Re: d'Espagnat wins Templeton Award

From: russell standish <lists.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 2009 10:53:01 +1100

On Sat, Mar 21, 2009 at 05:15:05PM +1100, Kim Jones wrote:
>
> > think this is what Kim is saying. But true creativity cannot be
> > taught
>
>
> If you are right then we are doomed because creative thinking is the
> only shot left in the locker for humans. More of the same will no
> longer get us far.

True creativity is an innate property of some people. As a proportion
of the population, there are as many geniuses now as there were in the
Golden Age of Greece. In fact, because the population is so much
larger now, there are many more of them walking the planet now than then.

What we can influence is the structure of society to help or hinder
these creative people actually contributing to society (ie enable
creative people to become recognised geniuses). We can all think of
repressive societies that lacked any form of expressive creativity
(yet they must still have the same proportion of creative individuals
living in them as everyone else). Getting the right balance between
"free thinking" and "critical thinking" is one very important aspect
of this, so I'm certainly not disagreeing with you Kim.

Cheers
-- 
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Prof Russell Standish                  Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Mathematics                         	 
UNSW SYDNEY 2052         	         hpcoder.domain.name.hidden
Australia                                http://www.hpcoders.com.au
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Received on Sat Mar 21 2009 - 19:51:35 PDT

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