the article which I've read it a million times:10: .... it helps me to solve many of my problems .. both social problems and my homework problems and I could enjoy my life:20: .. I do recommend you to read it .. it's very interesting and you wont close your window easily:31:
The art of Genius: six ways to think like Einstein
How do geniuses come up with ideas? What links the thinking style that produced Mona lisa with the one that spawned the theory of relativity? What can we learn from the thinking strategies of the Galileos,Edisons and Mozarts of history?
For years, scholars tried to study genius by analyzing statistics. In 1904, Havelock Ellis noted that most geniuses were fathered by men older than 30, had mothers younger than 25, and usually were sickly children. Other researchers reported that many were celibate(Descartes),fatherless(Dickens) or motherless(Darwin). In the end, the data illuminated nothing.
Academics also tired to measure the links between intelligence and genius. But they found that run-of-the-mill physicists had IQs much higher than Nobel Prize winner and extraordinary genius Richard Feynman, whose IQ was a merely respectable 122.Genius is not about mastering 14 languages at the age of seven or even being especially smart. Creativity is not the same as intelligence.
Most people of average intelligence can figure out the expected conventional response to a given problem. For example, when asked "what is one-half of 13?" most of us immediately answer six and one half. That's tend because we tend to think reproductively. When confronted with a problem, we soft through what we have been taught and what has worked for us in the past, select the most promising approach , and work toward the solution.
Geniuses, on the other hand, think productivity. They ask: "how many different ways can I look at this problem?" and "how many ways can I solve it?" A productive thinker, for example, would find a number of ways to "halve13":
6.5
1/3=1 and 3
THIR TEEN=4
XI/II=11 and 2
The mark of genius is the willingness to explore all the alternatives, not just the most likely solution. Reproductive thinking fosters rigidity. This is why we often fail when we're confronted with a new problem that appears on the surface to be similar to others we've solved, but is, in fact, significantly different. Interpreting a problem through your past experience will inevitable lead you astray. If you think the way you've always thought, you'll get what you've always gotten.
For centuries, the Swiss dominated the watch industry. But in 1968, when a U.S inventor unveiled a battery-powered watch at the world Watch Congress, every Swiss watch manufacturer rejected it because it didn't fit their limited paradigm. Meanwhile, Seiko, a Japanese electronics company,took one look at the invention and proceed to change the future of the world watch market.
By studying the notebooks, correspondence, and conversations of some the world's great thinkers in science,art,and industry, scholars have identified the following thinking strategies that enable geniuses to generate original ideas:
Geniuses look at problems from all angles
Sigmund Freud's analytic methods were designed to find details that didn't fit traditional paradigms in order to come up with a completely new point of view. To solve a problem creatively you must abandon the first approach that comes to mind, which usually stems from past experience, and reconceptualize the problem. Geniuses do not merely solve existing problems;they identify new ones
Genius make their thought visible
Geniuses develop visual and spatial abilities that allow them to display information in new ways. The explosion pf creativity in the Renaissance was tied to the development of graphic illustration during that period, notably the scientific diagrams of Leonardo da vinci and Galileo Galilei. Galileo revolutionized science by making his thought graphically visible while his contemporaries used more conventional means
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Geniuses produce
Thomas Edison held 1,093 patents, still a record. He guaranteed a high level of productivity by giving himself idea quotas: one minor invention every 10days and a major invention every six months. Johann Sebastian Bach wrote a canatata every week, even when he was sick or exhausted. Wolfgang Mozart produced more than 600 pieces of music
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Geniuses make novel combinations
Like playful children with buckets of building blocks, geniuses constantly combine and recombine ideas,images, and thoughts. The laws of heredity were developed by George Mendel, who combined mathematics and biology to create a new science of genetics
Geniuses force relationships
Their facility to connect the unconnected enables geniuses to see things others miss. Da Vinci noticed the similarity between the sound of a bell and a stone hitting water- and concluded that sound travels in waves
Geniuses prepare themselves for chance.
Whenever we attempt do something and fail, we end up doing something else. That's the first principle of creative accident. We may ask ourselves why we have failed to do what we intended, which is a reasonable question. But the creative accident leads to the question: what have we done? Answering that one is a novel, unexpected way is the essential creative act. It is not luck, but creative insight of the highest order
This may be the most important lesson of all: When you find something interesting, drop everything and go with it. Too many talented people fail to make significant leaps of imagination because they've become fixated on their pre-convinced plan. But not the truly great minds. They don't wait for gifts of chance;they make them happen
select readings(intermediate)
linda Lee and Eric Gundersen
the real article is by Michael Michalko from the futurist/Utne reader
