During our conversation with Tina Seelig about creativity,
she made a statement that I thought was highly interesting:
"Rules are created for the rule makers."
Now, Tina said this
with a specific idea in mind. She was trying to say that rules are generally
created not for the benefit of the people, but for the convenience of those who
make them. For example, a typical classroom setting, with the systematic rows
of tables and chairs, may not be the most conducive learning environment, but
it allows the teacher to easily keep an eye on everyone. However, I think that
this statement is also a profound comment about the way we construct knowledge.
It has often been remarked that the hallmark of human
intelligence is our ability to recognize patterns. We pride ourselves in our
ability to connect ideas, even if they are totally disparate. In fact, Tina
Seelig thinks that the defining characteristic of creativity is the linking of
different concepts. That is, of course, a compelling argument. Yet, in some
sense, the patterns we find are pretty similar to the rules the rule makers
create. For patterns are simplifying in nature, and are thus generalizations.
We find some form of order out of the chaotic mess, and then we impose this
form of order as an idea for us to focus on. Like rules then, these patterns
are found to help us, the pattern makers, understand what is going on. Like
rules too, these patterns may not be the best way to describe things, for they
do not represent the entire truth, just a small part of it. But patterns are
tempting and comforting, for like rules, they make things simple. However, if
we are to blindly follow the patterns we find, we will not be able to capture
reality in its entirety, because it will be as if we have placed a blanket over
the little mounds and crevice on the face of reality to create the facade of a
homogenous surface. For example, the Newtonian Laws of physics seem to work
perfectly in our everyday life. A ball rolling on a moving train will seem to
move faster than one rolling on the ground. Yet, light does not obey these
rules; it moves at the same speed in all inertial frame. We would not have
discovered Special Relativity had we stuck to our old concepts of relative
motion, a pattern that is fulfilled by almost all other daily objects we see.
Yet, this does not mean that pattern recognition is
unimportant, or even bad. It is our ability to simplify our world, to focus on
the common thread that runs through things and discard the inessentials that
allowed us to progress to where we are today. For example, Galileo made the key
insight that he did not need to consider the shape, texture, or orientation of
objects to determine how things move; he could treat them as point particles.
This huge simplification allowed Galileo to create the kinematics laws,
equations that we still use today. It would be bad, however, if we stick to the
patterns we find. What I suggest, therefore, is that finding exceptions is as
much a creative process as finding patterns. It prevents us from getting
stifled by the patterns we have found so far, and it allows us to find better,
more nuanced patterns that will further our understanding. The creation of
human knowledge is therefore an incremental process, of creating a cage of
patterns around ourselves so that we can get our bearings, and then destroying
it to create a larger cage. And acts of creativity occur during the events of
creation and destruction.
In some way, this seems paradoxical, for creativity seems to
be destroying itself. In other ways, this makes perfect sense, for in the eyes
of evolution, creation and destruction are synonymous.