Isaac Asimov Mulls “How Do People Get New Ideas?” (1959)
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Isaac Asimov Mulls “How Do People Get New Ideas?” (1959)
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Re: Isaac Asimov Mulls “How Do People Get New Ideas?” (1959)
#2This reminded me of Bret Victor's great talk Inventing on Principle[0].
Re: Isaac Asimov Mulls “How Do People Get New Ideas?” (1959)
#3This reminds me of Walter Isaacson's biography on Steve Jobs and how it detailed his many eccentric habits and behaviors early on before starting Apple... how he never took showers while working at Atari, his odd dietary habits, his daily wardrobe, etc. But that's why he was able to "think different"...
"A person willing to fly in the face of reason, authority, and common sense must be a person of considerable self-assurance. Since he occurs only rarely, he must seem eccentric (in at least that respect) to the rest of us. A person eccentric in one respect is often eccentric in others. Consequently, the person who is most likely to get new ideas is a person of good background in the field of interest and one who is unconventional in his habits. (To be a crackpot is not, however, enough in itself.)"
Also very good is Richard Hamming's "You and Your Research" talk - http://www.paulgraham.com/hamming.html
Re: Isaac Asimov Mulls “How Do People Get New Ideas?” (1959)
#4A bit offtopic, but a necessary interpretation from my perspective is how the so-called "corporate culture" with all its dresscodes and formal manners doesn't promote the ascent of new ideas - Asimov even goes on to suggest they could actually come from an informal dinner, etc.
I'll be sure to save this one to read periodically. Thanks for the submission.
Re: Isaac Asimov Mulls “How Do People Get New Ideas?” (1959)
#5This reminded me of Bret Victor's great talk Inventing on Principle[0]. 0. https://vimeo.com/36579366
Since this Asimov essay is about groups functioning in a space, Brett Victor's seeing spaces talk also seems rather relevant. Give people new ways to think about things, and great places for them to think together.
Re: Isaac Asimov Mulls “How Do People Get New Ideas?” (1959)
#6 "It seems to me then that the purpose of cerebration sessions
is not to think up new ideas but to educate the participants
in facts and fact-combinations, in theories and vagrant thoughts."
Re: Isaac Asimov Mulls “How Do People Get New Ideas?” (1959)
#7Permutation.
You take an old idea, and you pull out all the variables and you start permuting upon them.
Re: Isaac Asimov Mulls “How Do People Get New Ideas?” (1959)
#8"If a single individual present is unsympathetic to the foolishness that would be bound to go on at such a session, the others would freeze. The unsympathetic individual may be a gold mine of information, but the harm he does will more than compensate for that. It seems necessary to me, then, that all people at a session be willing to sound foolish and listen to others sound foolish."
This is something I've always felt, but remained unable to express as well as Asimov did here. I'm so grateful for those with a gold mine of information who resist temptation toward arrogance and scornful correction, and instead show patience and joy in teaching the foolish.
Re: Isaac Asimov Mulls “How Do People Get New Ideas?” (1959)
#9Reading biographies about Einstein, I came to the conclusion that the man wasn't really a genius in the intellectual sense, but a genius when it came to ideas, and had the passion to pursue them.
Re: Isaac Asimov Mulls “How Do People Get New Ideas?” (1959)
#10Does this mean Reddit is a more auspicious environment for new ideas to flourish? HN is way too confined of a place for "foolishness", that Asimov sees as conductive, to be permitted without things going haywire.