Dear Organlearners,
Eugene Taurman <ilx@execpc.com> wrote several weeks ago:
>When I present a facts about a situation everyone responds with
>ideas and solutions. I have come to believe that Creativity is
>nothing more than a response to a situation.
Greetings Eugene,
I am sorry that I did not reply sooner. I wanted to, but things got out of
control.
Your viewpoint that creativity is a response to a situation is
different from the commonly held viewpoint that creativity is a
connection between things which lead to something novel. In the common
viewpoint the essentiality fruitfulness ("connect-beget")
<http://www.learning-org.com/98.07/0206.html>
is recognised. But in your viewpoint the essentiality liveness
("becoming-being")
<http://www.learning-org.com/98.04/0036.html>
play the key role.
It is interesting to compare your belief (viewpoint?) to my definition
for creativity, namely that "creativity is the result of entropy
production". The correspondences are:
response <=> result
situation <=> entropy production
>All that is necessary to harness creative powers is set up
>situations where we can listen to the ordinary people and
>we will find new ideas are there ready to sprout, if only the
>'powers that be' will listen.
In other words, guide people to produce entropy and creativity will
result.
>I have no idea if creativity can be taught but I believe
>cultivating a creative environment can be taught.
A most interesting sentence, especially since you have used the
concept "teach" rather than "learn". The act of learning is a first
order emergence of the act of creating. In other words, to learn is to
create. But what about teaching? Should teaching be a creative act?
Yes.
We act creatively according to the Law of Entropy Production (LEP),
but we cannot actively create the LEP -- we can only discover the LEP.
We can teach creatively. But can we teach creativity? No. Our creative
teaching should help the learner to discover creativity.
Best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>