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Each of these three sub-processes are essential in the formation of true creativity. A dreamer without a realist cannot turn ideas into tangible expressions. A critic and a dreamer without a realist just become stuck in perpetual conflict. The dreamer and the realist might create things together, but fail to achieve a high degree of quality without a critic. The critic helps to evaluate and refine the products of creativity. Creative thinking is also “double-minded” thinking that “operates on more than one plane.” It can be described as a “transitory state.” As a result of this transitory state, “the balance of both emotion and thought is disturbed.” Using logic to derive new consequences amounts to little more than permutations of existing concepts; we can perhaps generate new links between concepts, but not conceptual novelty. Here’s how thinking to a higher order works. If I hand you a brick and ask you how many uses you can think of for it, you will probably come up with a dozen or so—all of them functional. If, however, I asked you specifically to think of 40 ways you can use it, I’m likely to get a whole different kind of list. After exhausting the obvious uses, you’ll find yourself straining to think of other uses for it that you had not thought of. In response to the first question, you actually hit on something truly original. It is there, at that uncomfortable point when you think you have exhausted all practical uses for the brick, where true creativity lives. This is where you start to find new connections between the object at hand and the world around you. Essentially, you start thinking beyond the obvious solutions. Another example is to look at the “x” symbol, and ask what universal word could define it. Logic says it is the letter “x,” and this is correct. Now ask yourself to identify six other possible explanations. Now you are tapping into higher order, lateral thinking mode. The x symbol could represent any of the following: times, multiply, wrong, kiss, cross or the number 10 in Roman numerals. Our brain has now moved out of logic mode and into creativity mode. Creativity can be defined as the process by which the mind finds formerly unrecognized relationships between two entities or ideas. It allows us to see something in a different way. It involves taking something obvious and making it interesting. Knowing how our mind’s creativity works is the reason that few advertising creatives settle on the first idea (or handful of ideas) they find. The thinking being that if it was that obvious to them, it must be obvious to everyone—and therefore there’s nothing new or exciting about it. Truly creative solutions are a bit unnerving, not because they are provocative or irrelevant, but because you have never seen anything quite like them, and so your mind doesn’t know how to evaluate them. November 2012 • Les Nouvelles Esthétiques & Spa
Higher order thinking is a level of thinking that goes beyond memorizing facts or telling someone something the exact same way it was told to you. It is called rote memory when a person memorizes and gives the information back without having to think about it. The reason is because it is much like a robot; it does what it’s programmed to do, but it does not think for itself. Higher order thinking takes thinking to higher levels, then restates the facts. This type of thinking requires that we do something with the facts. We must understand them, infer from them, connect them to other facts and concepts, categorize them, manipulate them, put them together in new or novel ways and then apply them as we seek new solutions to new problems.
Problem solving Not a day goes by in anybody’s life when they don’t have to solve problems. From the moment a person gets up in the morning and considers what to eat for breakfast, he is solving problems. Being creative, considering several strategies and trying them out as a means to reaching the solution is part of being a good problem solver. It is important in problem solving to remember that mistakes are learning opportunities. One always learns from something that doesn’t work. In scientific research, the goal is to prove a theory wrong as often as it is to prove a theory right. Thomas Edison was once asked how he kept from getting discouraged before he perfected his idea of the light bulb, as he was making so many mistakes during the process. He had tried more than 2,000 ways before he found one that worked. Edison responded that he had not made 2,000 mistakes, but rather that he had over 2,000 learning experiences that moved him closer to the answer.
The “idea” generation Coming up with original ideas is very important in higher order thinking. Ideas that originate from one’s own thoughts rather than copied from someone else are original ideas. But what are ideas—and where do they come from? Insights. Some ideas are born from insight—a spontaneous cohesion of several thoughts. An insight is like a light bulb coming on in a person’s head. Insights are great thoughts that help a person see or understand something, quite often something they have been unable to figure out up to this point.
Critical thinking Another way of forming ideas is through critical thinking. This involves using ones own knowledge or point of view to decide what is right or wrong about someone else’s ideas. This is sometimes called “having a mind of one’s own,” meaning continues www.LNEONLINE.com • Page 93