Creativity

Originally published August 13, 2003

I was flipping through an old Scientific American (yes, I am a tool)…and came across an article which had piqued my interest. It described work done by Richard Taylor at the University of South Wales regarding the underlying order of Jackson Pollack’s paintings.

Taylor and colleagues determined that the randomness of Pollack’s paintings indeed displayed order in the form of fractal patterns. They even went as far as to describe the level of complexity of his paintings over the course of his career.

It makes me think that somehow we are drawn to these patterns regardless of intent. In other words, we are incapable of randomness. There is an underlying pattern to all of our actions…certain natural rhythms if you will. It may also explain why we are drawn to Pollack’s work even though we don’t “see” anything.

Perhaps Pollack is tapping into something more fundamental. Something that we can’t explain but nonetheless are drawn to.

Whether or not this is true is clearly up for debate…but you certainly can’t deny the fact that these patterns are found across a wide array of natural phenomena. And as such, their importance cannot be denied. Check out any scientfic field these days…everyone is reexamining their data sets to look for more fundamental patterns. The age of the linear relationship is gone…or being refined at the very least.

Originally posted August 13, 2003

There are a lot of smart people in our world. Some people are expert in only an extraordinarily narrow field. Most basic scientists fall into this category. Some people are expert technicians and their intelligence lies in the perfect application of a prescribed protocol. Many physicians and surgeons fall into this category. But then again, so do nurses, auto mechanics, ice sculpters, bakers, etc.

Believe me, I respect and admire the skill and intellect of all of these types of minds. But what really inspires me are people who are able to step back and provide perspective and are able to synthesize ideas. People like:

• Watson and Crick who deduced the structure of DNA without actually performing an experiment at the bench;
• Kevin Kelly whose perspectives on information technology and its convergence with biology seem more true today than they were 7 years ago;
• Stephen Wolfram and his fearless pursuit of a unifying principle.

(I’ve only posted a couple of people…simply due to time restraints.)

This is the kind of thinking that inspires me. The kind of thinking that makes me want to think. The kind of thinking that we need in our world. Specialization is a 20th century concept…a lesson from the industrial revolution. The real power lies in being able to make connections between these specialists. There is so much incredible information out there…but so few people who know how to

1. get ahold of it,
2. understand the disparate vocabularies of multiple specialties, and most importantly
3. be able to discern the patterns.

You think that we’re smart now? Wait until we truly understand and embrace that concept.

That’s Dave Matthews.  In 1992.  On VHS.

If you didn’t know, the name of that song is Blue Water Baboon Farm.  I’ve been using “baboonfarmer” as my alias since about 1994.