Category Archives: creativity

creativity, independent thinking, individuality, wisdom

Collective Wisdom Ain’t

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Collective wisdom is no kind of wisdom. A look at the major breakthroughs in thought throughout history shows that defying collective wisdom often leads to the purest creative solutions to the questions that are pondered. The history of science and technology particularly is a progression of one case study after another that shows how new advancements rely on stepping outside of what is at the time considered by many people to be an obvious fact.

Consider the case of Ptolemy. He developed a beautifully detailed and well reasoned model of the universe in which the Earth stood at the center. To account for the motion of the heavenly bodies, Ptolemy reasoned that they sat upon fixed spheres which rotated around the Earth. Since he realized that stars, planets and comets all seemed to have different trajectories, he reasoned that there were in fact several of these spheres.

The most important thing about Ptolemy’s model is that it worked. He had the evidence in front of him and constructed a model based on that evidence. Because Ptolemy’s model explained things so well, it became widely accepted. This model, along with the remarkably detailed records that he kept regarding the motion of the stars and planets, proved to be useful for navigation and astronomy for centuries to follow.

Although people periodically hypothesized that the Earth might actually be orbiting the Sun, Ptolemy’s model remained the commonly accepted view of the cosmos for fourteen centuries! It was not until Copernicus arrived on the scene that a heliocentric theory gained traction. Prior to that time, people were largely complacent to accept the collective wisdom of others.

Let’s face it: we all have a tendency to be lazy thinkers. That in and of itself is not a bad thing. Lazy thinking helps us get through the day. At some point, you can button your shirt in the morning without any deliberate thought. And imagine what the world would be like if everybody had to discover everything by themselves, without relying on the knowledge and wisdom of others. Fortunately, we don’t have to understand how computers work, we just have to know how to use them. We don’t have to know the entire written works of physics and astronomy to enjoy watching the sun set. We can use the wisdom of our predecessors to leapfrog to our own discoveries.

But when we become too complacent about our thinking, we run the risk of preventing further progress and prevent increasing the quality of our knowledge. When we accept assumptions as fact solely because everybody agrees with the idea, we have something that is cause for suspicion.

This is not to suggest that all collective wisdom is wrong. Sometimes things are widely accepted as true because they actually are. People would generally agree that leaping off of a cliff is detrimental to your health. Most people agree that you should not eat rat poison. It would certainly not be wise to defy conventional thinking and leap off of a cliff or to feast on a box of rat poison “just to double check”.

The key is to ensure that you are always thinking. Challenge your assumptions. When you accept something as true, accept it because you have thought about it and found it to be true — not merely because somebody told you that “everybody knows” it is true.

creativity, einstein factor, image streaming, subconscious, symbolism

Image Streaming: Here Goes!

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The Other Voice In Your Head

You are familiar with the language of the left brain. That’s the voice in the back of your head saying you can do it or you’ll never win, and it never seems to shut up. The right brain, however, is more cryptic. It chooses to speak in pictures. Much like the left brain, the right brain is always “on”, and it is always “talking” to you.

The Right Brain Speaks In Pictures

This is important, for it is through the right brain that you have direct access to your subconscious (the logical left brain actively ignores the subconscious). And it is often the subconscious that is credited with breakthroughs in science and thought! By tapping into the stream of images offered by your right brain, you tap into a deep reservoir of remarkable intelligence and intuition. This is called “image streaming”.

Image streaming is a major focus of the book “The Einstein Factor” by Win Wenger. By closing your eyes and allowing yourself to see the images that are already there, you begin to see a world of strange and new possibilities. But perhaps the most difficult part of image streaming is interpreting the images in the first place. It’s like learning a new langage: right-brainese. Rarely are the images literal. They are usually symbolic, and with a symbolism that is unique to you. Spiders, for instance, might represent abject terror to one person, while they might represent an ancient wisdom to another.

Yes, Even You Can Visualize

And if you claim to be somebody who “can’t visualize”, don’t worry. You’ve been visualizing for years and just aren’t aware of it. If you were a child, there was almost certainly a time when you daydreamed. That’s visualization. Still don’t believe me? Try this exercise:

  1. Read this sentence: Sally ran home crying because she spilled her ice cream cone on the sidewalk.
  2. Now, look away from the screen.
  3. Without looking at the screen, try to recall what you have read.
  4. Congratulations, you just completed a visualization!

When you recalled what you read, you were not trying to recall the words on the screen but the images they describe. In fact, even if you were only able to recall the words, you were visualizing — because you weren’t seeing them with your eyes, but with your mind. In fact, any memory that you have is a visualization.

A Look At My Own Image Stream

To satisfy my own curiosity and for the benefit of those of you who may read this, I thought I would try it out:

I’m standing in a field, the grass is waving back and forth in the wind. I hear the shriek of an eagle, and look up to see that it is swooping down on me as though to catch me in its talons. I duck, covering my head for protection, and the eagle circles back up into the sky. As I look down, I see a field mouse in the grass. It wasn’t me that the eagle was attacking after all, it was this mouse. I feel indignant, because this mouse is utterly helpless and the eagle is frighteningly powerful. I take it upon myself to defend this mouse, and I stand firm as the eagle circles around for a new attack. I have no way to defend myself or the mouse. I look down at my hand, see that my hand is flat, rigid like a knife. As the eagle swoops down, I stab my hand at the center of the eagle’s chest and it drops out of the sky. I am relieved for the mouse, but saddened for the eagle.

But What Does It Mean?

Strange, huh? I’d tell you what I think it means, but why don’t you give it a try? Or try doing a visualization of your own. For best results, write down your image streams or record them into a voice recorder. That way, you will have a record of what they actually were, as opposed to what you remember them to be.