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David Gelernter on a connection between creativity and emotion:
it's a general observation--that creativity often hinges on inventing new analogies. ... Now, what makes me come up with a new analogy? What allows me to do that? Generally, it's a lower-spectrum kind of thinking, a down-spectrum kind of thinking, in which I'm allowing my emotions to emerge. And, I'm allowing emotional similarity between two memories that are in other respects completely different.
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Emotion is a tremendously powerful summarizer, abstractor. We can look at a complex scene involving loads of people rushing back and forth because it's Grand Central Station, and noisy announcements on [?] to understand, loudspeakers, and you're being hot and tired, and lots of advertisements, and colorful clothing, and a million other things; and smells, and sounds, and--we can take all that or any kind of complex scene or situation, the scene out your window, the scene on the TV (television) when you turn on the news, or a million other things. And take all those complexities and boil them down to a single emotion: it makes me feel some way.
To me, coproducts feel like the Grand Central Station in Gelernter's description - a mess, with some unknown undercurrents that I may be able to figure out. Continuing with this analogy, products feel like night. That is, a moment in time when (most) everybody and everything find their places: people in their houses, animals in their holes, trains in their depots, etc. The mess turns into a world of neat pairs and triplets. It would be cool to eavesdrop on their dreams and see where they actually want to be. That would show us a potential innovation path.
Another interesting way to use his thought would be to apply the emotional approach in workshops proactively and think about various topics with different emotions.
it's a general observation--that creativity often hinges on inventing new analogies. ... Now, what makes me come up with a new analogy? What allows me to do that? Generally, it's a lower-spectrum kind of thinking, a down-spectrum kind of thinking, in which I'm allowing my emotions to emerge. And, I'm allowing emotional similarity between two memories that are in other respects completely different.
...
Emotion is a tremendously powerful summarizer, abstractor. We can look at a complex scene involving loads of people rushing back and forth because it's Grand Central Station, and noisy announcements on [?] to understand, loudspeakers, and you're being hot and tired, and lots of advertisements, and colorful clothing, and a million other things; and smells, and sounds, and--we can take all that or any kind of complex scene or situation, the scene out your window, the scene on the TV (television) when you turn on the news, or a million other things. And take all those complexities and boil them down to a single emotion: it makes me feel some way.
To me, coproducts feel like the Grand Central Station in Gelernter's description - a mess, with some unknown undercurrents that I may be able to figure out. Continuing with this analogy, products feel like night. That is, a moment in time when (most) everybody and everything find their places: people in their houses, animals in their holes, trains in their depots, etc. The mess turns into a world of neat pairs and triplets. It would be cool to eavesdrop on their dreams and see where they actually want to be. That would show us a potential innovation path.
Another interesting way to use his thought would be to apply the emotional approach in workshops proactively and think about various topics with different emotions.
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