Visual Problems

When we do a jigsaw puzzle, all the pieces lay before us, our eye wanders over them, noting features, looking for similarities. It is a fantastic feat; we go over them again and again, creating a myriad of imagined connections between the pieces. We move pieces around to create new patterns and connections, gradually our ideas coalesce, from simple similarities we build more complex patterns and the picture emerges. It is not a logical process, it is an emergent one, we work on the whole of the problem at once, pieces become joined here and there. Suddenly we see how the small parts go together, logic plays no part whatever, it is all about processing images and ideas. The result is a perfectly ordered solution that has been created from total and complete chaos.

And nobody needs to learn how to do a jigsaw puzzle, it is obvious- you never get any instructions on the box.

What does this tell us? We do not need to learn how to be creative, it is natural, not only that, it is compelling – we are creatures of creativity, we are born to make sense of the world through our creativity. Our logic is learned but our creativity is inherent, but it becomes hampered by our habits of logic, rules and assumptions. Creativity is subtle, elusive, intangible and uncertain. It is this uncertainty that causes us to doubt its merit, we have come to prefer the certainty of logic and mathematics.

But as we have seen, some problems do not yield to logic.

linux hosting