THE ACT OF CREATION
by
Arthur Koestler
PENGUIN ARKANA The Act of Creation Arthur Koestler alternated all his life between the man of action and the man of letters. Born in Budapest in 1905, he studied at Vienna University before becoming a journalist. As a foreign correspondent he travelled widely, visiting the Middle East, Paris and Moscow. In 1937, while representing the "News Chronicle" in Spain, he was captured by Franco's troops and imprisoned under sentence of death. He was eventually released on the intervention of the British Government and returned to London. During the war he served with the French Foreign Legion and the British Army and in 1945 became Special Correspondent for The Times in Palestine. In the 1940s and early 1950s he was perhaps the most widely read political novelist of our time. Darkness at Noon, considered to be his masterpiece, was published in 1940, followed by Arrival and Departure (1943), Thieves in the Night (1946), The Age of Longing (1951) and The Call Girls (1972). From 1956 he became immersed in questions of science and mysticism, and had a huge following among young people. Explaining his varied interests, Koestler wrote: 'Out of my quarrels with the human condition I made my novels; the other books are attempts to analyse that same condition in scientific terms. In my more optimistic moments it seems to me that the two add up to a whole. At any rate, without both media I would feel only half alive.' The Act of Creation (1964) is the second book in his classic trilogy on the mind of man, which began with The Sleepwalkers (1959) and ended with The Ghost in the Machine (1967). Among his other books are The Yogi and the Commissar (1945), The Case of the Midwife Toad (1971) and Bricks to Babel, a collection of non-fiction essays. Koestler received the Sonning Prize from the University of Copenhagen in 1968 and was awarded a number of honorary doctorates. He was a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Literature and of the Royal Astronomical Society. He was made a CBE in 1972 and a Companion of Literature in 1974, and on three occasions was nominated for the Nobel Prize. Arthur Koestler died in 1983. The Times obituary called him 'a consistently lucid and humane writer . . . His reputation as one of the most versatile and protean writers of our century is thoroughly deserved.' ARTHUR KOESTLER The Act of Creation ARKANA PENGUIN BOOKS ARKANA Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ, England Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2 penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, Private Bag 102902, NSMC, Aukland, New Zealand Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England First published by Hutchinson & Co. 1964 Published by Arkana 1989 Copyright © Arthur Koestler, 1964 All rights reserved Printed in England by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser CONTENTS BOOK ONE THE ART OF DISCOVERY AND THE DISCOVERIES OF ART * PART ONE THE JESTER I THE LOGIC OF LAUGHTER 27 The Triptych -- The Laughter Reflex -- The Paradox of Laughter -- The Logic of Laughter: A First Approach -- Matrices and Codes -- Hidden Persuaders -- Habit and Originality -- Man and Machine II LAUGHTER AND EMOTION 51 Aggression and Identification -- The Inertia of Emotion -- The Mechanism of Laughter -- The Importance of not being Earnest III VARIETIES OF HUMOUR 64 Pun and Witticism -- Man and Animal -- Impersonation -- The Child-Adult -- The Trivial and the Exalted -- Caricature and Satire -- The Misfit -- The Paradox of the Centipede -- Displacement -- Coincidence -- Nonsense -- Tickling -- The Clown -- Originality, Emphasis, Economy IV FROM HUMOUR TO DISCOVERY 87 Explosion and Catharsis -- 'Seeing the Joke' and 'Solving the Problem -- The Creation of Humour -- Paradox and Synthesis -- Summary PART TWO THE SAGE V MOMENTS OF TRUTH 101 The Chimpanzee and the Stick -- Archimedes -- Chance and Ripeness -- Logic and Intuition -- Summary VI THREE ILLUSTRATIONS 121 1. The Printing press -- 2. Gravity and the Holy Ghost -- 3. Evolution through Natural Selection VII THINKING ASIDE 145 Limits of Logic -- The Unconscious before Freud -- The Mechanization of Habits -- Exploring the Shallows -- The 'Hooked Atoms of Thought' -- Exploring the Deeps -- The Word and the Vision -- The Snares of Language VIII UNDERGROUND GAMES 178 The Importance of Dreaming -- Concretization and Symbolization -- Punning for Profit--The Benefits of Impersonation -- Displacement -- Standing on One's Head -- Analogy and Intuition -- Summary IX THE SPARK AND THE FLAME 212 False Inspirations -- Premature Linkages -- Snowblindness -- Gradual Integrations -- The Dawn of Language -- Summary X THE EVOLUTION OF IDEAS 224 Separations and Reintegrations -- Twenty-six Centuries of Science -- Creative Anarchy -- 'Connect, Always Connect' -- The Thinking Cap -- The Pathology of Thought -- Limits of Confirmation -- Fashions in Science -- Boundaries of Science -- Summary XI SCIENCE AND EMOTION 255 Three Character-Types -- Magic and Sublimation -- The Boredom of Science -- Summary PART THREE THE ARTIST A. THE PARTICIPATORY EMOTIONS XII THE LOGIC OF THE MOIST EYE 271 Laughter and Weeping -- Why do we Weep? -- Raptness -- Mourning -- Relief -- Pity -- Self-Pity -- Summary XIII PARTNESS AND WHOLENESS Stepchildren of Psychology -- The Concept of Hierarchy 285 XIV ON ISLANDS AND WATERWAYS 292 B. VERBAL CREATION XV ILLUSION 301 The Power of Illusion -- The Value of Illusion -- The Dynamics of Illusion -- Escape and Catharsis -- Identification and Magic -- The Dawn of Literature XVI RHYTHM AND RHYME 311 Pulsation -- Measure and Meaning -- Repetition and Affinity -- Compulsive Punning -- Coaxing the Unconscious XVII IMAGE 320 The Hidden Analogy -- Emotive Potentials -- The Picture-strip -- On Law and Order -- On Truth and Beauty XVIII INFOLDING 333 Originality and Emphasis -- Economy -- The Last Veil -- Summary XIX CHARACTER AND PLOT 345 Identification -- Phantoms and Images -- Conflict -- Integrations and Confrontations -- Archetypes -- Cataloguing Plots -- Puppets and Strings XX THE BELLY OF THE WHALE 358 The Night Journey -- The Guilt of Jonah -- The Root and the Flower -- The Tightrope C. VISUAL CREATION XXI MOTIF AND MEDIUM 366 Looking at Nature -- Pigment and Meaning -- The Two Environments -- Visual Inferences -- Codes of Perception -- Convention and Creation XXII IMAGE AND EMOTION 383 Virtues of the Picture Postcard -- Taste and Distastep -- Motion and Rest -- Ascending Gradients -- Summary XXIII ART AND PROGRESS 393 Cumulative Periods -- Stagnation and Cross-Fertilization -- Statement and Implication XXIV CONFUSION AND STERILITY 400 The Aesthetics of Snobbery -- The Personal Emanation -- The Antiquarian Fallacy -- The Comforts of Sterility BOOK TWO HABIT AND ORIGINALITY * Introduction 413 I PRENATAL SKILLS 415 Structure and Function -- The Cell-Matrix -- Nucleus and Cytoplasm -- Regulative and Mosaic Development -- Organizers and Inducers -- Summary II THE UBIQUITOUS HIERARCHY 430 Development of the Nervous System -- Locomotor Hierarchies -- The Goldfish and the Crab -- Shuffling the Salamander's Limbs -- Limits of Control III DYNAMIC EQUILIBRIUM AND REGENERATIVE POTENTIAL 447 Acting and Reacting -- What is Equilibrium? -- Super-Elasticity and Regenerative Span -- Physiological Isolation IV RECULER POUR MIEUX SAUTER 454 Structural Regenerations -- Reversed Gradients -- The Dangers of Regression -- 'Routine Regenerations' -- Reorganizations of Function -- Reculer sans Sauter -- Regeneration and Psychotherapy -- The Routine of Dreaming -- Regeneration and Creativity -- Regeneration and Evolution V PRINCIPLES OF ORGANIZATION 467 VI CODES OF INSTINCT BEHAVIOUR 475 The Genetics of Behaviour -- Instinct and Learning -- Tinbergen's Hierarchy -- Appetitive Behaviour and Consummatory Act -- Leerlauf and Displacement -- Instinct and Originality VII IMPRINTING AND IMITATION 489 The 'Following-response' -- Bird-song and Parrot-talk -- Untapped Resources VIII MOTIVATION 495 Retrospect -- Decline of the Reflex -- Hunger, Fear, and Curiosity -- The Exploratory Drive IX PLAYING AND PR
ETENDING 509 Difficulties of Definition--The Ludic and the Ludicrous X PERCEPTION AND MEMORY 513 Screening the Input -- Stripping the Input -- Dismantling and Reassembling -- 'Coloured Filters' -- A Digression on Engrams -- Tracing a Melody -- Conditioning and Insight in Perception -- Abstract and Picture-strip -- Learning to See -- Knowing and Seeing -- Levels of Memory -- Image and Meaning -- Klangbild and Wortschatz -- Perceptual and Conceptual Abstraction -- Generalization, Discrimination, and Association -- Recognition and Recall -- Summary XI MOTOR SKILLS 544 Learning Hierarchies -- Summary: Rigidity and Freedom XII THE PITFALLS OF LEARNING THEORY 556 A Glance in Retrospect -- The Denial of Creativity -- The Advent of Gestalt -- Conditioning and Empirical Induction -- Do Insects have Insight? -- The Controversial Rat -- The Cat in the Box XIII THE PITFALLS OF GESTALT 573 More about Chimpanzees -- Uniform Factors in Learning -- Criteria of Insight Learning -- Preconditions of Insight -- The Ambiguities of Gestalt -- Putting Two and Two Together XIV LEARNING TO SPEAK 592 Intending and Saying -- The Dawn of Symbol Consciousness -- Concepts and Labels -- Ideation and Verbalization XV LEARNING TO THINK 606 Abstraction, Discrimination, and Transfer -- The Magic of Names -- The Rise of Causality -- Explaining and Understanding -- The Dawn of Mathematics -- The Dawn of Logics XVI SOME ASPECTS OF THINKING 630 Multi-dimensionality -- The Experience of Free Choice -- Degrees of Self-Awareness -- Master-Switches and Releasers -- Explicit Rules and Implicit Codes -- Matrix Categories XVII ASSOCIATION 642 Multiple Attunements -- Types of Association XVIII HABIT AND ORIGINALITY 649 Bridging the Gap -- Searching for a Code -- Degrees of Originality -- Association and Bisociation APPENDIX I ON LOADSTONES AND AMBER 661 APPENDIX II SOME FEATURES 0F GENIUS 674 1. THE SENSE OF WONDER 674 Aristotle on Motivation -- The Leaders of the Revolution -- Newton, Monster and Saint -- The Mysticism of Franklin -- The Fundamentalism of Faraday -- The Metaphysics of Maxwell -- The Atheism of Darwin -- The Faith of Pasteur 2. INNOCENCE AND EXPERIENCE 703 Precociousness -- Scepticism and Credulity -- Abstraction and Practicality -- Multiple Potentials References 709 Works Mentioned in this Book 717 Acknowledgements 729 Index 731
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
The first part of this book proposes a theory of the act of creation -- of the conscious and unconscious processes underlying scientific discovery, artistic originality, and comic inspiration. It endeavours to show that all creative activities have a basic pattern in common, and to outline that pattern.
The aim of Book Two is to show that certain basic principles operate throughout the whole organic hierarchy -- from the fertilized egg to the fertile brain of the creative individual; and that phenomena analogous to creative originality can be found on all levels.
Anyone who writes on a complex subject must learn that he cannot aim one arrow at two targets. Book One is aimed at the general reader; some of the chapters in Book Two presuppose a closer acquaintance with current trends in biology and experimental psychology, and are rather technical. There is an unavoidable difference in style between the two parts: in the first, I avoided pedantry at the cost of occasional lapses into a loose terminology; in the second this was not possible. Readers who find certain passages in the second part too technical can safely skip them and pick up the thread later on without losing sight of the general idea. Its leitmotifs are restated on various levels throughout the book.
It may seem a presumptuous undertaking to inquire into the biological origins of mental creativity when we are still unable to define the chemistry of a simple muscle twitch. But often in the history of ideas we find two opposite methods at work: the 'downward' approach from the complex to the elementary, from the whole to its component parts, and the 'upward' approach from part to whole. The emphasis on either of these methods may alternate according to philosophical fashion, until they meet and merge in a new synthesis. It would have been as impossible to build theoretical physics on a foundation of its elementary particles (which turn out to be more and more baffling) as it has proved impossible to build a theory of psychology on 'elementary reflexes' and 'atoms of behaviour'. Vice versa, without the assumption that complex matter consisted of atomic parts, whatever they are, physics and chemistry could not have evolved.
I have tried to combine both methods by choosing as my starting point a phenomenon which is at the same time complex and simple, in which a subtle intellectual process is signalled by a gross physiological reflex: the phenomenon of laughter. Humour is an elusive thing, so is the rainbow; yet the study of coloured spectra provided clues to the elementary structure of matter.
A preliminary outline of this theory was published in 1949 under the title Insight and Outlook. It was intended as the first of two volumes, and its preface contained the optimistic sentence: 'Volume Two is in preparation and will, it is hoped, appear twelve months after the first.' The twelve months have grown into fifteen years. Partly because I became involved with other subjects; but mainly because I felt dissatisfied with that first attempt, and felt the need to base the theory on a broader foundation. I kept returning to it in between other books, but each time the broadening process necessitated an excursion into some related field and, as often happens, these excursions acquired a momentum of their own. One chapter on 'man's changing vision of the universe' grew into a separate book of more than six hundred pages; [1] so did another chapter, on Eastern mysticism. [2] And when at last I felt ready to write that long-postponed second volume I found that I had to scrap the first and begin again at the beginning. The whole theoretical framework had to be revised and even the tmninology changed. Readers acquainted with Insight and Outlook will notice, however, that I have taken over, or paraphrased, passages from it which seem to have weathered the time; to avoid tedium I have omitted quotation marks. I have also incorporated into the text extracts from lectures given at English and American universities, with the kind permission of the authorities concerned.
Summaries appear at irregular intervals at the ends of chapters or sections where I felt that they might be helpful. Asterisks refer to text notes, index numbers to source references.
I have no illusions about the prospects of the theory I am proposing: it will suffer the inevitable fate of being proven wrong in many, or most, details, by new advances in psychology and neurology. What I am hoping for is that it will be found to contain a shadowy pattern of truth, and that it may stimulate those who search for unity, in the diverse manifestations of human thought and emotion.
I am deeply indebted to Professor Sir Cyril Burt, and to Professor Holger Hyden, University of Gothenburg, for reading the manuscript, for their corrections, criticisms and encouragement; to Professor Dennis Gabor, Imperial College, London, Dr. Alan McGlashan, St. George's Hospital, and Professor Michael Polanyi, Oxford, for many stimulating discussions on the subject of this book. My grateful thanks are further due to Dr. J. D. Cowan, Imperial College, for his criticism from the standpoint of Communication Theory; to Dr. Rodney Maliphant for surveying the literature on the psycho-physiology of weeping; to Dr. Christopher Wallis for compiling a bibliography on the same subject; and to Miss Edith Horsley for her patient and careful editorial work.
London, December 1963
The Act of Creation
BOOK ONE
THE ART OF DISCOVERY
AND THE DISCOVERIES OF ART
PART ONE
THE JESTER
I
THE LOGIC OF LAUGHTER
The Triptych
The three panels of the rounded triptych shown on the frontispiece indicate three domains of creativity which shade into each other without sharp boundaries: Humour, Discovery, and Art. The reason for this seemingly perverse order of arrangement -- the Sage flanked by the Jester and the Artist on opposite sides -- will become apparent as the argument unfolds.
Each horizontal line across the triptych stands for a pattern of creative activity which is represented on all three panels; for instance: comic comparison -- objective analogy -- poetic image. The first is intended to make us laugh; the second to make us understand; the third to
make us marvel. The logical pattern of the creative process is the same in all three cases; it consists in the discovery of hidden similarities. But the emotional climate is different in the three panels: the comic simile has a touch of aggressiveness; the scientist's reasoning by analogy is emotionally detached, i.e. neutral; the poetic image is sympathetic or admiring, inspired by a positive kind of emotion. I shall try to show that all patterns of creative activity are tri-valent: they can enter the service of humour, discovery, or art; and also, that as we travel across the triptych from left to right, the emotional climate changes by gradual transitions from aggressive to neutral to sympathetic and identificatory -- or, to put it another way, from an absurd through an abstract to a tragic or lyric view of existence. This may look like a basketful of wild generalizations but is meant only as a first indication of the direction in which the inquiry will move.
The panels on the diagram meet in curves to indicate that there are no clear dividing lines between them. The fluidity of the boundaries between Science and Art is evident, whether we consider Architecture, Cooking, Psychotherapy, or the writing of History. The mathematician talks of 'elegant' solutions, the surgeon of a 'beautiful' operation, the literary critic of 'two-dimensionar characters. Science is said to aim at Truth, Art at Beauty; but the criteria of Truth (such as verifiability and refutability) are not as clean and hard as we tend to believe, and the criteria of Beauty are, of course, even less so. A glance at the chart on p. 332 [Figure 10a] will indicate that we can arrange neighbouring provinces of science and art in series which show a continuous gradient from 'objective' to 'subjective', from 'verifiable truth' to 'aesthetic experience'. One gradient, for instance, leads from the so-called exact sciences like chemistry through biochemistry to biology, then through medicine -- which is, alas, a much less exact science -- to psychology, through anthropology to history, through biography to the biographical novel, and so on into the abyss of pure fiction. As we move along the sloping curve, the dimension of 'objective verifiability' is seen to diminish steadily, and the intuitive or aesthetic dimension to increase. Similar graded series lead from construction engineering through architecture and interior design to the hybrid 'arts and crafts' and finally to the representative arts; here one variable of the curve could be called 'utility', the second 'beauty'. The point of this game is to show that regardless of what scale of values you choose to apply, you will move across a continuum without sharp breaks; there are no frontiers where the realm of science ends and that of art begins, and the uomo universale of the Renaissance was a citizen of both.