The divine spark

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The divine spark. The creative act in art and science is a philosophical - psychological non-fiction book by Arthur Koestler , published in1966, in which he tries to explain the processes thatunderlie creativity in wit and humor , in science and in art . The German version edited by the author does not contain the “Second Book” of the English original The Act of Creation ,published in 1964; the theories there about "basic principles effective within the entire organic hierarchy" (p. 9) were incorporated in a revised form in his next book, The Ghost in the Machine .

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First part: the joker

In the first part, Koestler takes the comic as an introduction to his general theory . Using relevant anecdotes, he explains his basic terms, such as these on p. 26: “A convict played cards with his guards. When they caught him cheating, they threw him out of prison. "

The starting point is the term matrix . This is understood as a system that is “regulated by a code of fixed rules of the game” (p. 28), with the second term referring to “ code ” (in the sense of a “collection of rules such as the traffic regulations or the criminal code”, p . 30) as well as alluding to “ code ” (as with the key signals in the nervous system or in the genetic code ). These form a “whole hierarchy of flexible systems with fixed rules of the game” (p. 35) from which our habits are constituted. While ordinary associations take place within such a system, the creative connection of two systems with contradicting codes leads to a bisociation , a “grasping of a situation or idea L in two self-contained but usually incompatible reference systems M 1 and M 2 ".

In the above story, two conventional rules that are inherently consistent (“criminals are punished by imprisonment” and “cardsharps are punished by thrown out”) contradict each other; Another example is the following story by Nicolas Chamfort (p. 23):

“Chamfort tells the anecdote of a marquis at the court of Louis XIV, who, when he stepped into his wife's boudoir and found her in the arms of a bishop, calmly went to the window and began to bless the people on the street below. 'What are you doing there?' called the frightened woman. 'Monsignors do my duties,' replied the Marquis, 'so I do his.' "

Here it is the logic of the division of labor that completely unexpectedly breaks into an action which one suspected would develop according to a completely different logic.

Another example of a source of comedy is the contrast between man and machine , the clash of “subtle spirit and inert matter ” (p. 37), which Henri Bergson in his work Laughing viewed as the essence of the comic. Koestler points out, on the one hand, that this contrast is by no means the basis for all forms of comedy and, on the other hand, that it can very well also become the subject of scientific research or artistic processing.

What is so peculiar about humor that, unlike science and art , it triggers a very specific physiological reaction, laughter ? According to Koestler, laughter discharges affects (a view similar to that which Sigmund Freud advocated in The Joke and Its Relationship to the Unconscious ). While it is not difficult for our intellect to move from one matrix to the other, certain affects “because of their greater persistence, cannot follow such agile thought leaps; abandoned by reason, they escape through the channels of least resistance and are dissipated by laughter ”(p. 93). These are affects of the “self-asserting, aggressive-defensive” type, the counterparts of which are the “participatory” or “self-transcending” affects. Therefore, "even in the more subtle and loving varieties of humor [...] a drop of aggressiveness " must be present (p. 93).

Koestler is now investigating different types of humor and shows in them the bisociation of two spiritual levels. He pays special attention to the "three main criteria of the appropriate method of the comic" (p. 78): "Originality" (in the sense that a surprise effect is achieved), "Emphasis" (which is achieved through selection, exaggeration and simplification) and "thrift" (which causes the audience to extrapolate, interpolate, or transpose). The first part concludes with a few reflections on the transition from humor to the area of ​​knowledge and artistic design, in which there are no sharp dividing lines, but only gradual transitions. In satire and irony , the joke “gradually takes on the character of an epigram or riddle , an intellectual challenge,” and sometimes social satires (such as 1984 and Animal Farm ) can convey knowledge better than theoretical science.

Part two: the scientist

At the beginning of the second part, Koestler transfers the scheme from the first part to situations in which the aim is to solve a problem that lies outside the reference system M 1 . The matrix is ​​"blocked" and the goal can only be achieved by bringing a second matrix M 2 into play. Koestler illustrates this on the one hand using the chimpanzees examined by Wolfgang Köhler , who have to use a stick as a tool to reach a banana outside their cage or break off a branch from a tree that fulfills this function - on the other hand using Archimedes , who discovered the principle of buoyancy that is named after him while pondering the problem of determining the composition of a supposed gold crown in the bathroom. Discoveries of this kind Koestler called Eureka -Vorgänge. To solve such problems, a certain “maturity” is required - a “biological” maturity (as in the case of chimpanzees), a “maturity of culture” (which explains that scientific discoveries often happen in parallel) and the personal factor: “the Role of the creative person who brings about the synthesis for which the time is more or less ripe ”(p. 108f).

A previous effort is required in which the concentration on the problem permeates the entire psyche, until “finally chance or intuition establishes the connection to a completely different matrix” (p. 120). "The creative act does not create from nothing - it reveals, selects, mixes, combines, creates syntheses from already existing facts, ideas and skills." (P. 120)

In the following, Koestler illustrates this with three examples:

Koestler now goes into detail on the psychological processes that help bisociation. “Thinking away”, as the French philosopher Paul Souriau called it (“Pour inventer il faut penser à côté”) and the unconscious play a central role . The role of the latter is, on the one hand, to increase the mind's receptivity to potential solutions to the problem, and, on the other hand, to bring forms of thought formation into play that are not subject to the strict rules of logic (p. 177):

“A temporary relinquishment of conscious control frees the intellect from restrictions which are necessary to maintain the trained routines of our thinking, but which on the other hand can inhibit creative impetus. At the same time, other forms of thought formation are activated on more primitive levels of the spiritual hierarchy. "

As long as the associations proceed as Francis Galton had described it ("the closest related thoughts already in audience are called out of the anteroom in a mechanical-logical manner"), the jump out of the reference system cannot succeed, and even Henri's acceptance Poincaré , the “elements of our future combinations” would collide in the “subliminal self” and the consciousness would select the appropriate ones, is not satisfactory. The emergence of a new insight, however, is an “act of intuition ”, comparable to the artistic inspiration that Samuel Taylor Coleridge described for the creation of his poem Kubla Khan . According to Koestler, the mediating activity of the unconscious appears in the “substitution of vague visual ideas for precise verbal formulations” (a prime example of this is Jacques Hadamard's study of the psychology of mathematical discovery). Furthermore, the bisociation shows “symbolization, concretization and representation; Shifting emphasis, reversing logic, tracking down hidden analogies ”(p. 226) - mental activities similar to those in dreams and daydreams.

Koestler now turns to the question of whether the synthesis actually turns out to be useful. There is a spectrum of false or hasty syntheses about those whose actual meaning is not clear to the author himself, and those that merge on the basis of different experiences, to those that represent a sudden enlightenment. Furthermore, using the history of science , he shows that the evolution of ideas not only shows parallels to biological evolution , but that processes also take place in it that are comparable to those in the individual. The last chapter in the second part deals with the affects that guide scientists. Here he sees a sublimation of both self-asserting and self-transcending tendencies at work. Finally, from the originality, emphasis and economy that play a role in scientific work as well as in humor and art, a plea for a livelier pedagogy in the communication of science is derived.

Third part: the artist

In the first section of the third part (The Participatory Emotions) Koestler deepens his theory of emotions by developing one about crying in parallel to his investigation of laughter in the first part . This is a “discharge reflex for too much participatory emotions” (namely rapture , sadness , joy , sympathy , self-pity), “just as laughter is an outlet for an excess of self-asserting emotions” (p. 329). Both types of emotion are rooted in turn "in the hierarchical order of life, where every being has the two properties of partiality and wholeness and, accordingly, the two possibilities of behaving as an autonomous whole or as a dependent part" (p. 329) .

The second section (creation in the word) deals with creativity in the field of literature . The starting point is the illusion that casts its spell over the audience in a theater or cinema as well as the readers of a novel. The “shifting of interest and feelings to another time and place” (p. 336), as a self-transcending act, causes self-asserting tendencies to be pushed back and thus catharsis (also in a psychological sense ). The illusion has its roots in the participation mystique evoked by magic ; an example of this is the tragedy (literally "goat song"), which arose from rites in honor of Dionysus . Rhythm and rhyme , assonance and play on words are also rooted in the archaic psyche , with the help of which the poet bisociates sound and meaning . Metaphors arise through a process similar to that of a scientific discovery: "by recognizing an analogy that has not been seen before" (p. 381). Their aesthetic effect depends on the affect potential of the reference systems involved; an example of this are synaesthetic cross-connections to which people are differently receptive. The highest potential for affect is possessed by archetypal images, which lead to a “grounding” of affect, a link between the temporal and the eternal. There is a smooth transition from artist to scientist, who relates individual phenomena to universal laws - from the subjectivity of the beautiful to the objectivity of the true . Another parallel to the previously examined forms of creativity results from the decisive role that originality, emphasis and economy play in literary creation. Some considerations follow to characterize literary figures . The picture suggested to the reader, which enables him to identify , is "essentially constructed according to the same principles as the idea we have of real people" (p. 386) - by means of a multitude of general impressions and salient details. The plot of a drama or novel arises from the conflicts in which these characters become involved. Unlike in science, the resulting reference systems are not merged, but compared; while science strives towards the logos , art turns back to the original source of the archetype. The section closes with a reflection on the archetypal plot of "death and rebirth" underlying the biblical narrative of Jonah . Here there is one of those overlaps of the levels of the tragic and the trivial through which, according to Koestler, “creativity finds its highest perfection” (p. 405).

In the third section (creation in the picture) Koestler turns to creativity in the field of fine arts . The bisociative processes that underlie the aesthetic experience in this area are difficult to grasp in words because they occur almost simultaneously. Your basic level is the illusion; However, even this is not a pure "fidelity to nature", since the creation of art depends on two environments - the outside world that supplies the motif and the medium (such as the canvas ) with which one works. The task of the artist is now to create a connection between the “limited possibilities of the medium” and the “individual differences in ways of seeing” (p. 414). The latter depend both on the unconscious inferences that permeate the perception and on the culturally determined formulas and conventions. The originality of genius now consists “in the shifting of attention to previously overlooked, neglected aspects; in the fact that he (...) discovers new relationships between motif and medium ”(p. 437). Aesthetic experience cannot be traced back to the pleasure of the senses alone; as with the consonances and dissonances in music, it is the interplay of attraction and repulsion that creates the impression of unity in plurality. The frames of reference that come into play must form an increasing gradient in order to evoke “spiritual enlightenment” which is followed by “emotional catharsis” (p. 427). Interactions between different periods, cultures and areas of knowledge can trigger Bisoziationen grand scale, with the consequence that Art cumulative proceeds (as in Italy of the Renaissance ) until the "unequal longer periods of stagnation, the one-sidedness of Mannerism and the reality of alienation" (P. 442) is coming. Like science and caricature, art works with selective emphasis and thrift. Finally, Koestler goes into the problem of snobbery in aesthetic appreciation. The starting point is the art forgeries by Lothar Malskat in Lübeck's Marienkirche . These and other forgeries, which were even considered to be genuine by art experts, show that ingenuity in art is not based on perfection, but on originality, which opens up new areas and makes it common property. Our assessment of works of art is not a uniform act, but is exposed to "systems of disruption". An example of this is the “personal charisma” that attracts us to an object that was connected to a significant person. Another results from our efforts to view a work of art in the context of its respective epoch; as soon as this frame becomes more important than the picture, this “aesthetic duality” leads to a distortion of our standards of value. Snobbery is thus "the result of the merging of two independent value systems, which are separate in origin and nature, but inextricably intertwined in the mind of the person concerned, which leads to a confusion of value standards" (p. 457). While “laughter is triggered by the clash of two foreign reference systems, discovery through their merging and aesthetic experience through their juxtaposition”, snobbery is “a mishmash of reference systems, the application of the rules of one game to another” (p. 456).

Attachments

In Annex I: From Bernstein and magnets the history of bisociative discovery is described in a brief outline that in the study of magnetism and electricity to the theories of electromagnetism led.

In Appendix II: Peculiarities of Genius , Koestler tracks down the self-transcending tendencies in the motivations of some important scientists: Copernicus , Tycho Brahe , Galileo Galilei , Johannes Kepler , Isaac Newton , Benjamin Franklin , Michael Faraday , James Clerk Maxwell , Charles Darwin and Louis Pasteur . Other commonly encountered traits are precocity , a mixture of skepticism and gullibility, which means that curiosity cannot be fobbed off with common explanations, the ability to combine abstract and concrete ways of thinking, and a diverse disposition.

Position in Koestler's work

Koestler had already sketched some of these lines of thought in a book called Insight and Outlook , published in 1949 ; At that time, however, the focus of his work was political writing. In the mid-1950s, he decided to develop his psychological and philosophical thoughts. The new creative period began with Die Nachtwandler , a scientific-historical representation of the transition from the geocentric to the heliocentric worldview in astronomy ; many of the considerations there about the process of scientific discovery were incorporated into the following work, The Divine Spark .

The topics dealt with here were to continue to be decisive for Koestler, especially for his books The Ghost in the Machine and The Human Being, Erroneous Evolution . How important it was for Koestler to bring art and science together is shown in the speech he gave at the PEN congress in 1976.

expenditure

  • The Act of Creation. Arkana Books, London 1989, ISBN 0-14-019191-7 (reprint of New York 1964 edition).
  • The divine spark. The creative act in art and science (The modern non-fiction book; Vol. 78). Version edited and authorized by the author. Translated from English by Agnes von Cranach & Willy Thaler. Scherz, Bern / Munich / Vienna 1966

literature