Triggering Creativity in Science and Engineering: Reflection as a Catalyst

Abstract

In the recent literature, creativity has been clarified as a phenomenon that categorically differs from intelligence in that the ideas that result from it may not be deduced by applying current reasoning techniques on the state-of-the-art knowledge. Thus, creativity clearly transcends intelligence. Despite this new perspective, by its very nature, creativity defies a true and complete definition and the issue of how to arrive at a creative solution for a given problem, continues to remain an open question. This paper represents an effort to gain insights into the nature of creativity. It begins by observing (i) documented manifestations of creative discoveries and inventions by leading scientists and inventors, (ii) records of creative flashes in many day-to-day ordinary activities, and (iii) instances of creativity in Nature. It then critically analyzes these observations to uncover what mechanisms trigger the processes that eventually lead to creative solutions to problems. This paper submits three hypotheses for cases (i) through (iii) and claims that reflection constitutes the underlying mechanism in each of them, serving as a catalyst for creativity. The first hypothesis is that, in many of the highly creative scientific and engineering discoveries, reflection has played an explicit role in catalyzing the onset of creativity in the scientists and inventors, leading to spontaneous solutions. The second hypothesis is that creativity may be triggered by resorting to implicit reflection. The underlying mechanism consists of highly experienced professionals who report arriving at decisions and diagnoses, almost instantaneously, through intuitive flashes that later turn out to be precisely correct. The third postulate is that Nature is guided by reflection, while utilizing enormous resources and knowledge at her disposal, to play her meta-level role in introducing creative traits, selectively, in one or more individuals of a specific animal colony. The resulting collective behavior of the entire colony represents a spontaneous, creative behavior, very different from that of a pure, homogeneous colony. In essence, the contributions of this paper are two-fold. First, although the exact definition of creativity continues to elude us, the use of explicit and implicit reflection constitutes two approaches that are potentially useful in triggering creativity, at will, in ordinary scientific and engineering personnel to achieve quantum leaps in our knowledge and achievement. The role of reflection is that of a catalyst. Reflection also appears to underlie the inner workings of Nature. Second, from the perspective of engineering pedagogy, these approaches may constitute a tried and tested mechanism for inducing creativity in ordinary students through practice.