The magic of generating new ideas
newyorker.com
The magic of generating new ideas
1–10 of 56 posts
Re: The magic of generating new ideas
#2The article is about maths, but could equally apply to debugging or software design. The overworking a problem phenomenon described earlier in the article sounds like "analysis paralysis".
Re: The magic of generating new ideas
#3“ These stories suggest that an initial period of concentration—conscious, directed attention—needs to be followed by some amount of unconscious processing.”
Re: The magic of generating new ideas
#4“ These stories suggest that an initial period of concentration—conscious, directed attention—needs to be followed by some amount of unconscious processing.”
-> mandatory reference to Rich Hickeys Hammock Driven Development [0], watch it if you find the time!
Re: The magic of generating new ideas
#5Coming up with something truly new is much, much harder than people give it credit for. We take the sun being the center of the universe for granted today, but it was an extremely non-obvious fact for the smartest people in the world for millenia. One of my math professors had a great take on the difficulty of injecting a new idea into the world: he said that the greatest mathematical achievement that anyone had ever made was not anything like calculus - it was the realization that there was something similar between five stones and five fish.
Re: The magic of generating new ideas
#6Coming up with something truly new is much, much harder than people give it credit for. We take the sun being the center of the universe for granted today, but it was an extremely non-obvious fact for the smartest people in the world for millenia. One of my math professors had a great take on the difficulty of injecting a new idea into the world: he said that the greatest mathematical achievement that anyone had ever…
Perhaps you could edit for clarity, as you seem to be suggesting that the Sun is the center of the universe.
As far as I know, that was only an accepted point of view for a few hundred years.
Re: The magic of generating new ideas
#7“ These stories suggest that an initial period of concentration—conscious, directed attention—needs to be followed by some amount of unconscious processing.”
This. The give and take between conscious focus and unconscious mind wandering has never let me down when working on complex ideas.
Before I had children, I found the "unconscious processing" part more difficult, because my time was simply _my time_ to do with what I pleased... so I would often try to work harder, leading to less productivity and more spinning in circles.
After having children, my time is obviously more structured and I've found the regimen of childcare to be a wonderful diversion from thinking about systems and complexity.
Taking multiple walks a day also helps immensely. The trick is not trying to think about my work when walking, just absorbing the sounds, sights, and smells of the world around.
Re: The magic of generating new ideas
#8Coming up with something truly new is much, much harder than people give it credit for. We take the sun being the center of the universe for granted today, but it was an extremely non-obvious fact for the smartest people in the world for millenia. One of my math professors had a great take on the difficulty of injecting a new idea into the world: he said that the greatest mathematical achievement that anyone had ever…
> We take the sun being the center of the universe for granted today, but it was an extremely non-obvious fact for the smartest people in the world for millenia.
It seems new ideas truly are difficult to inject..
Re: The magic of generating new ideas
#9>In this view of creative momentum, the key to solving a problem is to take a break from worrying, to move the problem to the back burner, to let the unwatched pot boil.
I noticed the same thing about my poker game back when I used to play religiously.
Taking a week or two long break from playing invariably improved my game.
None of my poker buddies understood the phenomena, but every single one of us experienced it.
Re: The magic of generating new ideas
#10Coming up with something truly new is much, much harder than people give it credit for. We take the sun being the center of the universe for granted today, but it was an extremely non-obvious fact for the smartest people in the world for millenia. One of my math professors had a great take on the difficulty of injecting a new idea into the world: he said that the greatest mathematical achievement that anyone had ever…
> Coming up with something truly new is much, much harder than people give it credit for
100% agree, and yet harder still is to keep working on something truly new, trying to drive it forwards, when at best nobody cares and at worst people actively resist the implicit challenge to the status quo. Even, perhaps especially, smart and conscientious people who are already authorities in the field.
I think when people think about innovation being hard, there is a lot of focus on creating good new ideas. They're right, that's really hard, but innovation is about much more than that - it's really about sticking with the good new idea for a long period of time when there are no obvious (to most people) incentives to do so, economic or otherwise.