Inspiration for your ideas- Part 2

On September 6th, I wrote a blog about idea generation and in it I promised a follow up. Unfortunately, the 'tomorrow' I mentioned has taken a longer time than I expected :-(
Hope not too many of you were holding off on your ideas- waiting for some more inspiration.

I have two kinds of materials to cover. First, is a set of quotations from Linus Pauling, who won two noble prizes- first in Chemistry in 1954 and the other for Peace in 1962. Most of the quotations I use here come from an interview that begins at:
http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/pau0int-1

1. My success in solving scientific problems I think is the result of two qualities that I have.
- One is that of being able to formulate or discover problems.
- The other is that of being able to make a decision as to what problems I might be able to solve, and which I probably will not be able to solve, so that I don't waste time on those.

2. ... psychologists have said that my IQ is about 160, I recognize that there are one hundred thousand or more people in the United States that have IQs higher than that. So I have said that I think I think harder, think more than other people do, than other scientists.

3. I had one short course in organic chemistry, but I'm considered to have made great contributions to organic chemistry. I had no courses in biochemistry, but I'm usually described as "the great biochemist Linus Pauling." You see, I have made contributions to biochemistry. There were no courses in molecular biology. I had no courses in biology, but I'm one of the founders of molecular biology. I had no courses in nutrition or vitaminology. Why? Why am I able to do these things? You see, I got such a good basic education in the fields where it's difficult for most people to learn by themselves. ... but when it comes to these other subjects, I was able to learn enough about these other fields just by reading because my basic understanding was so great that I could interpret the sentences that I read. I can read ... books, medical books about heart disease and understand what the authors are saying.

4. Sometimes I say you shouldn't think that your efforts, your demonstration, participation in peace walks or writing letters to members of Congress or to the local newspaper are wasted efforts. You can contribute and you can't be sure how great your contribution is, but you can contribute, so do it.

5. How can a young person be happy? I think a good way of increasing the probability of leading a happy life is to do two things. First, to think about what you'd like to do, whoever you are, what you like to do, and then see if you can make your living doing it. Second, look around, keeping your eyes open and your brain working and find somebody of the opposite sex with whom you enjoy talking and with whom you can get along. Get married young and stay married. ... That, and take plenty of vitamin C, and they will be on the right track (the last sentence was actually a question by the interviewer to which Pauling essentailly answered yes and explained the importance of sound health practices).

6. The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.

Also very interesting is the answer Pauling gave to the question, "How have your best, or most productive ideas, come to you? Do they come via dreams, concentrated thought, or relaxation?"
In short, Pauling answered that often his original ideas have come as the result of training my unconscious mind to think about a problem. You may read further details of his answer from http://www.garfield.library.upenn.edu/essays/v12p229y1989.pdf

I believe this is a very important problem on its own right to investigate- how to tap into the extrodinary human capacity for problem solving that remains dormant for most part of our lives (i.e. all of the times that we are awake and sleeping!).

Coming to the second part of this blog, I want to briefly talk about the work of Howard Gardner. Gardner has developed a model of creativity, explained in his book, 'Creative Minds' (1993, p. 360-363). He studied the life and ways of several creative individuals and identified several commonalities. His study found these individuals lived a long, helathy lives, followed new interests vigorously following the 'Ten-Year rule,' were highly motivated and passionate about the work they were engaged in, exhibited 7+ intelligences, -- which included the intrapersonal, the logical/mathematical, the visual/spatial, the musical, the verbal/linguistic, the bodily/kinesthetic and the interpersonal -- and conformed to the portrait of the 'Exemplary Creator' painted by Gardner.

In the article titled, 'Linus Pauling (1901 - 1994),' [http://www.users.muohio.edu/shermalw/honors_2001_fall/honors_papers_2001/Lowrey_LPauling.htm] Anne Lohrey analyzes the life environment and charcteristics of Pauling and shows that Pauling fits the Gardner's model of creativity superbly. Below is a quote from Lohrey:

"Linus Pauling was a master and maker with extensive abilities and a wide range of intellectual strengths in the different intelligences. This may have better enabled him to do the work that culminated in two unshared Nobel Prizes and a host of other awards and honors. He was not content to rest on his laurels, however. ... Additionally, he seems to provide evidence for the ten-year pattern among highly creative individuals. He also fits Gardner's description of the Exemplary Creator fairly well."

By the way, I got interested in Gardner's model and came across the following book by him, titled 'Creating Minds: An Anatomy Of Creativity As Seen Through The Lives Of Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, And Gandhi.' The reviews on the book were interesting to where I have a ordered a copy of it, which should arrive in a day or two. If I can read enough of it quickly, my next blog may be a follow up on this article. On second thought, I am more interested at this time in learning about microformats and their potential relationship to the semantic Web; may be it is time just to press on, will see.