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Ideas are thoughts, we are participating in their emergence all the time, and they are wonderful things. Some of these thoughts can become very clear and others are far more nebulous: feels, hunches – perhaps even just a pull. The important questions for us are: (1) where do ideas come from? and (2) how do ideas relate to creative processes?
The common assumption is that ideas come from our thinking and that this happens exclusively in our brains. But this approach to cognition is now understood to be false. Cognition is a distributed process that is (1) embodied (our unique skilled social bodies play a critical role), (2) extended (the tools we use – from language to smartphones transformatively shapes/enables thinking), (3) embedded (the specifics of the environment and the others that are in that environment all catalyze and enable the specifics of thinking), (4) enacted (what we are doing, and how we are doing things as an ongoing meaningful activity give rise to cognition as an activity).
Ideas involve the clear and distinct use of language to articulate a concept, abstraction, or plan for action. They play an important role in thinking and creativity. Often ideas are proposed as both a critical part of the definition of creativity and as the beginning of the creative process. Neither is true.
Creativity is the process by which anything new comes into being. This, such as in the case of the creative process of the Big Bang, does not have to involve ideas of any kind. And as the creativity paradox has shown, ideas can only emerge late in the creative process (if at all). Ideas are never at the origin of newness or radical creativity.
The idea of the new comes later in the creative process — often quite late or even enters the process mistakenly...
To get at how ideas only come later in the creative process, we like to say, "no ideas but in making."
Thinking arises from the middle of activity. This understanding changes how ideas relate to the creative process. Very often, it is assumed that ideas are what are needed at the beginning of the creative process. And that after we have a novel idea, only then do we come up with a plan and make it real. This “ideate-plan-make” approach to creativity is a direct consequence of the role the “god model” has played in the development of western approaches to creativity.
To effectively understand the important role ideas do play in the creative process the first key question is: how do ideas emerge in thinking? (See “Know-How”). And to answer that we need to first explore the question: what is thinking? (See “Thinking – Cognition”)
To get at this enactive approach to ideas we like to say: “no ideas but in making”. Thinking arises from the middle of activity.
This changes how ideas relate to the creative process. Very often, it is assumed that ideas are what are needed at the beginning of the creative process. And that after we have a novel idea, only then do we come up with a plan and make it real. This “ideate-plan-make” approach to creativity is a direct consequence of the role the “god model” has played in the development of western approaches to creativity.
Novel ideas emerge during creative processes – but they are not there at the beginning, nor do they initiate and drive the process. New ideas emerge as feelings provoked by actions, circumstances, and context. To have a new idea, we need to do things in new ways—to experimentally probe. New ideas first emerge as “know-how"—as practices that cannot be clearly articulated (and often cannot be articulated whatsoever!). And then some aspects of know-how can be (with great skill) transformed into articulable concepts (or “know-what”).
The fundamental problem with putting ideation at the beginning of any creative process is that if something is genuinely new, there are no words, concepts or representations for it. And if ideation requires some very loose form of concepts or images, then one can never ideate the radically new. Ideation is an inherently conservative practice. We term this “the creativity paradox”.
See also: Creativity, The God Model, Enaction, Blocking
