| Dinner Address
Genius, Madness and Innovation
Professor Allan Snyder FRS
Director, Centre for the Mind/
You know, when you think about it, creativity is an act of rebellion! It is downright subversive! Creativity must, by its very nature, confront conventional wisdom.
Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. Creativity, this wondrous expression of our minds, underpins innovation, underpins real genius and even underpins the world's economic growth. And yet, and yet creativity remains largely illusive. We don't really know how it can be nurtured. We don't really know how it manifests itself in some and not in others. Why in some and not in others?
I want you to recall "A Beautiful Mind". The recent film about Nobel Prize winner John Nash. John Nash's extraordinary mathematical genius, by his very own admission, came NOT from his conventional training, but rather from his particular form of schizophrenia. Quite simply, John Nash could 'see' patterns and relationships that normal people could not. And, this revelation, resonates with other expressions of genius, from the impressionist artist Gaugin to the Russian novelist Dostoyevsky, and possibly even onto the great Newton. Madness, bi-polar disorder, schizophrenia or whatever, somehow facilitate creativity.
Ladies and gentlemen - Why is this so? Why do altered mental states facilitate genius? Answer this question and we will have unlocked one of the mysteries of creativity. Answer this question and we may even allow ordinary people greater access to genius.
To be really creative, you must see the world in a new light. Sounds easy, but it is virtually impossible. The disturbing reality is that we don't see what is out there. What we do see is based largely on what we expect to see. What we do see is based largely on what we know. Two people looking at the very same cloud formation can see radically different images. The portrait painter sees a face of dignity, the ultrasound sonographer sees a diseased gall bladder.
To me, this says it all. We project out what we know onto everything. Nothing we see is looked at afresh. We are blinded by what we know. We are blinded by our expertise. We are blinded by our mindsets.
Have you ever wondered why you can't draw? I mean of course draw without being shown the tricks of how to do so. This really is deeply mysterious, because our brains already possess the information necessary to draw, otherwise we couldn't see at all! For example our brains have algorithms for calculating the shape of an object from subtle shading across its surface. Yet, we are not conscious of this shading. Because, if we were, we would be able to draw without training.
When you think about it, when you think about it, this is rather an extraordinary state of affairs. Why does our brain have secret information? But when you think about it, why should we be conscious of subtle shading? Why should we be conscious of any so called backroom deliberations? Isn't it the final decision, the executive decision, and not the intermediate details leading to that decision that is of ultimate importance to us? No wonder subtle details are a secret of the nonconscious mind.
But the frightening consequences of this strategy is that we don't see what is actually out there. And, here is the fundamental block to creativity.
Is it possible to extricate ourselves from this intrinsic block? Is it possible to access the secrets of the nonconscious mind and see the world the way it really is? Just think of the rich applications if we could actually do that! Now, surprisingly, our approach to accessing the nonconscious is inspired by severely brain damaged people known as autistic savants. You know, like the character Dustin Hoffman played in the Hollywood film, Rain Man. Autistic savants are peculiarly literal. They lack the big picture. They lack executive decision making. Autistic savants would appear to be the exact opposite of the creative mind. But, they display extraordinary skills. Skills which demonstrate that they, unlike us, can access the nonconscious mind.
Nadia, a severely mentally retarded girl could draw like Leonardo da Vinci. She did so without any training and from memory. And yet, Nadia was only three years old. She had no language ability and could not even recognise her mother from the nurse. Somehow Nadia could access the mechanisms for vision directly from the raw data of the nonconscious mind. Somehow she could access what is in all of our nonconscious minds.
So, a peculiar brain damage affords autistic savants privileged access to the secrets of the nonconscious mind. Privileged access to something that exists in us all but is normally not accessible.
Now here's the big idea! Although we do not have access to the nonconscious mind as do savants, is there nonetheless some artificial means to promote this access? Wouldn't it be amazing if, on command, we could switch off the part of the brain that is damaged in savants and allow ordinary people this privileged access to the nonconscious mind? Wouldn't it be amazing if we could just momentarily see the world as it really is? Incredibly, we can! We have actually been able to turn on savant like skills in people by shutting off part of their left brain with magnetic pulses.
Incredibly, we can allow anyone access to the unprocessed raw information about the world, information that is normally a secret of the nonconscious mind. And, we do so not by stimulating the brain but rather by turning part of it off!
Now this could really have some truly extraordinary applications, especially to learning and problem solving. Because, if we can, through artificial means, allow ordinary people a glimpse of the nonconscious mind, then they too would have an opportunity to see a novel interpretation - a novel way to join up the dots. Then they too would have a greater opportunity for innovation. And, this is precisely what we are attempting right now at our Centre for the Mind. Technological ways to enhance learning and creativity.
But how does all this relate to John Nash. How does this relate to mental illness and genius? Well, I wonder if our results with magnetic pulses could help explain why so many geniuses suffer mental disorders? I wonder if, for example, bi-polar disorders, intermittently switch off the left side of the brain, allowing privileged access to raw sensory data of the nonconscious right-brain. This would lead to alternating views of the world. One view that driven by the left brain is consistent with past experience, consistent with what we know. The other view that dictated by the right brain sees the world anew and hence is devoid of familiarity and meaning. Taken together, these alternating views are deeply unsettling because they are unexpected. But, taken together they provide the fertile ingredients for creativity.
I am sure you are thinking that there must be other ways than magnetic pulses or mental abnormalities to seeing the world unfiltered through our mindsets. Now, it is very hard to obliterate mindsets, and you need them anyway, so the way to see more of the world is to take on more mindsets. Because the more mindsets you imbue, the more different views you have of the world. So, after mastering one situation, you should go on and master something completely different. And, this strategy emulates the very effects of switching off the left side of the brain because it plunges you into unfamiliar territory.
Take Picasso, arguably the most innovative painter of the 20th century. Picasso's four major stylistic shifts were precipitated, in every instance, by an upheaval in his life. He changed everything. He changed his woman. He changed his circle of friends. He changed his house. And, he even changed his dog!!! In every instance, the radical transformations of Picasso's styles, were reflected in the radical transformations of his private life.
Take Steven Jobs, the co-founder of Apple computers. After Apple, he started Pixar digital animated films. Animated films? Yes! Returning to Apple years later, he revolutionised the appearance of computers and saved Apple industries.
Take my career. My insights about optical fibres for telecommunication were inspired, not from engineering physics, but amazingly from insect eyes. Insect eyes! Working in completely different fields facilitates creativity. Somehow our minds link seemingly disparate concepts into a new synthesis.
And, I emphasise, I emphasise the nonconscious nature of this process. Because in the final analysis, true genius is about making nonconscious leaps! Making leaps that explode upon you, seemingly from nowhere.
Take the brilliant mathematician Poincare. Poincare's breakthrough solution leaped into his mind, unexpectedly, as he stepped onto a bus, and most importantly, after a lengthy holiday. The problem had incubated in his nonconscious mind.
It's this crucial incubation period, the 'let me sleep on it' phenomenon, which links seemingly disparate concepts into a new synthesis. It's this crucial incubation period which facilitates the uprush of innovation and genius. And, it's this crucial incubation period which I believe can be enhanced by new technologies.
Ultimately, creativity, this driving force of innovation, is the process of destroying ones own gestalt to build a completely new picture. But as I said, creativity is an act of rebellion! And to initiate a rebellion you must have courage. So, in conclusion remember what the celebrated Sigmund Freud said about his ability to innovate: "I am not really a man of science, I am not an observer, I am not an experimenter, I am not even a thinker. I am nothing but an adventurer - a conquistador - with all the boldness, and the tenacity of that type of being." In other words, in other words, from his own assessment, Freud was not especially skilled or talented. Rather, he had the courage to break the rules and to confront conventional wisdom.
Thank you.
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