, relieve the investigator from the necessity of hard labor, for the suggestion which is presented from either source still has to pass the rigorous test of critical proving before it can be admitted to the realm of truth.
Walter Cannon
A scientist must indeed be freely imaginative and yet skeptical, creative and yet a critic. There is a sense in which he must be free, but another in which his thought must be very precisely regimented; there is poetry in science, but also a lot of book keeping.
Peter Medawar
Thus, a novel hypothesis stutters forward, bounds upward, or springs fully into being. It will not be of much scientific value unless it is a testable hypothesis, translatable into action. In the testing, the real conscious work begins. From here on, the investigator needs all the tenacity in his makeup. His persistence is the measure of his motivation.
And time-time is required. In our laboratory, I have come to visualize it in terms of "the factor of three." That is, it takes at least three times as long to set up and complete the requisite experiments as the longest period that might at the outset be anticipated. Why is this so? Let's look at a few of the hurdles that can be expected: (1) it will take extra time to set up the first experiment; (2) the result must be reproduced at least two or three times before it is acceptable; (3) each experiment will bring forth new ideas to be tested; (4) things won't always work out as expected. Having considered in advance that all this should take about three months, for example, the gestation period is still about nine months before all the evidence is gathered together. And sometimes the factor is three cubed.
Even then, the experiments may prove the hypothesis, or they may disprove it. The investigator may be misled by the feeling that a new insight is beautiful and harmonious, only to find out in the subsequent testing that it is really worthless. He soon learns to beware of his "pet" hypothesis, and is extracritical of it himself. He sets out to "shake" it, to disprove it at least as vigorously as he tries to prove it. This self-critical facility, this ability to be completely detached from his prejudice while fully engaged in it, will prove one of his best assets. In this sense, the researcher resembles a circus rider. He
stands precariously, each foot on the back of a different horse. The horses veer from side to side, and he must quickly shift his weight from one to the other to maintain balance. Here similarities end. For the path ahead of the researcher is no circle smoothed by sawdust, but raw unbroken ground; one of his steeds may be a critically trained performer, but the other-the burning new idea he'd like to prove-a spirited maverick.
Attention to fine detail is sometimes vital, but a constant preoccupation with detail is not fruitful. Dr. George Minot (who showed that liver therapy helps pernicious anemia) once put it this way: "A single hair protruding above the underbrush may be the only sign that a large furry animal lurks beneath." His statement has that instant feeling of validity, especially to old rabbit-trackers and kindred searchers.
Sensing which ideas to ignore is probably more important than generating many of them. Few are the key ideas that are worth following up. Few are the major problems solvable with the technology and other resources of the present. The time has to be ripe. So the researcher must probe for the few problems he can get a grip on-those that have "a handle," in scientific parlance. Otto Warburg's words to his student, Hans Krebs, were to the effect that research is "the art of finding problems that can be solved."' Too many projects can seriously drain your time and energy. I have found that an optimal number is three, each in different stages of completion.
If Chance II, in particular, is ever going to prove fruitful, you must first screen your objectives, direct your search toward a promising area. Otherwise, you'll still be flailing around in a parched desert looking for those orchids. You use many kinds of discrimination to whittle down the many options to the manageable few. Your judgment operates over an entire spectrum: starting with unconscious avoidance, extending through the vague hunch that something will not work out, and then on to fully conscious elimination. In this regard, the old saying about intuition in marriage applies equally to research: "Success in love consists not so much in marrying the one who can make you happy as in escaping the many who could make you miserable."
Chase, Chance, and Creativity Page 21
