THOUGHTS AND COMMENTARY
A Book Excerpt From
The Road to Neuroplasticity and Change to Heal Trauma, Improve Cognitive Capacity and Maximize Performance
ABOUT THE BOOK
DIVERGENT THOUGHT
AND CREATIVITY
See Also:
Divergent Thought and Creativity
Achieving Creative Flow Boost and Reignite Creativity
Creativity and Visualization
The Neuroscience of Creativity
Divergent Thought and Creativity
Achieving Creative Flow Boost and Reignite Creativity
Creativity and Visualization
The Neuroscience of Creativity
CHAOS THEORY
Chaos theory, also known as complexity theory, is the study of dynamic and nonlinear processes and of self-organising systems (Gleick, 1987). Self-organizing systems can be seen all around us, once we begin to look for them. We see them in the flocking of birds, the schooling of fish and the changing global ecosystem. All these things produce a form of organization in which the control is not centralized, but rather is distributed throughout the entire system. The system is dynamic, and changes arise spontaneously and frequently produce something new. Seen within this context, the human brain is the ultimate self-organizing system, and creativity is one of its most important emergent properties. We call this creative thought divergent thinking and the creative thoughts are derived from chaos.
Chaos is an inherent unpredictability. To be able to work in chaos you be able to demonstrate the following characteristics of divergent thinking.
Creative people capable of producing in chaos need to demonstrate
DIVERGENCY
Chaos can be known as divergent thinking which is the process or method used to generate creative ideas by freedom of imaginative exploration. It is used in place of its cognitive colleague, convergent thinking, which follows a particular set of logical steps to arrive at one solution, which in some cases is a "correct" solution.
Creativity in chaos is freedom, spontaneity, instinct and playful curiosity. It is seeing, feeling or sensing and communicating ideas in ways that are unique, compelling, and unexpected. When you’re being creative in chaos , you can see the hidden patterns, make connections between things that aren’t normally related, and come up with new and innovative ideas.
Divergence is chaos spinning creativity in a spontaneous, fluid, free-flowing, "non-linear" manner. It thrives on nonconformity, willingness to take risks, and persistence. It means “developing in many different directions” and so divergent thinking or chaos opens your mind in all directions. This opens possibilities in your life because it leads you to look for options that aren’t always apparent.
Chaos, in the minds the ancient Greeks, opposed Cosmos, the order of the universe. While Cosmos toiled to maintain order, Chaos kept just as busy unraveling it. Creativity unravels established patterns and delivers revelation or the “aha!” moments. “The truly creative changes and the big shifts occur right at the edge of chaos,” expert Robert Bilder has said. Once the stage of divergent thinking is complete, information and ideas are structured and organized using convergent thinking.
Divergent thinking has been detected in people with personality characteristics like curiosity, nonconformity, persistence and readiness to take risks. Bubble mapping, creating artwork, maintaining a journal, subject mapping, devoting some time to meditation and thinking, and building lists of questions are all examples of activities that trigger divergent thinking.
Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.” — Edward de Bono
We have learned that creativity requires trust and freedom. It also requires stepping outside of established patterns, while embracing uncertainty, vulnerability & chaos. It can help us make unexpected connections and push boundaries into the unknown. Creativity requires a liberation from constraint.
We can work towards expanding our creative abilities by leaning in to our imaginations. We can let go a little, experiment often, quiet our minds, and seek childlike wonder and curiosity.
CREATIVE FLOW
You need individual space to daydream, reflect, and create in your “creative flow,” or what an athlete might call “playing in the zone.” It’s an automatic, effortless, but highly concentrated state when all the practice and knowledge leading up to that moment comes pouring out in perfect harmony.
See Also:
Achieving a Flow State
Flow or Hyperfocus?
CREATIVE PROCESS
The creative process moves through stages. It begins with preparation, a time when the basic information or skills are assembled. It continues on to incubation, a relaxed time during which the person does not work consciously to solve the problem, but when connections are unconsciously being made. This then leads eventually to inspiration, the eureka experience when the person suddenly sees the solution. It ends with production, a time when the insights are put into a useful form
The creative process arises from an unconscious rather than a conscious process. The person is typically in some type of reverie or dissociative state when the mind wanders freely and thoughts and images float around without censorship. The brain regions most likely to be involved in the creative process are the association cortices, those brain regions that are most active during REST when a person is engaged in free-ranging and uncensored thought.
Divergent thinking or chaos leads to new ideas that are creative in design and brilliant in innovation.
ELEMENTS OF CREATIVE THOUGHT
There are four elements of creative or divergent thinking according to creativity guru Mark McGuiness of Lateral Action. Reframing, Mind Mapping, Insight and Creative Flow.
These types fall under both conscious and unconscious thought.
REFRAMING
Reframing is a cognitive technique used to help create a different way of looking at a idea by changing its meaning. Also referred to as cognitive reframing, it's a strategy used to look at ideas from a slightly different perspective.
The essential idea behind reframing is that a person's point-of-view depends on the frame it is viewed in. When the frame is shifted, the meaning changes and thinking and behavior often change along with it. Reframing involves changing our interpretation or perception of an idea. This type is the only one that is under a person's conscious control. For example, you can reframe a problem as an opportunity, a weakness as a strength, an impossibility as a distant possibility or a distant possibility as a near possibility.
Another way to understand the concept of reframing is to imagine looking through the frame of a camera lens. The picture seen through the lens can be changed to a view that is closer or further away. By slightly changing what is seen in the camera, the picture is both viewed and experienced differently.
Exercise: Ask yourself open ended questions when you are facing a problem.
MIND MAPPING
Mind Mapping is a method used to visually organize information. A mind map is hierarchical and shows relationships among pieces of the whole. It is often created around a single concept, drawn as an image in the center of a blank page, to which associated representations of ideas such as images, words and parts of words are added. Major ideas are connected directly to the central concept, and other ideas branch out from those. As with other diagramming tools, mind maps can be used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas, and as an aid to studying and organizing information, solving problems, making decisions, and writing.
Exercise: Write ideas down in an associative, organic pattern, starting with a key concept in the center of the page, and radiating out in all directions, using lines to connect related ideas.
INSIGHT
Insight is an idea that appears without conscious effort. This is an Eureka! moment or when the imaginary light bulb appears above your head. Insight sparks a creative epiphany....insight is an experience which belongs to the perceptive person who picks one out of a million available observations, connects it to a challenge, and sees how important it could be to a creative process.
Creativity researchers call intentional interruption from a tough mental task incubation. It is defined as a period not consciously thinking about the problem. Some theories now place incubation in the center of the creative process, right after exploring and focusing on a problem and before producing an insight and following through on it.
Some creativity researchers believe unconscious processes actively attack a problem during incubation. Others suspect the absence of conscious effort is what stimulates insight, perhaps by helping the mind forget any ill-conceived leads or assumptions and opening it up to new threads of thought.
Exercise: If you are struggling on a problem take a break and have some downtime. When you return you may trigger insight.
CREATIVE FLOW
In positive psychology, a flow state, also known as being in the zone, is the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence, flow is characterized by complete absorption in what one does, and a resulting loss in one's sense of space and time.
Factors Influencing Flow
Chaos theory, also known as complexity theory, is the study of dynamic and nonlinear processes and of self-organising systems (Gleick, 1987). Self-organizing systems can be seen all around us, once we begin to look for them. We see them in the flocking of birds, the schooling of fish and the changing global ecosystem. All these things produce a form of organization in which the control is not centralized, but rather is distributed throughout the entire system. The system is dynamic, and changes arise spontaneously and frequently produce something new. Seen within this context, the human brain is the ultimate self-organizing system, and creativity is one of its most important emergent properties. We call this creative thought divergent thinking and the creative thoughts are derived from chaos.
Chaos is an inherent unpredictability. To be able to work in chaos you be able to demonstrate the following characteristics of divergent thinking.
- Cleverness- aptness for design
- Complexity – the capacity to conceptualize difficult, multifaceted, many layered or intricate ideas
- Curiosity – displaying probing behaviors, searching, asking questions, learning to get more knowledge/information about something, and of being able to dig deeper into ideas
- Divergency - moving or extending in different directions from a common point
- Elaboration – the skill of adding to, building off of or embellishing an idea
- Flexibility – capability of creating varied perceptions or range of different ideas pertaining to the same thing or problem
- Fluency – the skill of generating many ideas to increase the number of potential ideas or solutions
- Fluidity- capability for thoughts to be readily changed
- Freedom- not beingobstructed, restricted, or impeded
- Imagination – The capability of dreaming up, inventing, or to think, to see, to conceptualize novel products or ideas, to be original;
- Originality – The skill of coming up with fresh, unusual, unique, extremely different or completely new ideas
- Risk–taking – readiness to be courageous, daring, adventuresome – experiment with new things
- Versatility- able to switch directions
- Visualization- capability of interpreting ideas visually
Creative people capable of producing in chaos need to demonstrate
- Artistry- imaginative and skilled in execution
- Boldness - a lively spirit
- Commitment - be invested in seeing it through
- Confidence- trust in your ability, strength, or your truths
- Curiosity- be inquisitive with a desire to know
- Eagerness - be enthusiastic with an impatient desire or interest
- Enthusiasm- be full of strong excitement or feeling
- Expression - be effective in conveying ideas and thoughts
- Fearlessness- to try something new or different
- Flexibility be willing to change direction
- Fluidity- be willing to easily move or change position
- Freedom- be comfortable in the absence of rules
- Guts- be willing to take risks
- Humility- be unafraid to say “I don’t know”
- Individuality- be yourself and show your own style
- Imagination - be able to envision different images
- Improvisation- be willing to work with whatever you have
- Ingenuity- be clever in design and/or thought
- Insight- be able to see intuitively
- Instinct- be natural in aptitude, impulse, or capacity
- Interpretation- be able to explain meaning
- Nonconformity- be unwilling to think or act the same
- Originality- show independent thought
- Passion- be filled with intense feeling
- Receptiveness - be open and responsive to ideas, impressions, or suggestions
- Spontaneity- be carefree or uninhibited
- Honesty - be committed to what you are doing and what you stand for
- Unconventionality- be fearless in thinking differently
- Vulnerability- be willing to elicit your own emotion
DIVERGENCY
Chaos can be known as divergent thinking which is the process or method used to generate creative ideas by freedom of imaginative exploration. It is used in place of its cognitive colleague, convergent thinking, which follows a particular set of logical steps to arrive at one solution, which in some cases is a "correct" solution.
Creativity in chaos is freedom, spontaneity, instinct and playful curiosity. It is seeing, feeling or sensing and communicating ideas in ways that are unique, compelling, and unexpected. When you’re being creative in chaos , you can see the hidden patterns, make connections between things that aren’t normally related, and come up with new and innovative ideas.
Divergence is chaos spinning creativity in a spontaneous, fluid, free-flowing, "non-linear" manner. It thrives on nonconformity, willingness to take risks, and persistence. It means “developing in many different directions” and so divergent thinking or chaos opens your mind in all directions. This opens possibilities in your life because it leads you to look for options that aren’t always apparent.
Chaos, in the minds the ancient Greeks, opposed Cosmos, the order of the universe. While Cosmos toiled to maintain order, Chaos kept just as busy unraveling it. Creativity unravels established patterns and delivers revelation or the “aha!” moments. “The truly creative changes and the big shifts occur right at the edge of chaos,” expert Robert Bilder has said. Once the stage of divergent thinking is complete, information and ideas are structured and organized using convergent thinking.
Divergent thinking has been detected in people with personality characteristics like curiosity, nonconformity, persistence and readiness to take risks. Bubble mapping, creating artwork, maintaining a journal, subject mapping, devoting some time to meditation and thinking, and building lists of questions are all examples of activities that trigger divergent thinking.
Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.” — Edward de Bono
We have learned that creativity requires trust and freedom. It also requires stepping outside of established patterns, while embracing uncertainty, vulnerability & chaos. It can help us make unexpected connections and push boundaries into the unknown. Creativity requires a liberation from constraint.
We can work towards expanding our creative abilities by leaning in to our imaginations. We can let go a little, experiment often, quiet our minds, and seek childlike wonder and curiosity.
CREATIVE FLOW
You need individual space to daydream, reflect, and create in your “creative flow,” or what an athlete might call “playing in the zone.” It’s an automatic, effortless, but highly concentrated state when all the practice and knowledge leading up to that moment comes pouring out in perfect harmony.
See Also:
Achieving a Flow State
Flow or Hyperfocus?
CREATIVE PROCESS
The creative process moves through stages. It begins with preparation, a time when the basic information or skills are assembled. It continues on to incubation, a relaxed time during which the person does not work consciously to solve the problem, but when connections are unconsciously being made. This then leads eventually to inspiration, the eureka experience when the person suddenly sees the solution. It ends with production, a time when the insights are put into a useful form
The creative process arises from an unconscious rather than a conscious process. The person is typically in some type of reverie or dissociative state when the mind wanders freely and thoughts and images float around without censorship. The brain regions most likely to be involved in the creative process are the association cortices, those brain regions that are most active during REST when a person is engaged in free-ranging and uncensored thought.
Divergent thinking or chaos leads to new ideas that are creative in design and brilliant in innovation.
ELEMENTS OF CREATIVE THOUGHT
There are four elements of creative or divergent thinking according to creativity guru Mark McGuiness of Lateral Action. Reframing, Mind Mapping, Insight and Creative Flow.
These types fall under both conscious and unconscious thought.
REFRAMING
Reframing is a cognitive technique used to help create a different way of looking at a idea by changing its meaning. Also referred to as cognitive reframing, it's a strategy used to look at ideas from a slightly different perspective.
The essential idea behind reframing is that a person's point-of-view depends on the frame it is viewed in. When the frame is shifted, the meaning changes and thinking and behavior often change along with it. Reframing involves changing our interpretation or perception of an idea. This type is the only one that is under a person's conscious control. For example, you can reframe a problem as an opportunity, a weakness as a strength, an impossibility as a distant possibility or a distant possibility as a near possibility.
Another way to understand the concept of reframing is to imagine looking through the frame of a camera lens. The picture seen through the lens can be changed to a view that is closer or further away. By slightly changing what is seen in the camera, the picture is both viewed and experienced differently.
Exercise: Ask yourself open ended questions when you are facing a problem.
MIND MAPPING
Mind Mapping is a method used to visually organize information. A mind map is hierarchical and shows relationships among pieces of the whole. It is often created around a single concept, drawn as an image in the center of a blank page, to which associated representations of ideas such as images, words and parts of words are added. Major ideas are connected directly to the central concept, and other ideas branch out from those. As with other diagramming tools, mind maps can be used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas, and as an aid to studying and organizing information, solving problems, making decisions, and writing.
Exercise: Write ideas down in an associative, organic pattern, starting with a key concept in the center of the page, and radiating out in all directions, using lines to connect related ideas.
- Start in the center with an image of the topic, using at least 3 colors.
- Use images, symbols, codes, and dimensions throughout your mind map.
- Select key words and print using upper or lower case letters.
- Each word/image is best alone and sitting on its own line.
- The lines should be connected, starting from the central image. The lines become thinner as they radiate out from the center.
- Make the lines the same length as the word/image they support.
- Use multiple colors throughout the mind map, for visual stimulation and also for encoding or grouping.
- Use emphasis and show associations in your mind map.
- Keep the mind map clear by using radial hierarchy or outlines to embrace your branches.
INSIGHT
Insight is an idea that appears without conscious effort. This is an Eureka! moment or when the imaginary light bulb appears above your head. Insight sparks a creative epiphany....insight is an experience which belongs to the perceptive person who picks one out of a million available observations, connects it to a challenge, and sees how important it could be to a creative process.
Creativity researchers call intentional interruption from a tough mental task incubation. It is defined as a period not consciously thinking about the problem. Some theories now place incubation in the center of the creative process, right after exploring and focusing on a problem and before producing an insight and following through on it.
Some creativity researchers believe unconscious processes actively attack a problem during incubation. Others suspect the absence of conscious effort is what stimulates insight, perhaps by helping the mind forget any ill-conceived leads or assumptions and opening it up to new threads of thought.
Exercise: If you are struggling on a problem take a break and have some downtime. When you return you may trigger insight.
CREATIVE FLOW
In positive psychology, a flow state, also known as being in the zone, is the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence, flow is characterized by complete absorption in what one does, and a resulting loss in one's sense of space and time.
Factors Influencing Flow
- Intense and focused concentration on the present moment
- Merging of action and awareness
- A loss of reflective self-consciousness
- A sense of personal control or agency over the situation or activity
- A distortion of temporal experience, one's subjective experience of time is altered
- Experience of the activity as intrinsically rewarding, also referred to as autotelic experience
STARLIGHT POETRY BY KAI
View Me on Twitter @kairosoflife
See Creativity Chaos - a Creativity Blog by Kai
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© 2019-2020 Copyright Starlight Poetry
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View Me on Twitter @kairosoflife
See Creativity Chaos - a Creativity Blog by Kai
About | Reprints & Copyrights | Home
© 2019-2020 Copyright Starlight Poetry
VIEW FULL SITE DIRECTORY