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The Source and Seat of Creativity in Human Beings: A Position Paper

Sumit Ghosh

Department of Computer ScienceThe University of Texas, Tyler, Texas [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract

All cultures and nations have long recognizedthat creativity is the ultimate cause of thequantum leaps in virtually every discipline ofknowledge and the quiet and invisible force

behind all progress of human civilization.Leading thinkers across all disciplines haveadvocated the importance of creativity andconsistently ranked it well beyondintelligence. In the recent literature, creativityhas been clarified as a phenomenon thatcategorically differs from intelligence in thatthe ideas that result from it may not bededuced by applying current reasoningtechniques on the state-of-the-art knowledge.Thus, creativity transcends intelligence.Throughout history, close examination

reveals that deep sadness and profound griefhave always been associated with everycreative activity and every individual engagedin a creative invention or discovery. The livesof sage Valmiki, Socrates, Plato,Archimedes, Genghiz Khan, Leonardo DaVinci, Galileo, John Harrison, Alfred Nobel,and Jagadish Bose, to name a few, offerundeniable testimony. This paper pioneersthe analytical examination of a key question,namely, is the apparent association betweencreativity and sadness mere coincidence or

does there exist a scientific reasoning, arisingfrom a deep and fundamental connectionbetween the two concepts? The potentialbenefits of this exercise, if successful, are

two-fold. First, it encapsulates a systematicattempt to resolve a deep intellectualcuriosity that has intrigued society formillennia. Second, as a practical benefit, acareful understanding of the theory of theunderlying processes may help us analyzehow best to nurture the course of any givencreative activity and limit the grief or sadnessso it does not spin out of control andconsume the individual, denying civilization,today and for the future, the enormousbenefits that may follow from the inventions

and discoveries. It is an undeniable fact thatsadness may affect every individual, at onetime or another and this paper does not focuson assessing whether sadness is a preludeto a creative invention or discovery. Instead,its objective is to examine whether creativity,by nature, triggers a counter-posing forcethat leads to profound grief; or whethercreativity and sadness are so intimatelyintertwined in their seat in human beings thatevoking creativity automatically triggersintense grief.

1. Introduction

In a stark irony, history is littered with storiesof great inventions and discoveries that haveprofoundly shaped civilizations while theirsources the highly creative geniuses, havebeen misunderstood and ignored at best and

persecuted and murdered at the worst.Almost without exception, grief appears tohave followed every act of creativity. SageValmiki, the founding poet of the presentcreation, uttered the first rhyme in the form ofa curse directed at a hunter, driven byprofound grief upon witnessing the cruel

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hunter killing a pair of mating birds. Socrates,the first to introduce the now well-knownSocratic style of learning in ancient Greece,was sentenced to death by drinking hemlockfor instructing the younger generation toquestion every assumption in society in a

logical manner. The famed inventor,Archimedes, whose invention of a milemarker cart or the odometer machine pavedthe way for the Roman Empire to survive forover a thousand years, was ironically killedby a Roman soldier when he had ignored thesoldiers orders while deeply engrossed overa geometrical problem. For proposing thesun-centric theory of the planetary system, indirect opposition to the Christian Church'sbelief, Copernicus was hanged to death.Genghiz Khan, the most successful military

strategist in the last millennium, created aprofessional army, where promotion wasbased on merit, not nepotism, and conceiveda brilliant military maneuver, not fullyunderstood even to this day, only aftersuffering repeated humiliating defeats at thehands of the rival Tartars and enduring theexceptionally cruel deaths of his loyal men atthe hands of his once closest friend turnedenemy.

Leonardo Da Vinci's inventions were so

exceptionally creative that few, if any, of hiscontemporaries fully understood them. Hewas largely ignored, passed over forcommissions at times, and ridiculed for manyhis ideas. The consequence was profoundloss of opportunities for civilization. When thegrief became unbearable, Leonardo foldedup all of his sketches, drawings, and writingsand hid them away. Upon discovery fivehundred years later, we lament and wonderwhat incredible advances society would havewitnessed today had his designs of the

underwater breathing apparatus, tank, hanggliders, helicopters, and many others beenpursued during his lifetime. For his support ofCopernicus theory, Galileo was declared athreat to society at age 70 and imprisoned athome. It is ironic that without Galileos

founding work on mechanics and motion,there would be no physics today, noautomobiles, electricity, nor space program,and none of the modern scientific advances.John Harrison believed that time is the key tocomputing longitude and enabling navigation

in high seas and set out to build a precisionmarine chronometer. The contemporarybelief among astronomers andmathematicians including Isaac Newton wasthat the astronomical bodies including themoon, sun, and stars held the key tonavigation. They were so self-righteous,arrogant, closed-minded, and contemptuousof a humble, uneducated village clock makerthat they publicly ridiculed Harrisons thinkingand harassed him well into his 70s. Harrisonhad rightly set us along the path to inertial

navigation which, ironically, the astronomers'and mathematicians intellect failed to grasp.In his quest for a safe and practically usableexplosive, Alfred Nobel spent his entire lifepursuing the invention of dynamite, beginningwith the raw ingredient, TNT. Misunderstoodand ridiculed, the newspapers printed hisobituary when his brother died from anaccidental explosion. Jagadish Bose, thediscoverer of wireless radio, was harassedand prevented from filing a patent by theruling British bigots, leading Marconi to

plagiarize and falsely claim wireless radio ashis own invention.

The impact of intense grief on creativegeniuses is that, despite unusual resiliencestemming from their strong belief inthemselves, they eventually grow tired anddisheartened and abandon their quest forinnovative ideas. It is often said that geniusesget their ideas in a flash, but it takes alifetime to convince others. The result isincalculable loss for civilization. Sadly, we will

never know what profound discoveries wouldhave followed from Archimedes, Leonardo,Galileo, and Bose. Perhaps, there have beenmany more Da Vincis in history whosenotebooks and sketches are yet waiting to bediscovered.




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2. Are Creativity and Sadness Connected?

To resolve the question in an analyticmanner, this paper proposes two theories,each from a unique perspective. The firsttheory, termed CRIL, builds on known

scientific facts about the organization of thehuman brain, namely, the two lobes and thecorpus collosum that interconnects them. Thesecond theory, labeled MHAUC, ismetaphysical and focuses on the nature ofthe material plane of human existence andthe evolutionary path of individual beingstoward the universal consciousness.

As per the physiological and medicalliterature, it is the tentative findings ofscientists that the human brain is organized

into left and right cerebral hemispheres,which functionally oppose one another. Theleft brain has been described as logical,scientific, methodical, and clearly grounded inthe physical reality and societal norms andstandards. In contrast, the right brain isviewed as the source of arts, intuition, holisticthinking, imagination, creativity, andinspiration, uninhibited by societal norms andreality. The two hemispheres are connectedby a corpus colossum that provides acommunication link to balance out the

activities of the two brain hemispheres. In themajority of the population, the left brainexercises significantly greater control andseverely tempers the right brains outputbefore generating the whole individuals finaldecision. As a result, majority activitiesconform to reality and societal norms.However, in a small percentage ofindividuals, labeled asocial, eccentric, andautistic over the millennia, the right brain isuncontrollably dominant and a few of theseindividuals had exhibited behaviors of

unprecedented artistic creativity such asbeing able to visualize music, literature,mathematical equations, etc. In the particularcase of Kim Peek [14], a savant and theinspiration behind the movie, Rainman,neuro-radiologists have discovered agenesisof the corpus collosum, i.e. a total absence ofthe corpus collosum.

The first theory, CRIL, proposed in thispaper, submits that the right brain aloneconstitutes the storehouse of all knowledge,yet unknown. Furthermore, all knownknowledge and reasoning processes can betraced to the right brain as the ultimate origin.

Evidence abounds in plenty in Nature. As anexample, consider the fact that dolphins areable to undulate their skin to cancel out theeddies that arise while they are swimming,thereby achieving speeds in excess of 30MPH that they can maintain continuously forhours. Even to this day, we are unable tosolve the corresponding boundary layerequation, implying that while the dolphinsright brain has successfully invented thealgorithm and implemented it in the realworld, it continues to elude the human left

brain. As a second example, biologists havereported that a specific fish in the Amazonrain forest has mastered the art of spitting afine jet of water toward a tree hanging overthe lake, to knock off a beetle-prey walkingon a branch or leaf and cause it to drop ontothe lake. The trajectory of the water jet, often6-15 feet long, must precisely take intoaccount the curvature of the stream due togravity as well as the bending distortion in thefishes vision stemming from differentialrefractive indices of light in air and water. The

underlying calculation would involve solving acomplex differential equation subject toboundary conditions, which would bechallenging even to an accomplishedmathematician. When a creative geniusbrings forth a piece of new knowledge fromthe right brain and successfully explains it inthe light of the societys current intelligence,i.e., all contemporary knowledge andreasoning, the new knowledge is slowlyaccepted and embraced by the intelligence insociety and it finds a home in the left brain.

Eventually, it is integrated into the socialfabric and becomes a part of the intelligence.However, at the very moment of birth of thenew idea, the intelligence resident in the leftbrain is driven by its own nature to violentlyoppose the new thought. As a logicalextension, society, representing apersonification of the left brain, is driven byits very nature to oppose and reject the




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creative individual, thereby causing grief. Thesadness takes on a profound nature whenthe creative genius, driven by an internaldesire to expand the reaches of knowledgefor societal benefit and having alreadyexpended a great amount of energy to

overcome the inherent resistance of his orher own left brain, utterly fails to comprehendthe reason for the opposition.

The second theory, MHAUC, builds on themetaphysical notions of individual anduniversal consciousness and the journey ofthe individual consciousness, located withinthe corresponding human being, toward theuniversal consciousness. Our plane ofexistence being physical or material, humanbeings are subject to two fundamental

limitations. First, the transport of anyinformation or control signal is subject tolatency, and the consequent delay maycause the underlying knowledge to be viewedas imprecise and out-of-date. Second, ourgross material nature prevents us fromacquiring perfect knowledge of the principleof causality, including causes, effects, andtheir relationships, many of which may be toosubtle to be comprehended by gross matter.In essence, the material plane is confoundedwith ignorance and uncertainties. In contrast,

the universal consciousness lies in anabstract dimension and is located wellbeyond the material world, in which timedoes not exist. Thus, this dimension ofexistence facilitates precise and totalknowledge of every cause and its effect(s) atall times. There is no latency, therefore, all

knowledge is available instantaneously,literally. Consequently, there is neither anyimprecision about knowledge of events andconsequences nor ignorance. MHAUC,introduced in this paper, submits that theprocess of an individual consciousness

struggling on its path toward the universalconsciousness involves conceiving thoughtsand intentions and realizing them througheffort, driven by the desire to pursue purealtruism, self-sacrifice, and service to others,despite the lack of exact knowledge of thecauses and their effects and the uncertaintyover whether the desired outcomes will cometo fruition. The emanation of noble thoughtshas been referred to as greatness in theliterature. Often, efforts fail and this naturallyleads to sadness. Of much more importance

is the following. MHAUC submits that thelocations of greatness and sadness are oneand the same and that the co-placement isdeliberate. The reason is that sadness servesto enhance the severity of the test of theindividual consciousness, namely, whetherthe intent to self-sacrifice is sincere and thecommitment to serve genuine. Thus, whenan act of greatness is triggered, sadness isevoked and it follows closely.

It is the author's sincere belief that

awareness of the cause of sadness willimpart to the creative geniuses a profoundunderstanding of its underlying purpose.This, in turn, will help them remain focusedon extracting unprecedented ideas from theright brain and avoid being overwhelmed andconsumed by grief.

3. Acknowledgments

This paper is humbly dedicated to Prof.

Ramamoorthy, a great teacher, on the yearof his eightieth birthday.


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