Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Elements of Creativity: low LI and high IQ.

While discussing greatness, S.B. Kaufman cites an article linking latent inhibition and creativity.
In all of our studies and analyses, high IQ, when combined with low LI (Latent Inhibition, the capacity to screen from conscious awareness stimuli previously experienced as irrelevant), was associated with increased creative achievement. These results are particularly stunning in the analysis of eminent achievers and high-functioning controls. High IQ clearly appeared to augment the tendency toward high creative achievement characteristic of low-LI individuals. (Carson SH, Peterson JB, Higgins DM



It appears that seeing old things as new due to, e.g. changing circumstances, is an important element of creativity. In Buddhism it is called "Beginner's Mind."

The concept of having a fresh look on an old subject may sound obvious, but in reality it is very difficult not to follow headlines screaming about the latest and greatest. For example, in the world of technology what can be more boring than railroads? But look at how high-tech investor Peter Thiel sees Warren Buffet's purchase of a railroad company:
The Warren Buffet rhetorical point is his US$34 billion investment in late 2009 in a railway, the single biggest investment by Berkshire Hathaway outside of finance. It is an all-out bet against clean tech. It was described as a bet on America, but 40 percent of what gets transported on railroads is coal. You have to look at Buffett's railroad investments as an all-out bet that clean tech is going to fail.
It's a bet that we're going to send coal to ships in Long Beach and send it to China to power Chinese factories to send us stuff. That's not the clean-tech vision of the 21st century.
What we've got here is two high-IQ individuals re-considering seemingly old, irrelevant developments (low LI condition) to draw creative conclusions: 1) buy railroads; 2) don't invest in clean tech.


tags: creativity, infrastructure, information, psychology, business, magicians

1 comment:

Unknown said...

It's far more likely that low LI -low IQ individuals acquire mental disorders, because society, generally, fails appreciate their creative productions, but only judges competence, intellect, and provides advancement based on analytical type thought (or IQ). This type of social rejection, of course, tends to lead to more and more stress on low LI - low IQ individuals; stress which eventually leads to mental disorder. This is in contrast to HIGH IQ individuals, whom independent of low or high LI, are more advantaged through systematical standards. In short Low LI - low IQ combination leads to mental disorder because they never get the credit they deserve.