Saturday, November 17, 2012

The Process of Genius

From Scientific American Mind,
Creativity as described by psychilogist Donald Campbell, emerges through a process or procedure he termed blind variation and selective retention (BSVR).  A creator must try out ideas that might fail before hitting on a breakthrough... The blindness of BVSR merely means that ideas are produced withough foresight into their eventual utility. Two common phenomnea characterize BVSR thinking:superfluity and backtracking.  Creating a variety of ideas, and returning to previous approaches after blindly goin ooff in the wrong direction.  BVSR can help us make sense of crtain quirks of the creative geniuses. Although they devote considerable time to achieving expertise, they also pursue other hobbies.  Their openess to new ideas and their breadth of interests infuse them with seemingly irrelevant stumulation that can enrich blind variations.

"As 19th-century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer said "Talent hits a target no one else can hit; genius hits a target no on else can see."

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