It seems like some more usual names for this sort of thing are “brainstorming” or “the creative process?” It can’t be done systematically and isn’t really a *process*, but there are techniques that seem to help. Also, there is likely a lot written about it.
Conceptually, I think of it as having a list of ideas. The creative part is about adding ideas to the list, from any source, including modifying ideas you already have. There’s also a winnowing part, where you narrow down the list based on what seems to be working, or is at least promising.
Unreliable processes are completely fine for adding ideas. You can even use randomness, like using tarot cards or Brian Eno’s card deck, Oblique Strategies. You can talk to a child or ask an AI oracle silly questions.
For consumer products, it’s interesting how functionality is often besides the point. A juicer can be satisfying as a fun art piece even if it’s not a very good juicer.
A simple example of this: at my wife’s parent’s house, I found some glasses, probably from the 1960’s, that are narrow on the bottom and wide on the top. They work, but they’re relatively unstable and easy to tip over. The design isn’t all that functional. I like them anyway, just because they’re different.
When I think of brainstorming, it seems noteworthy as a flattening of a fully imaginative mythopoetic process in two respects:
1. The default lack of an evolutionary loop. Each idea is by default standalone, without a developmental process applied.
2. The directness of possibilities…you come up with a possible idea as opposed to allowing entrance into a foreign world and then working one’s way back to a possible solution brought back from that world.
Neither of these need be intrinsic to brainstorming…rather, I am using simple brainstorming as an example to highlight distinctions with respect to the fully meta-rational mythic mode of creative solutions.
But David, how is the juicer now that you’ve laid hands on it???
Charlie squeezed our last lemon by hand, so this remains a Holy Mystery for the nonce!
“Brilliant engineering makes me cry. Really.”
Me too. Also my Dad and reportedly my Grandfather.
Both were great intuitive engineers. I suspect there is a cognitive crossover point with the sympathetic nervous system.
It seems like some more usual names for this sort of thing are “brainstorming” or “the creative process?” It can’t be done systematically and isn’t really a *process*, but there are techniques that seem to help. Also, there is likely a lot written about it.
Conceptually, I think of it as having a list of ideas. The creative part is about adding ideas to the list, from any source, including modifying ideas you already have. There’s also a winnowing part, where you narrow down the list based on what seems to be working, or is at least promising.
Unreliable processes are completely fine for adding ideas. You can even use randomness, like using tarot cards or Brian Eno’s card deck, Oblique Strategies. You can talk to a child or ask an AI oracle silly questions.
For consumer products, it’s interesting how functionality is often besides the point. A juicer can be satisfying as a fun art piece even if it’s not a very good juicer.
A simple example of this: at my wife’s parent’s house, I found some glasses, probably from the 1960’s, that are narrow on the bottom and wide on the top. They work, but they’re relatively unstable and easy to tip over. The design isn’t all that functional. I like them anyway, just because they’re different.
When I think of brainstorming, it seems noteworthy as a flattening of a fully imaginative mythopoetic process in two respects:
1. The default lack of an evolutionary loop. Each idea is by default standalone, without a developmental process applied.
2. The directness of possibilities…you come up with a possible idea as opposed to allowing entrance into a foreign world and then working one’s way back to a possible solution brought back from that world.
Neither of these need be intrinsic to brainstorming…rather, I am using simple brainstorming as an example to highlight distinctions with respect to the fully meta-rational mythic mode of creative solutions.