Richard Hamming: "I often compare creativity with sex"

“I'd rather be the one who experienced it all myself many times, I will try to explain this somehow, than you will listen to people who have never done anything significant and creative in their lives.”

Hi, Habr.
Remember the awesome article "You and your work" (+219, 1800 bookmarks, 328k reads)?

So Hamming has a whole book written based on his speeches. Let's translate it, because the man is talking.
')
This book is not about IT, this is a book about the style of thinking of incredibly cool people.

Who wants to help with the translation - write in a personal or mail magisterludi2016@yandex.ru

Chapter 25. Creativity

(for the translation, thanks to Yana Schekotova)

Creativity, originality, innovation, and other such words are perceived as something “good,” and we often confuse them. Indeed, it is rather difficult to define them. Of course, there is no special need to have three words with the same meaning, so you need to try to somehow distinguish them based on clearly defined definitions. The importance of definitions has been emphasized before, and we will use the opportunity to demonstrate an approach to the formulation of definitions, but without the expectation that we will cope with the task perfectly or even well.

It should be noted that in primitive communities, creativity, originality and innovation are not held in high esteem. On the contrary, do as your ancestors did - that is their motto. Today, many large organizations act on the same principle: the older generation is confident in their knowledge of the future and disapproves of the younger members of the “tribe” when they deviate from the given scenario.

A long time ago, a friend of mine who was well versed in computer technology, once noticed that he would like to do something original on a computer, something that no one else had done. I immediately replied: “Take a random ten-digit number in the decimal number system and multiply it by another random ten-digit number. And almost certainly no one has ever done this. ” Such products, according to rough estimates, will be about (81/2) × 10 ¹⁸ , and given the fact that there are about 3 × 10 ¹⁶ nanoseconds in a year, we can estimate the probability that such a work will be unique. Naturally, he did not like such a sentence, but he would have gladly begun to calculate the largest known prime number up to this day!

So what is the difference? Why does one number receive the honor of being included in a series of record values, albeit temporarily, and not another? First of all, the record requires either a huge effort to bring things to a conclusion, or a surprising set of circumstances, and the multiplication of random numbers does not apply to either one, at least in the opinion of the average person. Obviously, the criterion “no one has ever done this before” is hardly enough for something to suddenly become important or original. “Originality” seems more than just what no one has done before.

The world of art, especially painting, for more than half a century experienced great difficulties in trying to distinguish between creativity and originality. Contemporary artists and museum directors offer to the public what exactly can be called new and non-standard, but that many potential buyers often do not like. In the eyes of many people, the importance of shocking in various forms of art has already weakened its position, and the average person no longer responds to the current "modern art". In the end, I could have painted a picture, and it would have been considered new and non-standard, but I could call it “creative art” (whatever that means) I could only with great stretch.

Of course, we would like the word “creative” to include the concept of value, but value for whom? A new theorem in any of the branches of mathematics may be an act of creativity, but it may turn out that only a small number of people will be able to appreciate it. That's why you should be very careful not to insist that your work be recognized everywhere.

Also, I will not deny the fact that many of today's works of art, which are rated quite high, were not considered as such during the artist's life. And it is disheartening. But for some perverse logic, this allows many people to believe that if now their work does not receive proper recognition, it means that they are definitely among the excellent artists!

I hope all this has clarified the situation with creativity, innovation and originality. At the same time, I cannot answer the question of what the word “creativity” actually means, to which we attach so much importance in our society. In women's fashion, it seems to mean “unusual,” but not “too unusual.”

And now we will try to use our inner feelings about what is an act of creativity and how to define it. In 1838, Thomas Dick published a book where he clearly described such a phenomenon, which is now called "continental drift". And in the early 1900s, Wegner also published a book dedicated to this topic, but in official circles they recognized continental drift only after the Second World War. Thus, art is not the only area where creativity cannot be recognized at the moment of its manifestation; science has problems with it too.

You can still recall Mendel (1822 - 1884) and his experiments with peas, the results of which did not pay attention, until in 1990 three people simultaneously rediscovered genetics, and only then were records of Mendel found! Now in genetics, attitudes toward Mendel, by and large, are changing, and he has received universal recognition, but, as regards continental drift, then works written after the Second World War are often more valuable.

During the discussion of creativity, someone remarked that if you select some parts of the three well-developed areas and simply combine them, it would have been an excellent creative work. The degree of creativity does not depend on the difficulty of acting as such, although it does not seem so to subsequent generations. Once I applied the well-known least squares method in the problem of magnetism. Another person, in collaboration with me, painted everything in detail, designed the work and sent it to me for signature (for further publication). I turned to one of my friend, a scrupulous physicist, and said that I could not publish it, because it uses only the method of least squares. And he told me about his work on solid state physics, which was republished a great number of times, and where he used the standard theory of chains to solve the problem. And since the work awaiting my signature was new in my field, I have to sign it and publish it.

It seems that creativity, among other things, is capable, with a certain degree of “usefulness,” of combining things that previously seemed completely unrelated, and this may be the original psychological distance between those things that are most important. Was it difficult for me to abandon L2 and use L1 when determining the distance between two strings of bits? The only thing that can be said is that no one has obviously done such a thing before, and this action would significantly advance the region (at the same time, C. Shannon in his works on information theory mentioned something very close to the idea L1).

It turns out that at the time of creative activity, creativity is activated by the “way of thinking”. Can we somehow increase the level of creativity? To do this, there are training courses, books, as well as "brainstorming sessions." Consider first the “brainstorming sessions” that are very popular at one time. But it turned out that they are not particularly useful if they are carried out in a formal setting, when everything is carefully planned. But we all once “exchanged ideas” with a friend or a couple of friends (mostly in a small group). This process generates insight, creativity, or whatever you want to call it, and then a breakthrough is made. As for other approaches to the development of creativity, again, there is no evidence that one of these approaches is so successful that it gave science, or any other field, a huge number of outstanding personalities.

Since I have devoted a whole chapter to this topic, it should be obvious that I am inclined to believe that with some probability for an individual person, creativity can be increased. And indeed, in the course of the course this topic zipped in many places, although I often used the word “style”. I believe that in the future there will be an even greater need for new, creative ideas than it was in the past, therefore, I must do everything possible to increase the likelihood that you will form your own effective style and there will be “great ideas ".

But besides holding discussions and raising your awareness, as well as determining what we think we know, I have no real suggestions (I can pick up specific words) on how to magically make you more creative in your work. And such a topic can not be ignored, it is too important, even if I myself do not fully understand the act of creativity. I'd rather be the one who experienced it all myself many times, I will try to explain this somehow, than you will listen to people who have never done anything significant and creative in their lives.

I often compare creativity with sex: a young man can read all the available books on a topic, but without experience he has little chance of understanding what sex is. But, even with the necessary experience, he still may not understand what is happening at all! Therefore, we will continue our topic, even if we do not have complete confidence that we understand what we are talking about.

Take a retrospective analysis of the history and reports on outstanding work, and see that in all this reflects a certain pattern of behavior for the manifestation of creativity, and it can be described as follows.

First there is some vague idea of ​​the problem .

Then comes a longer or shorter period to clarify various details . At this stage you should not rush too much, because chances are that you will present the problem in a standard form and find only a standard solution. Moreover, this stage requires your emotional involvement, your intention to find a solution, because without this, you will most likely not find a truly fundamental, original solution.

A long period of maturation of the idea and careful reflection of the problem can lead to its solution, or to a temporary rejection of the search for a solution, which is a common feature of many outstanding creative works.

Obsessed pursuit of the answer often does not work.

Temporary abandonment of an idea is sometimes an important component on the way of the subconscious to finding a new approach.

Then comes the moment of "insight", creativity, well, or whatever you want to call it, and you see the solution. Of course, it often happens that you are mistaken, and a more thorough study of the problem shows that the decision is wrong, but you can leave it if you make some corrections. It is even possible that the problem will need to be reformulated so that it approaches the solution! This has already happened! Here most often you need to go to the initial stage of describing the essence of the problem, i.e. to think about it.

A bad start and wrong decisions often help make your next approach to a problem more polished. Now you know how not to do it! The number of solutions you have reduced, and you better understand what will not work and why.

In moments of difficulty, I often ask myself the question: “If I had a solution, what would it be?”

This allows you to hone the methods of finding a solution, and helps to look at the problem from a different angle, on the other hand, which you subconsciously ignored, but now you see that it should not be excluded.

What should the solution include?

Are there basic laws and principles to apply?

Is there any symmetry here?

How does my every guess fit into the solution system, and is each of them really necessary?

Have you considered all the important factors?

Sometimes a solution is born out of all this. As far as everyone understands this process, it originates from the subconscious. Hop, and it is there! Often, you need to work on the idea a lot, do a logical cleaning, formulate it so that others understand it, present it to others, which may require consideration of the problem and your solution from different angles, and not just based on your individual vision the decision. It is this kind of revision of your system of conclusions that ultimately brings clarity!

If the decision really comes from the depths of the subconscious, what can be done so that this process can be controlled?

My method, which is presented above, is to saturate my subconscious with a problem.

Try not to think hard about anything for several hours, days, or even weeks, and thus the subconscious mind, which, as far as we know, depends heavily on the life experience used to generate dreams and everything else, is left alone with our task.

We just protect it from everything else as far as possible! Therefore, one day the decision will overtake us, either when we wake up, or it will simply arise in our head without any preparation on our part, or, as soon as we again turn to the problem, this is the solution!

Louis Pasteur said: "Luck favors only the prepared mind." You prepare your mind for success by “constantly thinking about it” (Newton), and behold, from time to time you are lucky.

Perhaps the most important tool in creativity is the use of analogies.

Something seems to us similar to what we have encountered in the past. Extensive horizons, covering various areas of knowledge, can greatly help, provided that your knowledge is kept in your head and, if necessary, they will be available, and not so that you find them only when you are directly led to them.

This flexible access to parts of knowledge lies in the fact that you look at knowledge when you receive it, from different angles, going through all possible sides of a new idea before being stored in your memory. Here you need to make an effort not to go the easy way, with the immediate benefits of "memorizing material", and prepare your mind for the future .

It is for this reason that in many chapters I forced you to descend to the level of fundamental knowledge of a particular field, since this means that you have to research things in different ways before deciding what is essential and what is not. In fact, for some, this happens in one order, and for others - in the reverse. The important part depends on the person and his mentality. Obviously, you will need a lot of “hooks” for knowledge if you want to use them in new situations.

We argue, basically, by analogies. But surprisingly, a good analogy does not have to be close, it only needs to bear a hint of what to do next.

Son Kekule about snakes biting his tail, led him to think about the ring structure of carbon compounds!

In the hands of experts, many bad analogies have proven to be helpful. This means that the analogy you use is partial, and you should be able to abandon it when the demands on it begin to increase. Analogies are rarely so perfect that for every detail of one situation there is a clear correspondence in another situation. We are confronted with analogies when something reminds us of something else. Or is it all about our mental “hooks”?

After many years of working with John Tukey, I often found myself in a situation where he recalled the necessary information, but I did not, until he clearly indicated this fact to me. Of course, there were far more “hooks” in his information extraction system than in mine. At least they were more useful than mine! How can this be?

Perhaps, because for him to think over new information again and again was a usual thing, which led to an increase in the number of his “hooks”, which were significantly better than mine.

Therefore, eager to be like him, I began to reflect on new ideas, trying to create my own “hooks” to access important information, so that later, in the process of searching for ideas, I would have more chances to find an analogy.

I can only advise you to do the same thing that I do: when you learn something new, think about other applications of this knowledge that you have not previously encountered, but which could meet in the future.

Easy to say, but hard to do! But what else can I tell you about how to organize your mind so that at the right time useful knowledge will quickly pop up in your head?

Today many books are written about creativity. We often refer to this topic, and even hold conferences devoted to this issue, and we still know very little about it!

They talk a lot about how important it is to be in the right environment, as if this is the most important thing! I have seen the manifestation of creativity even in the most difficult circumstances. Moreover, I admit, and later we will discuss in more detail that what is considered ideal conditions for creativity is not what is really needed, but on the contrary, we need a permanent disruption of the normal course of things and reality , which ultimately is very strong. helps.

Previously, I deliberately controlled my behavior, promising a result to a specific date, and then, like a cornered beast, at the very last minute forced myself to think of something! I was surprised at how often this simple trick worked. Of course, it all depends on your pride and confidence. . . , , , : — , — !

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Who wants to help with the translation - write in a personal or mail magisterludi2016@yandex.ru