What is your route to original thought?

Interesting concept don't you think?

 

How does one come up with a new idea, an amazing concept or creation of something so dynamic that it changes the course of their life or the lives of many? Is it by chance that we stumble across such things, are we inspired or is it purely hard work and effort?

 

I would put my money on it being a mixture of all.

 

I read an article recently in Scientific American Mind magazine (amazing mag by the way!) called 'The Science of Genius' and it discusses the notion of genius, how we become one, if we can at all.

 

The article discusses the theory of 'blind variation and selective retention (BVSR)' or to put it more simply, backtracking over failed attempts to discover new ways. How many times have we failed at something and just walked away telling ourselves 'well that just doesn't work' and not going back to try again? Many I am sure. The theory of BVSR proposed by psychologist Donald Campbell leads us to believe that geniuses use this form of research to come up with their 'genius' ideas.

 

"The blindness of blind variation and selective retention (BVSR) merely means that ideas are produced without foresight into their eventual utility. The creator must engage in trial-and-error or generate-and-test procedures to determine the worth of an idea. Two common phenomena characterise BVSR thinking: superfluity and backtracking. Superfluity means that the creator generates a variety of ideas, one or more of which turn out to be useless. Backtracking signifies that the creator must often return to an earlier approach after blindingly going off in the wrong direction."

 

Now I hope I didn't just lose you there. What this is really telling us is that if we want to create something new, we need to revisit our past failures, be open to creating new ideas without really knowing (or worrying about) where they will take us and allowing ourselves to investigate possibilities.

 

We cannot all be geniuses. It takes pure dedication to the research of new concepts and ideas and continuous questioning and backtracking. I don't know about you, but for me there are not enough hours in the day for this type of creative thinking! Although I would love to be a genius and spend all my waking hours researching and creating new ideas, that is not the direction I will take after reading this article. Instead what this says to me is that we can be the best person we can be by revisiting our past failures and trying, trying again.

 

Original thoughts..... how often do you have them? We need them to see different perspectives. When we see a different perspective, our lives instantly change. Our mind opens to new ways of thinking and we become different people.

 

Thought I would share.

 

Thanks for reading.

 

Veronica Wood