#69. How Creativity Really Works - Dr. Keith Sawyer

What is creativity, really? In this episode of the Smooth Brain Society, we dive deep with Dr. Keith Sawyer—MIT-trained computer scientist, jazz pianist, and leading creativity researcher and Professor in Educational Innovations at the University of North Carolina—to unravel the psychology of creative thinking. From the neuroscience of flow states to the myth of the lone genius, Dr. Sawyer breaks down how creativity happens in the mind, in collaboration, and in the classroom. We explore his many books on creativity including his 2024 book Explaining Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation, known as "the creativity bible," and his latest publication, Learning to See: Inside the World's Leading Art and Design Schools, a groundbreaking account of how nationally known artists and designers teach. Join us as we learn why stepping away from work might be the most productive thing you do. 

Oh! and that apple story about Newton? Not quite what you think. 

https://keithsawyer.com/

Chapters

• 0:00 Understanding Creativity
• 8:04 Dr. Keith Sawyer's Journey into Creativity
• 13:07 Flow State and Creativity
• 21:03 Cognitive Process of Creativity
• 32:33 The Myth of Big Ideas
• 41:24 How to get more creativity in education?
• 46:20 Learning to See: Teaching Creativity

Transcript

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All right, boys, girls, and NBs, welcome back to the Smooth Brain Society.

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Today, we'll be talking to Dr. Keith Sawyer.

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He's a professor of education at the University of North Carolina.

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His focus is on studying creativity, learning, and collaboration.

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We're here to talk about creativity.

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We are particularly here to talk about two of his books,

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but I'll give you a bit more of a rundown on Dr.

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Sawyer.

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So he first started off with a computer science degree from MIT and used to design

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video games for Atari,

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after which he began his doctoral studies in psychology and he studied creativity.

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He's dedicated most of his life to researching creativity, collaboration and learning.

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And additionally, he has also been a jazz pianist for over 40 years.

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I don't think we'll talk about that much, but maybe we will.

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Dr.

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Sawyer has published 20 books and over 120 scientific articles,

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and his work has been cited over 30,000 times.

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His research has been featured on CNN,

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Fox News,

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Time,

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New York Times,

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Wall Street Journal,

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and other media.

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So it is a great pleasure to have you on, Dr. Sawyer.

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If we can call you Keith, then I'd like to call you Keith for the rest of the interview.

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But thank you for coming on to the Smooth Brain Society.

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Oh, thank you.

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It's great to be here.

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And for those of you who don't know,

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we always have a co-host on and over here,

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I have Amir back on as co-host again.

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He doesn't know much about his PhD in psychology,

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but he is a computer scientist while specializing in artificial intelligence.

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So maybe part of Dr. Seur's early career is what interests you slightly more, but welcome back.

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Glad to be back.

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We can talk about it.

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Absolutely.

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That's music to my ears.

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But I should start off with saying two things.

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One,

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it's frankly an honor to be virtually in the same space,

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the same room as you,

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Keith,

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and given your esteemed background.

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And two, the Smooth Bridge Society is definitely coming up in the world.

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Having guests of high caliber day, week by week, episode by episode.

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It's great to be a part of it.

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Gone are the days where I was dragging my other PhD student colleagues to like run

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on and do an episode because I had no guests.

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So yeah.

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All right.

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Let's talk about creativity first and foremost.

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So how would someone as someone who researches creativity, what is creativity to you?

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I think creativity is something very personal,

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that creativity is something new and different that you come up with that you've

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never thought of before,

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or it's an action,

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a behavior that you've never done before.

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I think of that as a very personal type of creativity, and that's on one level.

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But on another level,

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I think of creativity as something that has an impact on the world,

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something that goes out and resonates with other people that can make an impact.

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on other people or with a time period or with a moment in history.

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And that kind of creativity,

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it is creative for you because it's original and new and different for you.

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But it has that additional power because it's new and different for the world,

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for society,

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or for the people around you.

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So I think of that as another level, another type of creativity.

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But both types of creativity are valid, and it has to start with something personal.

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It has to start with something that's new and different for you personally.

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And to get something that's new and different that you've never thought of before,

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well,

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that's the power of creativity,

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but it's also the mystery of creativity.

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And that's the type of psychological research I do to find out how your mind comes

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up with something new that's new for you that you never thought of before.

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So in that case,

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I was thinking while you said that things like sort of,

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if there was a society,

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like how do societal things play a role in this?

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So for example,

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if there was a society where the wheel has not been used and someone invents a

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wheel there,

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but you come out to the rest of the world where everybody has a wheel,

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um or has been using it is it still creative in terms of it's creative for them but

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in the wider scheme people wouldn't consider it creative or yeah how does that

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interaction work

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Yeah.

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So that's why I think it's useful to think about two different levels or two

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different types of creativity.

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So you're exactly right.

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It could be new for you because you've never seen a wheel before,

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but then you go to the next town over and everybody is using wagons or,

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um,

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water mills or whatever.

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So wheels are old news to them.

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So yeah,

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on that second level,

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then you really haven't made an impact on the world because the world has already

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been impacted by someone else coming up with the wheel.

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But it still can have a personal power for you as an individual.

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As creativity researchers and as a psychologist,

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I'm interested in the process that goes on in your mind and the certain types of

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habits and practices that you engage in as an individual.

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So for me,

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if it's new and it's different and surprising for you,

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then what's going on in your head is the same whether or not it's new to the people

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around you.

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So then let's talk about the psychological aspect of it a little bit and what goes

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on in the mind.

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I assume this is more to do with not your current book,

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which you wanted to talk about as well,

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and we'll get to it,

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but the one just before that,

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which was explaining creativity,

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right?

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Because that's a book where you talk everything creativity.

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So maybe we touch on that first.

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And yeah, so what is going on in our mind?

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What makes, yeah, what's going on in our brains, which makes people creative?

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I'm glad you brought up that book.

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It's called Explaining Creativity, and it's so big and thick.

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It has everything in it.

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It's over 550 pages.

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And it came out just in 2024.

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It's the third edition.

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So every eight years or so, I update it with the latest new research on creativity.

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So I'm a creativity researcher, so I know how to read the journal articles.

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And my colleagues and people that I work with,

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people that I meet at conferences are the people that are doing this cutting edge

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research.

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So I update the book.

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regularly to make sure it's got the latest newest stuff and creativity research is

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a pretty active field and most of the people doing it are psychologists either

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their personality psychologists or their cognitive psychologists they're interested

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in what goes on in the mind when people are being creative

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but in my book explaining creativity i don't stop there if we're talking about this

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kind of bigger more impactful creativity that impacts the world then it's not only

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what goes on inside your mind but then it becomes a social and an interactional

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type of process so in my book i also talk about these kind of like social networks

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markets audiences uh

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social media, social networks.

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How is it that new ideas circulate around the world?

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So that's also creativity science, but I wouldn't call that psychology, right?

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It's more like a sociology.

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Right.

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And that's why my book is so thick because I want to put all of all of this stuff into it.

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So if you want to know anything at all about creativity,

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yes,

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that's your source,

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the creativity Bible.

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explaining creativity.

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It's not called the Bible.

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So my question is,

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I hope it's not a bit of a loaded question,

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but I'm thinking about how you went into the field of researching creativity,

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given your background.

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And I can think of sort of two ways in which your background probably influenced your research.

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One,

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probably because in the video game space is naturally a lot of creativity and it

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goes into making unique games and different games.

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And the other aspect of it is the people who interact with the video games, i.e.

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well, generally speaking, it's children who, um,

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well,

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at least when I was young,

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you know,

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you discover when I was a kid,

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you know,

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you discover these new things and you're excited and you think you've,

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oh,

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this is something someone's probably never come up with.

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And then your parents go,

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oh yeah,

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they just sort of display some excitement for you,

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but yeah,

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you've,

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you've invented the wheel there,

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buddy.

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It's been done and dusted, you know?

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So what, what pushed you towards or

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piqued your curiosity in the field of creativity.

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I had a pretty unusual background compared to most of my creativity research

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colleagues are pretty straight up psychologists.

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And they had a career.

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They got an undergraduate degree in psychology.

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Then they got a PhD in psychology.

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They do psychological research.

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My undergraduate degree was in computer science at MIT.

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And I did artificial intelligence, as a matter of fact.

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artificial intelligence of the 1980s variety.

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So very different kinds of technologies, but I'm happy to talk about that as well.

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And then I graduated and I got a detour from artificial intelligence because I had

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this opportunity to work at a small video game company.

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We did a lot of Atari's hit video games.

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And if anyone knows about Atari, they were in the late 1970s.

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They were the company that did the home video game player that you could put cartridges in.

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It was called the VCS, the video cartridge system, video game cartridge system.

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So, yeah, that was the world that I lived in.

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And then I became an artificial intelligence management consultant in the 1980s

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where I worked for big corporations.

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That gave me an understanding of business innovation.

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and a technological innovation that I think a lot of psychologists don't

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necessarily have that business experience.

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So all of that, you know, I'm thinking I'm not a psychologist.

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I don't even know that there's a field of research called creativity research.

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But in my late 20s, I just sort of burned out as a management consultant and I got

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you know,

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jaded about making corporations just a tiny little bit more efficient with computer

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technology.

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I didn't feel like that was really making an impact on the world.

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And I'd always been academically inclined.

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I wanted to get a PhD and become a professor.

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So when I went to the University of Chicago,

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my idea was to study group dynamics and social interaction.

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I was interested in language use, how people talk to each other.

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And that led to my research on Chicago improvisational theater as a form of

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improvisational conversation.

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But I still didn't know that there was something called creativity research.

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I thought I was going to be a linguist, I guess, sociolinguist.

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But at University of Chicago, there's a legendary psychologist called Mike Csikszentmihalyi.

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or Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

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It's a Hungarian name.

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And he's passed on,

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but he was famous even at that time in the early 1990s as the originator of the

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concept of flow,

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the psychology of peak experience.

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And that concept has really had legs.

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Even today, people know what flow is.

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And he was the originator of the concept.

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And he also was a creativity researcher because it turns out that when people are

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in the flow state,

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they are more likely to be creative.

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And I took a class from him in my first quarter at University of Chicago.

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It was called The Psychology of Creativity.

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And just because it had an interesting title.

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And that was, you know, that was the beginning when after that I was hooked.

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And I said, oh my gosh, this is how I can study improvisational dialogue between people.

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And it helped me understand my own experience as a performing jazz musician where

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this interactional dynamics

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of members of a jazz ensemble has a kind of dialogic, conversational dynamic to it as well.

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Nice.

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I think those journeys are better than the ones which are just like,

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oh,

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I did undergrad in this,

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and then I did a master's in this,

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and then I did a PhD in this,

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and it was all the same thing.

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Sounds a bit like your journey, eh, sir?

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Just a little bit.

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But can I ask you,

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because you've mentioned flow state and creativity,

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could you explain to someone who does not know,

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myself,

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what the basics of the theory are?

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Maybe that might help us in the conversation going forward.

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Oh, absolutely.

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So it started,

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you know,

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now there's a movement that's pretty well established called positive psychology,

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the focus on fulfillment.

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And what is it that leads to a good life?

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You know,

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back in whatever,

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the 60s and 70s,

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people had a relatively simplistic understanding that said happiness.

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You know,

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if you're happy and what makes you happy,

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what makes you happy,

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people would say is because life is simple.

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Life isn't complicated.

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Life is easy.

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And if you're not stressed and you don't encounter any difficulties, then you'll be happier.

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And that was the understanding of happiness at that time.

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But Csikszentmihalyi,

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didn't think that was what was really happening.

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Because if that's your definition of happiness,

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is that life is simple and you're never challenged,

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then sitting in front of the television all day long,

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you should be the happiest person.

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Or playing video games on your computer all day long, you should be the happiest person.

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But his research wasn't finding that.

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He was finding that peak experience was coming when people were engaged in a

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challenging task,

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when they actually were working hard.

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So sitting on the couch and playing a video game was not peak experience.

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And that's what got him excited.

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He actually in his youth was a mountain climber in the Alps.

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And you ask this kind of cliche question, which is why do you climb to the top of a mountain?

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And the answer is something like, because it's there.

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So that's, I don't know, a little bit humorous, but Csikszentmihalyi wasn't satisfied with that.

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And what he thought was people climb the mountain because it's a challenge.

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and they get into a peak experience.

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So if you're a mount climber, you know, imagine climbing up the cliff face,

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You don't climb up the cliff face that you've done 100 times that you already know how to do.

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You pick the cliff face that's a little bit harder than what you're used to,

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that's going to challenge you.

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So that gets you into the flow state.

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What it is, it's a balance of your skills and your abilities and the challenges of the task.

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And the very simple, the flow curve or the line goes up.

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And that's the process of learning and development.

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that as you increase in your skills and your abilities,

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you need to increase the challenges as well to keep yourself in this flow state.

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So people who are seekers of the flow state, they are constantly learning.

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They're constantly advancing their skills because the pursuit of flow leads you to

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increase the challenges and increase the skills both.

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And if you

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Think about all that.

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That's something you're doing for the task itself, for the enjoyment of engaging in the task.

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You're not doing it because you're going to make a bigger salary, although in many cases you do.

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You're not doing it for pride or for an award.

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You're doing it because the task itself is so fulfilling and so enjoyable that it's

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a peak experience for you.

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So it's motivating in and of itself.

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And the term psychologists use for that is intrinsic motivation, meaning inside of yourself.

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And you contrast that with extrinsic motivation,

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which is your salary or someone being impressed by you.

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Or I don't know if you're heterosexual male, women, you know, whatever.

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liking you or whatever.

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That's extrinsic motivation.

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But the intrinsic motivation is when you do it sheer for the sheer enjoyment of the task.

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I remember this meme.

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I don't know.

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If you've seen it,

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but I've used it once or twice while teaching when I was talking about motivation,

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where there's this person jogging and it's like,

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sometimes you get motivated or you find motivation and it's them just running.

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And then the picture expands and there's a bear chasing them.

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And it's like, sometimes motivation finds you.

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So that's the intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation.

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There, that's the, I guess you would say that's extrinsic motivation, right?

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You're doing it for not the reward, but for the absence of death.

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So these challenges you described,

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would it be sort of a challenge that is just beyond the potential skill level of

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the person in pursuit of that challenge?

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Because I assume there's a threshold, right?

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Because

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Imagine,

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for example,

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in sport,

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if I want a challenge,

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I'd probably want to play against someone who's slightly better than me to test

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myself versus someone who's an absolute pro who's going to beat me 10 out of 10

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times.

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Exactly.

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So there are two ways you can be out of the flow state.

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And one of them is if the task isn't challenging enough.

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And Csikszentmihalyi called that boredom.

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You can call it whatever you want.

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But if the challenge is not greater than the skills you have available,

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then it's just not interesting.

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It's not challenging.

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So that's boredom.

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But if the skills that you have are not up to the task,

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if the challenges are too great,

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then it's frustration and anxiety.

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So you're not in flow there either.

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So there's like a flow channel, I guess you could say, where the...

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skills and the challenges are balanced.

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And,

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you know,

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frankly,

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not all of us are in control of our lives so that we can choose exactly how much

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challenge we have.

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Sometimes the world just puts on a difficult challenge and we get anxious and

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there's,

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what can we do about it?

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We can either get away from that challenge or we can increase our skill level.

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But sometimes, you know, you just don't have that option either.

(00:19:16):
So not everyone in the world is in control of their own lives enough.

(00:19:21):
So not,

(00:19:22):
you know,

(00:19:22):
flow,

(00:19:23):
we shouldn't be,

(00:19:23):
I don't know,

(00:19:24):
too,

(00:19:26):
I don't know,

(00:19:29):
say too many only positive things about it,

(00:19:32):
because maybe it is for privileged people or people who are in control of their

(00:19:36):
lives.

(00:19:37):
But I think everyone has that potential, maybe not in every aspect of their life.

(00:19:42):
I think all of us face challenges that are

(00:19:45):
beyond what we're able to do.

(00:19:47):
But in that sphere,

(00:19:49):
if you can find a sphere for yourself where you are able to balance your skills and

(00:19:54):
the challenges,

(00:19:54):
that's what you should seek out because that's where you're going to find flow.

(00:19:58):
And maybe the rest of your life you get anxious and frustrated.

(00:20:03):
But if you can find that

(00:20:05):
that thing you can do.

(00:20:07):
And yeah,

(00:20:07):
I think it's true that for a lot of people,

(00:20:09):
it's a hobby,

(00:20:11):
something they do on the side.

(00:20:12):
It's sad, but maybe you don't get that flow experience at the work.

(00:20:17):
But if you can, if you find a job that is intrinsically motivating,

(00:20:22):
and you make money doing it,

(00:20:23):
then I'd say you're the luckiest person in the world because you're getting both

(00:20:28):
the external reward and you're getting the internal reward of really enjoying the

(00:20:32):
task.

(00:20:33):
And personally, that's where I am.

(00:20:35):
I love what I do, and it brings me a salary.

(00:20:39):
And I tell my son this, too.

(00:20:41):
I say, and he's still looking for a career.

(00:20:44):
He's just graduated from college.

(00:20:46):
Congratulations.

(00:20:47):
Congratulations.

(00:20:48):
Yeah, but not everyone is able to choose a career where they get into flow.

(00:20:53):
So then in that case, yeah, you would choose something else in your life.

(00:20:59):
And I think that's why people seek out hobbies, honestly.

(00:21:04):
That's a very good point.

(00:21:08):
I want to pick this a little further in terms of like the cognitive side of it.

(00:21:13):
So like you said, creativity might not be for every task.

(00:21:18):
It might be for certain tasks.

(00:21:19):
That's why there's hobbies and certain hobbies which people do,

(00:21:22):
which they're good at,

(00:21:23):
others which they're not good at.

(00:21:24):
So then they stick to ones which they're good at.

(00:21:26):
But in terms of the brain or in the mind,

(00:21:28):
does this manifest in different areas of the brain or is it sort of like...

(00:21:33):
one area regardless of whatever task you're good at bad at which is sort of more

(00:21:40):
important in sort of the idea of creativity or being in that flow state or

(00:21:43):
performing well when in that flow state.

(00:21:47):
Yes.

(00:21:47):
So I understand it's a good question.

(00:21:49):
And I've looked at your podcast and you have a lot of episodes on neuroscience.

(00:21:54):
I'm not aware of any research that associates the flow state with a specific brain region.

(00:22:00):
And I think it's because it's a whole brain phenomenon.

(00:22:04):
Okay.

(00:22:05):
I mean, you can imagine the state.

(00:22:07):
You're engaged in a task.

(00:22:08):
The task is probably fairly challenging.

(00:22:11):
and complicated,

(00:22:14):
then you have your skills and your skills typically are whole brain when you have a

(00:22:19):
cognitive expertise.

(00:22:22):
I mean,

(00:22:22):
there are some,

(00:22:23):
you know,

(00:22:24):
thinking,

(00:22:24):
but imagine if you're a mountain climber and you're in the flow state while

(00:22:28):
climbing a mountain,

(00:22:30):
would you really think that's in one region of your brain?

(00:22:33):
No, I think it's more of a whole brain phenomenon.

(00:22:38):
No,

(00:22:38):
I was thinking maybe there's a part of the brain,

(00:22:41):
which I don't know,

(00:22:42):
some part of the brain slightly stronger or is more activated in terms of relaying

(00:22:50):
all the information required for a certain task.

(00:22:52):
I assume,

(00:22:53):
I guess,

(00:22:53):
yeah,

(00:22:54):
like you said,

(00:22:54):
when you're mountain climbing,

(00:22:56):
your spatial ability must be really good.

(00:22:58):
Your strength must be activated.

(00:23:02):
You should be able to point out various things, weak points and rocks, so on and so forth, that

(00:23:08):
motivation to be able to climb, like all of these things need to be going on at the same time.

(00:23:13):
So I didn't necessarily expect it to be one single part of the brain,

(00:23:17):
but I thought in this sort of state or whatever is one part of the brain,

(00:23:23):
like sort of coordinating better what's going on as to why we need this state is

(00:23:29):
basically what I was getting to.

(00:23:31):
Right.

(00:23:32):
Right.

(00:23:32):
Yeah, I think, and it's difficult methodologically as well.

(00:23:35):
So I'm familiar with the cognitive neuroscience methodology,

(00:23:38):
at least currently,

(00:23:40):
you need to be still,

(00:23:42):
you can't move a whole lot and your head's in a big scanner.

(00:23:45):
So it would be difficult to think of a task you could engage in that would get you

(00:23:50):
in the flow state while your brain is being imaged by an fMRI.

(00:23:55):
So maybe that's it.

(00:23:56):
And there are newer and newer

(00:23:58):
brain imaging technologies where you can wear it on your head while you go around and do stuff.

(00:24:03):
So maybe there's some future potential for being able to study.

(00:24:08):
Part of the challenge is that flow is something that happens in many different

(00:24:13):
disciplines and many different types of activities,

(00:24:15):
right?

(00:24:16):
So it's not something that happens only in the verbal domain and it's not something

(00:24:20):
happens only in the visual domain.

(00:24:22):
So, you know, talking and seeing are localized in the brain.

(00:24:27):
So maybe if you're a painter and you're in a flow state,

(00:24:31):
maybe you would expect to see something different in the visual cortex.

(00:24:34):
But if you're a writer and you're in a writing flow state,

(00:24:38):
maybe it would be in the verbal area of your brain.

(00:24:41):
So there's a domain specificity issue as well.

(00:24:46):
Yeah.

(00:24:46):
But anyway, at the moment, I'm not aware of any research.

(00:24:50):
No.

(00:24:51):
Fair enough.

(00:24:52):
So then of what you're aware of,

(00:24:55):
maybe I can ask you what your particular research is in creativity.

(00:25:01):
Yeah.

(00:25:01):
What is sort of your focus in the area as of now?

(00:25:05):
I've always focused on the creative process.

(00:25:07):
And some psychologists will focus on the creative personality,

(00:25:11):
like what sort of traits are there that creative people have.

(00:25:14):
But as a cognitive psychologist myself, I'm interested in the process.

(00:25:18):
So what goes on as you're engaging in the creative process,

(00:25:22):
or I might call it the creative way or the creative path.

(00:25:26):
And as you're doing that,

(00:25:28):
you engage in many different stages or habits of mind.

(00:25:31):
You're not in one frame of mind the whole time you're engaged in the creative process, right?

(00:25:36):
I mean,

(00:25:37):
there could be moments when you're generating ideas and exploring,

(00:25:42):
and there might be other moments where you just had an idea and you want to start

(00:25:45):
working through that idea.

(00:25:47):
So there you might be a little more focused or a little more guided.

(00:25:50):
And then later you get to a dead end with an idea and you say, okay, now it's time to step back.

(00:25:56):
And let my mind wander a little bit more and get into that mind wandering state and

(00:26:02):
where you're more exploratory because you feel like,

(00:26:04):
you know,

(00:26:05):
it's time to develop some new ideas.

(00:26:07):
So there are all these moments in the creative process that psychologists study.

(00:26:11):
The most simplistic would be,

(00:26:14):
you know,

(00:26:14):
you're working hard on a task and then you take some time off.

(00:26:19):
And as you're taking time off and people do things like exercising or gardening or

(00:26:24):
cooking where your mind is no longer engaged in the task that you had been engaged.

(00:26:31):
And then what's hypothesized to happen is an incubation that the mind in the

(00:26:37):
subconscious is working on the problems that you have been working on consciously,

(00:26:43):
but you step away

(00:26:44):
and you're doing something else,

(00:26:46):
and your mind is now occupied with something not related to your problem.

(00:26:50):
But it's thought that your subconscious mind continues to work on it,

(00:26:53):
and that's called incubation.

(00:26:55):
There's a lot of evidence that incubation is often the time when you have a new idea.

(00:27:02):
So ideas basically pop up from this incubation.

(00:27:06):
So you think incubation on the cooking metaphor, it's the back burner.

(00:27:10):
I guess.

(00:27:11):
And then new ideas coming out of this.

(00:27:13):
So this is why you often hear stories of people talking about insights coming to

(00:27:19):
them where they're not actively engaged in the task.

(00:27:23):
They have an idea while they're on the bus or while they're exercising or while they're cooking.

(00:27:28):
And that seems to be associated with this type of creative process,

(00:27:33):
hard work,

(00:27:34):
incubation,

(00:27:35):
insight.

(00:27:36):
And then you get back to the hard work.

(00:27:38):
You say, oh, I had this great idea, but now I want to go work on it.

(00:27:42):
And then it's much more conscious and focused.

(00:27:45):
So yeah, that's my interest is this nature of the creative process.

(00:27:49):
What are the mindsets that are involved and how are they sequenced together over time?

(00:27:56):
When I step away from a task I'm told to do, I get told I'm procrastinating.

(00:28:02):
You might be.

(00:28:06):
But I'm actually just letting the subconscious work on it, aren't I?

(00:28:11):
They don't get it.

(00:28:12):
People don't get it.

(00:28:13):
Everyone has a way in which they do their things.

(00:28:22):
Yeah, so you might be procrastinating.

(00:28:24):
But I think

(00:28:26):
You know,

(00:28:27):
creative people or people who've learned how to master this creative process,

(00:28:31):
they become pretty good at understanding themselves and understanding the process

(00:28:36):
that's going on in their own mind.

(00:28:38):
So they're able to switch when they get to a point where they encountered a dead end.

(00:28:44):
They can see that in themselves.

(00:28:46):
So they have a certain kind of self-awareness or we might say metacognition that

(00:28:51):
prepares them to

(00:28:53):
to change what they're doing at that moment in the creative process.

(00:28:57):
So when they take time off,

(00:28:58):
it's because they are aware about themselves and they realize they need to stop and

(00:29:03):
take time off.

(00:29:04):
So obviously that's different from procrastination where you're like,

(00:29:09):
I don't enjoy doing this anymore and I would rather go play a video game.

(00:29:15):
So that's not intentional in the same way.

(00:29:20):
It depends how you frame it, though.

(00:29:21):
For your own, what do you say?

(00:29:26):
For your own mind.

(00:29:28):
Yeah, creative people.

(00:29:29):
I think successful people in many walks of life really...

(00:29:35):
are sort of on all the time right even when you're taking time off stuff is going

(00:29:40):
on in the back of your minds i don't know if all of us are like that you know some

(00:29:45):
of us just don't want to have stuff going on in the back of our minds but but you

(00:29:49):
you know when there's a lot of people who study creativity that study the lives of

(00:29:54):
exceptional creators through history you know people who have lots of biographies

(00:29:59):
written about them because they're like charles darwin or albert einstein or

(00:30:03):
something

(00:30:04):
And one,

(00:30:05):
there are many common characteristics,

(00:30:08):
but one of them honestly is that they just work really hard all the time.

(00:30:13):
And part of that I think is the flow state because,

(00:30:16):
you know,

(00:30:17):
imagine you get into this peak experience from engaging in the task and you just

(00:30:21):
really want that.

(00:30:23):
It's like a drug.

(00:30:24):
You keep going back to it.

(00:30:26):
And that's one reason people work so hard because it is intrinsically motivating.

(00:30:33):
So, uh,

(00:30:34):
This has brought a question to my mind.

(00:30:38):
So what role does flow state play in this creative process?

(00:30:46):
And it sort of seems counterintuitive to what you mentioned of,

(00:30:50):
you know,

(00:30:50):
you step away from a task and that this subconscious takeover doesn't,

(00:30:54):
to me,

(00:30:54):
at least from a smooth brain perspective,

(00:30:57):
doesn't make sense that you can be in the flow state of for one task.

(00:31:02):
while having it at the back of your mind and doing something else.

(00:31:08):
Yeah,

(00:31:08):
I understand the question,

(00:31:09):
and I think you're right about the seeming contradiction that you're in the flow

(00:31:14):
state while you're working hard on the task,

(00:31:17):
and then when you step away and you're in incubation and you're cooking,

(00:31:21):
you're obviously not in the flow state of working on your task.

(00:31:26):
Is that where you're coming from?

(00:31:27):
Yep.

(00:31:29):
Right.

(00:31:30):
So my answer there would be that you don't have success with the incubation stage

(00:31:36):
unless you have engaged in the hard work first.

(00:31:40):
And there's a ton of research about this.

(00:31:42):
So it seems that what's going on is that as you're engaged in the conscious hard

(00:31:46):
work stage of the creative process is that you're filling up your mind with

(00:31:51):
cognitive information.

(00:31:53):
New things are going in your mind, new combinations.

(00:31:56):
I mean, this is the nature of doing

(00:31:59):
knowledge work, creative work, and all that stuff is sitting there in your mind.

(00:32:03):
And then when you take time off,

(00:32:06):
the incubation is the opportunity for the new things to bounce together against

(00:32:11):
each other.

(00:32:12):
So yes,

(00:32:13):
I think you're right that you might not be in the flow state during incubation,

(00:32:18):
but you wouldn't have those insights in the incubation states if you didn't have

(00:32:23):
that hard work because the hard work is what puts new cognitive material into your

(00:32:28):
mind.

(00:32:29):
That's an interesting question.

(00:32:30):
I hadn't thought about it that way before.

(00:32:33):
This sort of actually reminds me of the story of how Newton discovered gravity, right?

(00:32:39):
Because it fits into the overview to the insight you've given where,

(00:32:46):
okay,

(00:32:47):
he's acquired knowledge,

(00:32:49):
he's put his time into things he wanted to look into.

(00:32:54):
And then one day just sitting under a tree during his incubation period and

(00:33:00):
Apple falls on his head and he gets this epiphany.

(00:33:04):
It fits him quite nicely.

(00:33:08):
Right.

(00:33:08):
Well, I'm sorry to have to say this, but that is not true.

(00:33:15):
The insight there,

(00:33:17):
and before I say what I understand to have happened from a biography of Newton that

(00:33:24):
I read recently,

(00:33:26):
but first is why do we hear this story about

(00:33:29):
relaxing under the tree and having the apple fall under it.

(00:33:34):
You know,

(00:33:34):
we have a lot of insight stories where people have the big idea,

(00:33:38):
the big idea that makes them famous or the big idea that gets them the Nobel Prize.

(00:33:43):
And I call it the insight myth because that's almost never the case,

(00:33:48):
that your creations come from a big idea or a big insight.

(00:33:53):
This is part of what leads people to create a block because they're waiting for

(00:33:58):
this big insight to come to them,

(00:34:00):
and it doesn't happen.

(00:34:02):
Well, it doesn't happen to the exceptional creators either.

(00:34:05):
The way creativity really works is that exceptional creators and everyone else

(00:34:11):
The nature of the creative process is that you start engaging in the process before

(00:34:15):
you have an idea and you have an inkling or an intuition or a sense that gets you

(00:34:22):
started,

(00:34:22):
but you have to start engaging in the work.

(00:34:25):
And then while you're engaging in the work, small ideas emerge along the way.

(00:34:30):
Rarely is it one big idea, but you have these small insights or these sparks of ideas.

(00:34:36):
And what makes creative people creative is that they're able to

(00:34:40):
put together many different sparks that they're having throughout an extended process.

(00:34:45):
And they're able to combine all these little ideas and these little sparks to come

(00:34:50):
up with something that at the end is bigger and more impactful.

(00:34:54):
It's almost never the case that there's a big insight.

(00:34:58):
In a book I wrote called Group Genius,

(00:35:00):
which is about the power of collaboration and creativity.

(00:35:04):
I actually did research onto these inside stories and almost any time you scratch

(00:35:09):
beneath the surface of the inside story and you find out that it actually isn't

(00:35:14):
true.

(00:35:15):
But I think we tell these stories to each other because it reinforces the myth or

(00:35:21):
the mythical narrative that we have that creators are exceptionally creative

(00:35:26):
because they're good at having these big ideas.

(00:35:29):
And then you tell yourself,

(00:35:31):
the reason why I'm not creative is because I don't have the big ideas.

(00:35:35):
And if I,

(00:35:35):
one day,

(00:35:36):
if I had a big idea,

(00:35:37):
then I would be creative,

(00:35:38):
but I'm not having the big ideas.

(00:35:40):
So therefore I'm not creative.

(00:35:41):
So that's a myth.

(00:35:42):
And I think it's a dangerous myth because it leads the rest of us,

(00:35:46):
the people who don't have big insights,

(00:35:48):
it leads us to think we're not creative,

(00:35:51):
but no,

(00:35:51):
even the famous creators don't have big insights.

(00:35:54):
So the myth I think is,

(00:35:56):
I don't know,

(00:35:57):
debilitating because it makes people think I'm not creative because I'm not having

(00:36:02):
the big ideas.

(00:36:03):
The way to be creative is to start engaging in the work, to start engaging in the process.

(00:36:08):
And then what happens is that ideas emerge from engaging in the process.

(00:36:13):
So,

(00:36:13):
yeah,

(00:36:13):
I guess that's like maybe my most important take home message for listeners is

(00:36:19):
don't wait for the idea to get started.

(00:36:22):
Just start doing the work and the ideas emerge from the work.

(00:36:27):
So I don't know if we need to talk about what actually happened with Isaac Newton.

(00:36:32):
But the message for you is the big inside myth, the big inside narrative is largely mythical.

(00:36:40):
I mean,

(00:36:41):
yes,

(00:36:41):
there are occasionally people who have the one big idea like Alexander Fleming and

(00:36:48):
penicillin.

(00:36:49):
I think that's a good example.

(00:36:51):
But most cases, the creative ideas emerge from engaging in hard work.

(00:36:59):
You're letting the truth get in the way of a good story over here.

(00:37:03):
But it's a fascinating story.

(00:37:07):
So imagine,

(00:37:08):
okay,

(00:37:09):
I'll just imagine that you are a scientist at this time in the universe,

(00:37:14):
and you are used to thinking that the Earth is the center of the solar system,

(00:37:20):
and you have a model.

(00:37:21):
I don't know, have you ever seen these sketches?

(00:37:24):
I've seen Nicholas Copernicus's model.

(00:37:26):
Yeah, Copernicus's, yeah, yep.

(00:37:28):
Right.

(00:37:30):
No, it predates Copernicus.

(00:37:34):
It was... Galileo's model?

(00:37:37):
No, Galileo's one.

(00:37:38):
Galileo's the one who showed the other way around.

(00:37:40):
Yeah, yeah.

(00:37:42):
It was the person Ptolemy, Ptolemaic.

(00:37:45):
Oh, yeah.

(00:37:47):
So the model.

(00:37:47):
So if you want to claim that the Earth is at the center and you want to map out the

(00:37:52):
motions of all the planets,

(00:37:54):
there's a way you can do it.

(00:37:56):
And it's very complicated.

(00:37:58):
You've got the planet, you've got these big circles and then you've got these little circles.

(00:38:02):
So it was a model that actually did predict the motions of the planets and the sun,

(00:38:08):
but it was just a very complicated model.

(00:38:10):
But if you believe the Earth is at the center and you have a scientific mindset,

(00:38:15):
then you you want to have an explanatory framework for your observations.

(00:38:20):
So yeah, people had it for hundreds of years.

(00:38:23):
It was just a huge mess and complicated.

(00:38:27):
And then,

(00:38:27):
you know,

(00:38:28):
gradually,

(00:38:28):
yeah,

(00:38:29):
Galileo and some other people convinced,

(00:38:32):
you know,

(00:38:33):
all the scientists that,

(00:38:34):
no,

(00:38:35):
the sun is at the center of the universe.

(00:38:38):
And it actually was a much better explanatory framework,

(00:38:40):
which is one reason everyone switches to it,

(00:38:43):
because now we don't need all these complicated circles and rings.

(00:38:47):
But then...

(00:38:48):
let's say you agree the sun is at the center of the solar system.

(00:38:52):
Then it raises a really big question, which is why don't the planets fly out into space?

(00:39:01):
Why, why are they going around in these circles?

(00:39:03):
Right.

(00:39:04):
You don't know why it's just happening.

(00:39:08):
And Newton was the one who calculated the formula for the planets,

(00:39:13):
but he didn't call it gravity.

(00:39:15):
He was like, I don't know why this is happening, but this is the formula.

(00:39:19):
You tell me why the planets are doing it.

(00:39:23):
And then he, but he was the one.

(00:39:25):
Now everyone for all of recorded time,

(00:39:30):
we know that apples fall to the earth and we were calling it gravity.

(00:39:34):
We had a word for it,

(00:39:35):
but no one thought the planets were staying close to the sun because of gravity.

(00:39:43):
They thought that was some totally different force.

(00:39:46):
Apples fall to the earth.

(00:39:47):
We've known that forever.

(00:39:48):
That's gravity.

(00:39:49):
Now we know for the first time in the 1500s or whatever,

(00:39:53):
now we know that the planets are going around the sun and there must be something

(00:39:58):
keeping them near the sun.

(00:39:59):
So Newton was the one who said it's the same force and he calculated the formula

(00:40:05):
and then he calculated the formula for the apple falling and the math was the same.

(00:40:10):
So it was a pretty convincing argument for the claim that planets are going around

(00:40:15):
the sun for the same reason that the apple is falling to the earth.

(00:40:19):
So,

(00:40:20):
I mean,

(00:40:20):
the story was more complicated,

(00:40:22):
but now that I've told that story,

(00:40:24):
right,

(00:40:25):
it's a more complicated story.

(00:40:27):
It's not really a story of a big insight.

(00:40:31):
It's a story of hard work and observation.

(00:40:34):
And there were a lot of people

(00:40:36):
In Europe, Newton said it's gravity.

(00:40:39):
And they said, you're crazy.

(00:40:41):
We don't believe in invisible forces.

(00:40:43):
They said, Newton, you're not being scientific.

(00:40:47):
You're hypothesizing this crazy invisible force that is so not scientific.

(00:40:51):
We don't believe you.

(00:40:55):
But then I guess they tested it over time and the formula held good.

(00:40:59):
That's why we still have it today.

(00:41:00):
The formula works out.

(00:41:01):
Yeah.

(00:41:01):
So it really was, I mean, imagine, I think about this too, and it's so amazing.

(00:41:07):
It makes me want to cry.

(00:41:08):
Imagine if you were the first person to calculate that formula and you're like,

(00:41:14):
holy shit,

(00:41:14):
it's the same formula.

(00:41:17):
I mean, imagine that.

(00:41:18):
That's pretty powerful.

(00:41:19):
Yeah.

(00:41:19):
And imagine no one believes you until someone else does it later and they believe them.

(00:41:25):
But this raises another thing because I'm going to pick up,

(00:41:28):
you mentioned one more book of yours.

(00:41:29):
I'm going to mention another one,

(00:41:31):
The Creative Classroom,

(00:41:33):
because you just spoke about the story of hard work,

(00:41:38):
also how this myth sort of reduces creativity.

(00:41:42):
the idea of creativity and that creativity might only be for the select special few

(00:41:48):
or these big epiphanies might be only for the big special few.

(00:41:53):
I'm guessing your book,

(00:41:54):
because I've only looked at the title and the little preamble,

(00:41:57):
is it,

(00:41:59):
I'm guessing this is how you sort of think about or sort of reconceptualize how we

(00:42:04):
teach creativity in the classroom or how we teach things to center creativity?

(00:42:09):
In yeah, in our systems, education systems and teaching processes.

(00:42:14):
Oh, I'm glad you asked about that.

(00:42:16):
Yeah, it's a book I wrote called The Creative Classroom and I wrote it for teachers.

(00:42:20):
And it's based on, I guess, my own observation, not really a big insight.

(00:42:26):
But when you look at creativity research and then I also do some research in a

(00:42:32):
field called the learning sciences,

(00:42:33):
which is also grounded in cognitive psychology.

(00:42:36):
So you think about what goes on in the mind when people are being creative and then

(00:42:40):
look at what goes on in the mind when people are learning in a profound and deep

(00:42:45):
way,

(00:42:45):
not in the way that most schools teach,

(00:42:48):
which is memorizing a bunch of facts.

(00:42:50):
That type of teaching and learning doesn't have anything to do with the creative process.

(00:42:55):
But students who are learning in a more deep and profound way and they're

(00:42:58):
developing a conceptual understanding of the material.

(00:43:01):
What goes on in their minds is very similar to what goes on when people are engaged

(00:43:06):
in creativity and having the small ideas through the process.

(00:43:10):
I mean,

(00:43:10):
again,

(00:43:11):
it's not a big insight view of creativity when you're sitting in a classroom and

(00:43:15):
you're learning in a deeper way.

(00:43:17):
You rarely have those big insights.

(00:43:19):
I mean, sometimes, but you always have the small ideas and go through the process.

(00:43:24):
And then an effective learning process,

(00:43:27):
you want someone to develop a more complex and rich understanding of the material.

(00:43:32):
And that involves a lot of different facts coming together in a conceptual framework.

(00:43:37):
So it's that characteristic of the creative process and the learning process.

(00:43:42):
So I guess you could call that an insight.

(00:43:44):
I'm not the first one that had this idea.

(00:43:47):
I mean,

(00:43:47):
Jean Piaget,

(00:43:48):
a famous French psychologist,

(00:43:50):
who hypothesized this 100 years ago,

(00:43:53):
that what goes on during effective learning is very similar to what goes on in the

(00:43:58):
creative process.

(00:43:59):
So it's not a new idea, but I found it a very compelling idea.

(00:44:02):
And as research in the cognitive psychology of learning has advanced in the past 30

(00:44:08):
years of research on creativity,

(00:44:10):
I think it's more and more convincing that effective learning is very much like

(00:44:17):
So that's the point of my book,

(00:44:18):
The Creative Classroom,

(00:44:19):
is to say to teachers,

(00:44:21):
if you're teaching people in a way that leads them to have deeper conceptual

(00:44:25):
understanding,

(00:44:26):
you are basically teaching them creativity.

(00:44:29):
So teaching for good teaching, for understanding, actually is teaching for creativity.

(00:44:36):
So you can do both.

(00:44:37):
You can teach for learning outcomes that are valued by society.

(00:44:41):
So you have science standards.

(00:44:43):
The kids have to learn science.

(00:44:45):
You can't teach creativity and not teach science.

(00:44:48):
But in my research, I would claim that

(00:44:51):
teaching for a deeper understanding of science,

(00:44:53):
you are basically teaching how to be creative in science.

(00:44:58):
And you can't just be creative in some abstract way,

(00:45:01):
at least I claim in this book,

(00:45:03):
some aspects of creativity are what we say domain specific.

(00:45:07):
So being creative in physics,

(00:45:09):
you need a particular type of deeper conceptual understanding of physics,

(00:45:12):
that's not going to make you more creative as a writer.

(00:45:16):
But, but to be creative as a physicist, you need to have this type of

(00:45:20):
Cognitive representation in your mind that only comes from a kind of creative

(00:45:25):
teaching and learning.

(00:45:28):
I quite like how you've made this point because usually I feel when we talk about

(00:45:33):
creativity,

(00:45:33):
we always usually talk about it in terms of like the arts,

(00:45:36):
the sort of music.

(00:45:38):
that sort of field or maybe technological innovation as well.

(00:45:42):
But you don't really hear it in terms of science necessarily.

(00:45:46):
And as someone who does research,

(00:45:49):
when you read a certain experiment where you're like,

(00:45:51):
wow,

(00:45:52):
they thought of how they did it like this.

(00:45:55):
I think of it as very creative, but generally speaking, you would not.

(00:45:59):
And sort of those sort of ideas of having that conceptualization

(00:46:05):
a strong conceptualization of a particular subject is really required to then take

(00:46:11):
that thing to the next level or design the next experiment to find the next great

(00:46:14):
thing.

(00:46:14):
Um, and yeah, no, it's a really well put point.

(00:46:24):
Right.

(00:46:24):
And yeah,

(00:46:25):
so it's interesting that you bring up art because my most recent book just a couple

(00:46:30):
of months ago,

(00:46:31):
which is about art and design,

(00:46:33):
And I think most of the scholars in my area think of me as an arts education or an

(00:46:41):
arts and design researcher,

(00:46:43):
because before that I studied jazz ensembles and improvisational theater.

(00:46:48):
So personally,

(00:46:48):
I have not studied scientific creativity or engineering creativity,

(00:46:53):
but I have colleagues who are studying those things and people who perform at the

(00:46:58):
highest levels in any discipline.

(00:47:01):
are engaging in creative thought and creative behavior and they are creating new

(00:47:06):
knowledge i mean that's what we say in the university we say that our job is to

(00:47:11):
create new knowledge that's what researchers do every researcher is fundamentally

(00:47:16):
creative i mean anyone who gets a patent you don't get a patent unless it's there

(00:47:21):
are three characteristics it has to be new it has to be useful and i love the third

(00:47:26):
one it has to be not obvious so

(00:47:30):
You can't get a patent for something that's obvious.

(00:47:32):
And I love this.

(00:47:33):
There's actually a whole patent law doctrine, the doctrine of non-obviousness.

(00:47:39):
So yeah, that should be another podcast interview.

(00:47:44):
Define the obvious.

(00:47:45):
Interesting.

(00:47:46):
Yeah.

(00:47:46):
That's right.

(00:47:47):
So yes, there are lots of lawyers who are paid lots of money who define obvious.

(00:47:53):
I mean, that's like defining what common sense is.

(00:47:57):
That's right.

(00:47:59):
Right, right.

(00:48:00):
So yeah,

(00:48:00):
if you want to challenge someone's patent,

(00:48:02):
that's a common legal technique,

(00:48:04):
as you say.

(00:48:05):
I'm going to get on it.

(00:48:09):
We need to look up patents that sound obvious now.

(00:48:13):
That's right.

(00:48:14):
Yeah, go for it.

(00:48:17):
I've got some free time for the next few weeks.

(00:48:21):
Yeah, I could do that.

(00:48:24):
One of my mates is just finishing law school.

(00:48:26):
Get him on board.

(00:48:26):
He's a lawyer.

(00:48:29):
Yeah, IP law.

(00:48:30):
Get him into IP law.

(00:48:32):
That's intellectual property, IP law.

(00:48:34):
Patent law, copyright law, and trademark.

(00:48:38):
No, but also, you mentioned the book which you just wrote.

(00:48:41):
Let's talk about it now for the last 15-odd minutes.

(00:48:44):
The title of the book is Learning to See.

(00:48:47):
So...

(00:48:53):
Could you tell us what you mean, why the title, what's the book about?

(00:48:57):
I mean, you touched on it a little bit, but yeah, if you could go in more detail.

(00:49:01):
It's a great story because as a creativity researcher,

(00:49:04):
I thought certainly artists and designers are going to be creative people.

(00:49:09):
I haven't been to art school and I have never been an artist myself.

(00:49:13):
So I really was an outsider and I had an opportunity for a sabbatical leave.

(00:49:17):
I went to the Savannah College of Art and Design, which is known by its initials.

(00:49:22):
It's called SCAD in Savannah, Georgia, beautiful city, which I highly recommend visiting.

(00:49:28):
And I had an opportunity to live there for six months.

(00:49:32):
And I interviewed the professional artists and designers who teach classes.

(00:49:37):
So if you don't know,

(00:49:40):
It turns out that to be a professor at an art or design school,

(00:49:44):
you have to be a practicing professional yourself.

(00:49:47):
And if it's a higher status art school or design school,

(00:49:50):
you're expected to be a better known and more successful artist or designer.

(00:49:55):
So I went to some of the top art and design schools in Los Angeles,

(00:49:59):
New York city,

(00:50:01):
and the people who teach at the school of visual arts in New York city,

(00:50:04):
they are full-time working creative professionals.

(00:50:07):
So if you're teaching painting at School of Visual Arts,

(00:50:09):
your paintings are in the Museum of Modern Art.

(00:50:12):
You have a dealer representing you.

(00:50:14):
You're selling your works.

(00:50:16):
So by going into these art and design schools,

(00:50:18):
I really had the opportunity to interview high-level professional creatives.

(00:50:24):
And I went to art and design disciplines.

(00:50:26):
I went to 20 different disciplines,

(00:50:28):
typeface design,

(00:50:29):
architecture,

(00:50:30):
even practical things like advertising,

(00:50:33):
and then the very much fine arts like painting and sculpture.

(00:50:36):
And what I wanted to get at was the shared underlying essence of the creative

(00:50:40):
process in the visual arts.

(00:50:42):
So that's one take-home message is that, yes, there is a shared essence of the creative process.

(00:50:48):
So whether you're doing architecture or advertising or painting,

(00:50:53):
you're doing very much the same things in your daily practice and in the way you

(00:50:57):
see the world.

(00:50:58):
And then now imagine that you have to teach these undergraduates and these master's

(00:51:04):
level students

(00:51:05):
Your challenge now is to teach them the same practices and mindsets that you have

(00:51:10):
mastered to be a creative professional.

(00:51:14):
And it's hard to do that.

(00:51:15):
I mean,

(00:51:15):
it's easy to teach someone how to hold a paintbrush and how to mix paints,

(00:51:19):
but that's not what you do in art school.

(00:51:22):
You have to learn something much more elusive and profound.

(00:51:26):
And many of the people I talked to said the hardest thing we have to teach these

(00:51:31):
students is how to see.

(00:51:33):
They don't know how to see in a way that's going to prepare them to be creative.

(00:51:39):
And as a matter of fact, everyone I interviewed hated the word creativity.

(00:51:43):
I went in and I introduced myself.

(00:51:44):
Hey, I'm a creativity researcher.

(00:51:46):
I've written books about creativity.

(00:51:48):
And that was kind of my that's what made me legitimate.

(00:51:51):
Right.

(00:51:52):
That's why you would talk to me.

(00:51:53):
These people are famous.

(00:51:55):
They're not going to talk to just anybody.

(00:51:57):
But I had access because I was a creativity researcher.

(00:52:00):
And that's how I'd introduce myself.

(00:52:02):
And the first thing they would say is, I don't teach creativity.

(00:52:06):
Don't say creativity.

(00:52:08):
And then they would say, I don't think I'm creative.

(00:52:10):
I'm like, what?

(00:52:11):
You're like famous painter person in New York City.

(00:52:15):
I'm not creative.

(00:52:16):
I don't teach creativity.

(00:52:18):
So I would say, well, what's going on?

(00:52:20):
What are you teaching?

(00:52:21):
And they all said, I'm teaching students how to see.

(00:52:25):
So that's where I got the name of the book.

(00:52:27):
I was going to call it learning how to create.

(00:52:30):
That was the working title of the book when I started.

(00:52:34):
And every artist I talked to said, no, don't call it.

(00:52:38):
Don't use creativity in the title.

(00:52:39):
Don't call it learning to create.

(00:52:41):
Uh,

(00:52:41):
but I was the one who came up with the title learning to see,

(00:52:44):
because that's what they told me.

(00:52:47):
They say, that's what we're teaching.

(00:52:48):
We're teaching people how to see.

(00:52:50):
Hmm.

(00:52:51):
That's a very good point.

(00:52:53):
Uh,

(00:52:54):
and I remember talking to,

(00:52:56):
I do not know if this professor is in your field,

(00:52:58):
but,

(00:52:59):
uh,

(00:52:59):
Vlad Glavineau from Dublin city,

(00:53:02):
Ireland.

(00:53:04):
Um,

(00:53:04):
So I was speaking to him,

(00:53:05):
I met him and spoke to him and he was talking about doing some work around Easter

(00:53:11):
egg paintings in Eastern Europe and how each Easter egg has like people who paint

(00:53:16):
them have different designs and intricate patterns.

(00:53:19):
And for someone on the outside,

(00:53:21):
he said,

(00:53:22):
this is all very creative,

(00:53:23):
but all of these artists always said,

(00:53:25):
no,

(00:53:25):
we don't think we're creative.

(00:53:26):
We're just doing what we learned or yeah, or what we feel.

(00:53:31):
And yeah,

(00:53:33):
There's a process to it and everything.

(00:53:34):
And I guess it's the same sort of idea of people.

(00:53:38):
We,

(00:53:38):
I guess these artists,

(00:53:39):
which you met talking about them not being creative,

(00:53:42):
but seeing things differently.

(00:53:45):
Oh, interesting.

(00:53:46):
Um, yeah, I understand.

(00:53:48):
I, but I think there are different phenomena.

(00:53:51):
So I'm familiar with this and I have a chapter about this in my book explaining

(00:53:54):
creativity,

(00:53:55):
and it's associated with a lot of traditional and culturally embedded art forms.

(00:54:00):
There's very much a desire.

(00:54:02):
to continue the tradition so that there's a certain set of practices that are very

(00:54:08):
much part of your cultural identity and and you want to be consistent with those.

(00:54:14):
So that's that's common in many traditional craft forms or art forms that there is

(00:54:20):
a continuity and continuity is valued.

(00:54:23):
Tradition and continuity are valued,

(00:54:25):
whereas in a lot of Western art forms,

(00:54:28):
what's valued is breaking with tradition.

(00:54:32):
And being the first person to do something completely new.

(00:54:35):
So,

(00:54:35):
yeah,

(00:54:35):
a painter in New York doesn't have a value for continuity with any other painter in

(00:54:40):
New York or with painting that happened in the 1950s.

(00:54:44):
We don't care about that.

(00:54:45):
We want to do something totally different.

(00:54:47):
So they are different cultural conceptions of creativity.

(00:54:50):
So that's what I think is going on with the eggs.

(00:54:53):
It's that type of cultural tradition where you have a value for tradition and continuity.

(00:54:59):
That's not why painters in New York say they're not being creative.

(00:55:04):
And why do they say that?

(00:55:05):
I think it's very subtle and it's hard to get it completely.

(00:55:10):
But I think what they're seeing is that they're seeing the mythical view of

(00:55:16):
creativity as being in a big flash of insight and then a big flash of insight that

(00:55:22):
then you execute.

(00:55:24):
So there's this mythical view, which every painter tells me is wrong.

(00:55:29):
The mythical view that you have a good idea for how to make a painting or you have

(00:55:33):
an idea for the image of what you're going to paint and then you go and paint it.

(00:55:39):
So there's very much a linear process that you have the idea and you paint it and

(00:55:43):
it's done and then you put it up on the wall or you sell it to someone.

(00:55:48):
So that's a view of painting that a lot of people have.

(00:55:51):
It's kind of like the apple falling on Newton's head.

(00:55:54):
It's that inside myth about creativity and

(00:55:58):
The painters and architects and designers I talk to,

(00:56:01):
they're just as critical of the insight myth as I am and other researchers because

(00:56:06):
they know from their own practical experience that this is not how successful

(00:56:10):
creativity works.

(00:56:12):
And what they tell me is when their students come in to art school,

(00:56:17):
the students are working from this linear insight view of creativity.

(00:56:22):
Even though they're very gifted and they're very talented,

(00:56:24):
you don't get into art school unless you submit a portfolio of work.

(00:56:28):
So you are technically quite gifted already.

(00:56:30):
But according to the professors I talked to,

(00:56:34):
the students still come in with this linear insight model.

(00:56:39):
But when what's going to lead to the most exceptional creativity,

(00:56:42):
the most surprising and new creativity,

(00:56:45):
what's going to lead to personal growth for you is discovering something that's new

(00:56:50):
for you,

(00:56:50):
discovering something that you didn't expect,

(00:56:54):
an accident or a surprise.

(00:56:56):
And how does that happen?

(00:56:57):
The way that happens is you start engaging in the process of working before you have an idea.

(00:57:04):
And then you engage in a dialogue with the materials and you let the materials lead you.

(00:57:09):
And then ideas emerge from working with materials.

(00:57:12):
So I think,

(00:57:15):
I think painters would say that that process is creative,

(00:57:20):
but I think the reason they reject the word is because of its association with this

(00:57:26):
notion of having a big insight.

(00:57:29):
So while you are,

(00:57:33):
explaining to us the contents of your book.

(00:57:36):
I was trying to make parallels to studies,

(00:57:40):
the highest level of education in the field of science,

(00:57:44):
where initially I thought,

(00:57:46):
oh,

(00:57:46):
no,

(00:57:46):
it's about a lot.

(00:57:48):
It just follows a linear model.

(00:57:49):
But the more I thought about it at the highest level,

(00:57:52):
when you are doing a thesis at a master's level or at a PhD level,

(00:57:57):
you are implicitly or explicitly thought to be acid.

(00:58:03):
encouraged to be creative and try and explore different avenues.

(00:58:07):
So initially, my question was going to be, how different is this?

(00:58:12):
How different is the process of these educators teaching creativity from this

(00:58:21):
domain of arts and design versus the creativity in the sphere of science?

(00:58:26):
But now my question is, how similar is it?

(00:58:31):
Is it very similar?

(00:58:32):
Is it near identical?

(00:58:33):
I would really like your thoughts on that.

(00:58:39):
I think it's very similar.

(00:58:41):
And I have to say,

(00:58:42):
I haven't studied the creative processes of working scientists,

(00:58:46):
but I've talked to many of them.

(00:58:48):
I think it happens at the graduate level.

(00:58:50):
So if you're in a PhD program and you're apprenticing with a research lab and your

(00:58:56):
goal is to become a researcher,

(00:58:58):
now,

(00:58:59):
What researchers do is they discover new things and they create new knowledge.

(00:59:04):
The professors I've talked to who are teaching at the highest level,

(00:59:08):
the PhD level,

(00:59:11):
they actually have told me that their students come in not knowing,

(00:59:16):
not knowing how to engage in this type of process.

(00:59:19):
And what they'll often say,

(00:59:21):
they don't always use the word seeing,

(00:59:24):
learning to see,

(00:59:24):
but they often use the word thinking.

(00:59:27):
they'll say that the students don't know how to think.

(00:59:30):
So I interviewed a chemist,

(00:59:32):
chemistry professor at University of Edinburgh,

(00:59:36):
and he teaches PhD students in chemistry.

(00:59:38):
And you don't get into that program unless you have very high scores on the chemistry exam.

(00:59:45):
So you know a lot of chemistry.

(00:59:46):
But he would say that they still don't know how to think like a chemist.

(00:59:52):
And of course,

(00:59:53):
I can't tell you how chemist thinks because I don't know anything about chemistry.

(00:59:57):
But the language is very similar to what artists and designers say.

(01:00:01):
The ones who talk to me,

(01:00:03):
in addition to saying we're teaching students how to see,

(01:00:05):
they also say we're teaching students how to think.

(01:00:10):
Now, and what does that mean?

(01:00:11):
So then I'm an education researcher and a creativity researcher.

(01:00:15):
So my first question is, well, how do you teach them how to think?

(01:00:19):
And that's why I have a whole book about it, because it's actually fairly complicated.

(01:00:24):
The first thing,

(01:00:25):
which maybe would seem kind of obvious,

(01:00:27):
you can't lecture at someone and tell them how to think.

(01:00:31):
So you think, well, why not?

(01:00:32):
Can't you just give them a lecture and say, to be a good chemist, here's how you think.

(01:00:36):
One, two, three, four.

(01:00:38):
To be a good painter, here's the process you're going to follow.

(01:00:40):
One, two, three, four.

(01:00:42):
And that's how you think.

(01:00:44):
And no, everybody says, no, that doesn't work.

(01:00:47):
Telling people has no value.

(01:00:49):
You can't teach someone how to see or how to think by giving them a lecture.

(01:00:54):
And you can't teach them how to do it by showing them creative works by other people.

(01:00:59):
So, yeah, so you...

(01:01:00):
you go to a museum and you look at lots of paintings by really talented painters

(01:01:05):
that doesn't teach you how to see,

(01:01:06):
and it doesn't teach you how to think.

(01:01:08):
So what will,

(01:01:10):
what will is engaging in the process,

(01:01:13):
but under the guidance of a very experienced creator and,

(01:01:19):
and the process that these exceptional artists and designers,

(01:01:22):
the process that they use with the students that guide them through a studio

(01:01:26):
process,

(01:01:27):
It's actually quite complicated and advanced, and it's highly articulated.

(01:01:31):
And that's, again, why I have a whole book about it, because it's very sophisticated.

(01:01:37):
And they've gotten very good at doing it.

(01:01:39):
I only interviewed professors who had almost 20 years of experience teaching in art and design.

(01:01:45):
I think something very similar happens in the hard sciences, science and engineering.

(01:01:50):
And it's a type of pedagogy that's usually called project-based learning.

(01:01:56):
And again, there are a lot of learning scientists who study this in science and engineering.

(01:02:01):
And we know a lot about the best way to structure these kinds of projects that you

(01:02:07):
want students to engage in.

(01:02:10):
They engage in the project in such a way that they do learn how to think,

(01:02:14):
like a physicist or like a chemist.

(01:02:16):
The problem is that so many universities at the undergraduate level don't use

(01:02:21):
project-based learning.

(01:02:23):
They lecture.

(01:02:24):
You'll sit in lectures for four years as an undergraduate and then you take the

(01:02:28):
test at the end of the semester and you get A's on the test and then you take the

(01:02:32):
entrance exam for graduate school and you get A's on that.

(01:02:36):
But at no point have you ever engaged in the practice of chemistry.

(01:02:41):
So you're not going to learn how to think like a chemist because

(01:02:44):
What makes you a chemist isn't that you're good at memorizing stuff.

(01:02:48):
That just makes you do well in the chemistry exam.

(01:02:50):
What makes you a good chemist is learning how to engage in the practice of chemistry research.

(01:02:57):
And that's what these professors are talking about when they say think like a chemist.

(01:03:02):
They mean think like a chemistry researcher,

(01:03:05):
someone who actually discovers new things in chemistry.

(01:03:08):
And that is a fundamentally creative process.

(01:03:10):
Yeah.

(01:03:15):
A couple more questions before we sort of run out of time.

(01:03:18):
One is, where does this come in?

(01:03:22):
So you spoke about thinking,

(01:03:24):
sorry,

(01:03:25):
teaching or learning how to see,

(01:03:27):
but if a professor is teaching you how to see,

(01:03:30):
do you end up seeing what they see as opposed to learning how to see another way,

(01:03:36):
if you know what I mean?

(01:03:37):
And I'm trying to juxtapose it to the traditional idea of

(01:03:41):
keeping a tradition and being creative within it and therefore being very

(01:03:45):
traditional versus like you said,

(01:03:48):
Western ideas of art where you're encouraged to break free or think of something

(01:03:53):
completely outside the box of someone who's been teaching you their way of seeing,

(01:04:00):
how are you breaking outside of that box?

(01:04:05):
Yeah, I think I would,

(01:04:08):
say it might sound maybe a little bit imposing or controlling to say i'm teaching

(01:04:13):
students how to see and think like i do which is not exactly what's going on

(01:04:19):
although maybe a little bit but what i think is going on is that we're trying to

(01:04:25):
help students fully realize their own potential creativity we're trying to guide

(01:04:30):
them through a process of personal growth because

(01:04:34):
What happens with many of these students is that they don't yet know how to see their own work.

(01:04:40):
They don't yet know how to see themselves clearly.

(01:04:43):
They don't understand what they're doing and what they're trying to do and what

(01:04:47):
what they're doing means.

(01:04:49):
So really, you're helping someone understand themselves.

(01:04:52):
and when you're teaching someone how to see.

(01:04:55):
And that's a very powerful thing.

(01:04:57):
And it's not someone imposing a vision on you.

(01:05:01):
It's someone helping you to become more like yourself.

(01:05:04):
So that's a little bit what I find when I say learning to see and learning to think.

(01:05:10):
It really is a process of personal growth and personal transformation,

(01:05:15):
certainly in art and design.

(01:05:16):
I don't know if that's the case with chemistry and computer software development or you

(01:05:22):
understanding yourself better when you become a better software developer.

(01:05:26):
Probably not.

(01:05:27):
Maybe that's unique to art and design.

(01:05:31):
But what's shared is the nature of the process,

(01:05:36):
the process of working,

(01:05:38):
which goes all the way back to the beginning of our interview and

(01:05:41):
what's interested me about creativity from the beginning,

(01:05:45):
which is the cognitive nature of the creative process.

(01:05:48):
So even though,

(01:05:49):
I guess I'm coming back now,

(01:05:50):
even though the artists and designers talked to said,

(01:05:53):
we're not teaching creativity,

(01:05:55):
what I see is that they are teaching students to engage in a type of creative

(01:05:59):
process that is very consistent with all of the research we have about how

(01:06:05):
exceptional creators make things.

(01:06:09):
I think that's a beautiful full circle to finish on.

(01:06:13):
Amir, do you have any final thoughts or questions?

(01:06:16):
I had a lot of questions, but I think that's a good... As you said, that's a good...

(01:06:22):
A good full circle position to stop on, you know.

(01:06:27):
So I'll leave it to you for the last bit.

(01:06:31):
Is there anything which we haven't touched on which you'd like to?

(01:06:34):
Otherwise,

(01:06:34):
I'll ask you to give your final thoughts on the book and a final message for our

(01:06:39):
listeners.

(01:06:41):
Oh, thank you so much.

(01:06:42):
Creativity research is so rich and there's so much to say.

(01:06:46):
And I think we've covered a lot of ground.

(01:06:48):
Thank you.

(01:06:49):
Yeah, we covered a lot of things.

(01:06:50):
Like we touched on at least five different books and not in any great detail.

(01:06:54):
So maybe we need to have you back on to talk about a particular book in particular detail.

(01:07:00):
But thank you so much for coming on.

(01:07:02):
Thank you.

(01:07:06):
And thank you, everybody, as always, for listening.

(01:07:08):
If you enjoyed, please do like, subscribe, share this episode, all those things.

(01:07:13):
Really appreciate it.

(01:07:14):
And yeah, until next time, take care.

(01:07:17):
Goodbye.