You’ve had a problem, you’ve thought about it till you were tired, forgotten it and perhaps slept on it, and then flash! When you weren’t thinking about it suddenly the answer has come to you, as a gift from thegods.
Of course all ideas don’t come like that, but the interesting thing is that so many do, particularly the most important ones. They burst into the mind, glowing with the heat of creation. How they do it is a mystery. Psychology does not yet understand even the ordinary processes of conscious thought, but the emergence ofnew ideas by a “leap in thought” is particularly intriguing, because they must have come from somewhere. For the moment let us assume that they come from the “unconscious”. This is reasonable, for the psychologists use this term to describe mental processes which are unknown to the subject, and creative thought consists precisely in what was unknown becoming known.
It seems that all truly creative activity depends in some degree on these signals from the unconscious, andthe more highly intuitive the person, the sharper and more dramatic the signals become.
But growth requires a seed, and the heart of the creative process lies in the production of the original fertile nucleus from which growth can proceed. This initial step in all creation consists in the establishment of a new unity from disparate elements, oforder out of disorder, of shape from what was formless. The mind achieves this by the plastic reshaping, so as to form a new unit, of a selection of the separate elements derived from experience and stored in memory. Intuitions arise from richly unified experience.
This process of the establishment of new form must occur in pattern of nervous activity in the brain, lying below the threshold of consciousness, which interact and combine to form more comprehensive patterns. Experimental physiology has not yet identified this process, for its methods are as yet insufficiently refined, but it may be significant that a quarter of the total bodily consumption of energy during sleep goes tothe brain, even when the sense organs are at rest, to maintain the activity of ten million brain cells. These cells, acting together as a single organ, achieve the miracle of the production of new patterns of thought. No calculating machine can do that, for such machines can “only do what we know how to design them to do”, and these formative brain processes obey laws which are still unknown.
Can any practical conclusions be drawn from the experience of genius? Is there an art of thought for the ordinary person? Certainly there is no single road to success; in the world of the imagination each has to find his own way to use his own gift.
中文翻译
你遇到了一个难题,为其绞尽脑汁，直至精疲力竭，将它置之脑后,或许带養疑虑进入梦乡。然而，忽然之间灵光一闪，当你没在思考这一问题时，答案如同天赐神助一般，突然出现在你的脑子里。
当然，并非所有的妙想都是这样得来，可有趣的是，许多想 法，特别是那些至关重要的想法都是这样产生的。它们倏忽之 间闯入脑海，散发着独创的光热。它们的形成过程是一个谜。 心理学迄今甚至连普通的有意识思维过程都没有研究清楚，但 是依靠"思想的火花”产生创见的现象还是让人特别感兴趣，因 为这种创见必定有个出处。我们暂且假定它们来自于“潜意 识"。这也是有道理的，因为心理学家们利用这个术语来描述对 于未知研究对象的心理过程，而创造性思维正是在于认清未曾 认识到的东西。
在某种程度上,所有真正的创造性活动似乎都取决于这些 来自潜意识的信号，并且，一个人的直觉愈加强烈，这些信号就愈加鲜明，愈加富有戏剧性。
可是萌芽生长需要种子，而创造过程的核心也在于形成最 初的丰实的胚胎，使成长得以进行。所有创造的第一步，均在于 把没有联系的因素重新结合，将无序变成有序，将无形变成有 形。要做到这一点，大脑就要选择从经验中得到的或者存储于 记忆之中的互无关联的因素，并加以整理重塑，以形成新的统一 体。直觉来源于丰富的系统化的经验。
这种新形式的形成过程只能出现在大脑神经活动模式之中，处子意识范围的开端，相互作用又相互融合，而形成更加复 杂的模式。实验生理学还无法识别这一过程，原因是其实验方法仍不够完善。可或许值得注意的是，人在睡眠的时候，尽管感 觉器官处于休息状态，但是所有体能消耗的四分之一却用于大 脑，以维持其上百亿个脑细胞的活动。这些共同运作的脑细胞 创造了产生思维新模式的奇迹。计算机不能做到这一点，因为它们“只能按照我们的设计力所能及的方式运行”，而那些具有建构能力的大脑活动过程遵循的却是我们所未知的规律。
从天才们的经验中，我们能得到任何实际的结论吗？有没有适用于普通人的思维艺术？成功之路不止一条。在一个提倡 想像力的世界中，每个人都要找到发挥自己天分的道路。