Every day, for a week, I’m writing about the definitions of Creativity thinkers have offered throughout history and why each one cannot be the final definition. Yesterday I wrote about Cultural Suppression of Creativity.
Sitting under an apple tree, Isaac Newton discovered gravity. A falling apple answered for him all questions regarding the mechanics of the Universe. So goes the legend you read in 6th grade Science.
Yes, Newton did formulate the Universal Law of Gravitation and an apple tree may have helped fine-tune his ideas about gravitational pull and power. But, Newton’s influence directs Western Science farther and wider than gravity itself, including ideas regarding Creativity.
Newton sought to separate natural philosophy from objective observation-based science. The Scientific Method, generally divorced from pre-conceived spiritual or magical interpretations, led to the dichotomy between science and religion.
Enlightenment ideas of High Creativity ignored the inspiration portion of Creation, because it could not be explained via the Scientific Method. Creativity, defined by long hours and experimentation, think Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin, had little to do with magic or the unexplained.
Still, some Creators had sparkle enough to cause suspicion that a final, workable definition of Creativity had not yet arrived.
Filed under: Creativity: Historical Perspective, Defining Creativity, General Theory of Creativity, Ideas, What is Creativity Tagged: | Enlightenment, Experimentation, General Theory of Creativity, Gravity, History, Sir Issac Newton
I like the flow of your thoughts.
I like being as fair as possible with all paradigms. It makes it less personal and ?less room for emotional abuse? Is that something Newton did as well w/o knowing it?
Newton did not know how far his ideas on separation of church and science would go or how they would be interpreted in the future. But he did have a huge impact.
Interestingly enough, many scientists, especially among physicists and neuroscience, are now getting away from Newtonian-type science toward integration between science, philosophy and other domains not so conductive to empiricism.