Where do ideas come from? The question has intrigued philosophers, scientists, and artists for centuries.
Mathematicians sometimes describe their findings as though they were exploring a landscape that existed long before they did. Composers speak of melodies that seem to come to them from somewhere beyond themselves. Writers sometimes find that their characters take on lives of their own, behaving in ways their creators hadn’t anticipated. Such experiences appear to support the discovered view, according to which a creative work exists in some abstract realm of possibilities, and its creator gradually uncovers it. This resembles Platonism: the idea that mathematical truths, and perhaps other abstract structures, exist independently of our awareness of them.
Yet it seems counterintuitive that if Shakespeare hadn’t written Hamlet, or Beethoven hadn’t composed his Fifth Symphony, these works would still have existed somewhere, waiting for someone else to find them. The discovered view is generally contrasted with the invented view, according to which it is the creator who brings the work into existence. In this view, when you write a story, you usher it into being with each decision you make about what happens next.
I think neither view precisely captures the creative process. To resolve this puzzle, we may need to reconsider something we usually take for granted: the nature of potentiality.
What Changes as a Work Takes Shape?
Imagine a sculptor contemplating an unhewn stone. Every sculpture that could be carved from it is “possible.” The stone could become a bear, a human, or abstract art. In this sense, each of the endless possibilities that are latent (i.e., that lie dormant) in the stone could be said to “exist.”
But these possibilities are not equally probable, and moreover, their relative probabilities shift as sculpting proceeds. The sculptor brings to the task particular interests and skills, as well as a predilection to pay attention to and be inspired by certain aspects of the stone. Perhaps a smooth bump suggests the curve of a delicate shoulder, and the sculptor starts envisioning it as an angel or ballerina. But as the carving proceeds, the sculptor notices that the middle of the region where the face should go is red, and becomes increasingly excited by the idea that the red region would make a great clown nose. Features such as an exaggerated smile and a flower-adorned cap, which were initially unlikely, become increasingly probable. Over time, the clown possibility becomes more likely, and conversely, as more stone is removed, other possibilities become physically impossible.
At each step of the journey, the sculptor’s next action is influenced by two factors: (1) the sculptor’s developing mental model (or conception) of the sculpture, and (2) the unfolding physical state of the unfinished sculpture itself. The interplay of these two factors results in the series of actions by which, out of endless initial possibilities, eventually just one remains.
In short, it’s in some sense true that the final sculpture in all its idiosyncratic detail existed as a possibility for that stone from the start. This appears to support the discovered view. However, it’s also true that the final clown sculpture did not exist in the sculptor’s mind as a well-defined option that got chosen from amongst other possible options. And this appears to support the invented view.
What gives?
Possibility Versus Potentiality
A potential resolution to this paradox can be found by turning from possibility to potentiality. The resolution proposed here is consistent with the theory that reality is potentiality as proposed in my last piece; however, it doesn’t depend on whether this theory is correct.
The stone had the potential to become the particular clown sculpture that eventually emerged, but initially this outcome was highly improbable. As sculpting proceeded, its probability increased, conditional on the evolving state of both the sculptor’s mind and the sculpture itself.
New possibilities need not come into existence for potentiality to change. Potentiality concerns not just what is possible, but the relative probabilities (or perhaps amplitudes) of different outcomes. These probabilities change as the creative process unfolds. Moreover, an initially vague idea need not consist of a set of well-defined possibilities; these may themselves become differentiated as the idea takes shape.
For example, when we write a story, devise a scientific explanation, or compose music, an idea may begin as a vague intuition, a sense that there’s something worth pursuing without knowing quite what it is. As we consider it from different perspectives, certain aspects come into focus, suggesting possibilities that hadn’t previously occurred to us. These possibilities may emerge from the depths of our unconscious, beyond reach until now, when we find ourselves in a situation where they’ve become relevant. They may have existed in principle all along, but their probability of being realized was formerly negligible.
Honing New Possibilities Into Existence
Honing theory, an account of creativity I’ve been developing for some time (discussed in detail in my book Dawn of the Creative Mind), proposes that creative ideas take shape through successive steps consisting of interactions between (1) the creator’s current internal conception of the idea, and (2) new perspectives or ways of looking at or thinking about it that come to mind (e.g., how would my teacher take it from here?). This interaction is often influenced by a tangible external expression of the idea, such as the sculpture (e.g., perhaps the red part could be a clown nose). Each such step alters the conception of the idea, making some potential outcomes more probable, and others less so.
These interactions are guided by the creator’s world-model: their integrated understanding of themselves and the world, including what they don’t understand or accept or are currently wrestling with. A world-model includes not just conscious elements that you can access voluntarily, but elements brewing below the threshold of awareness: a painful memory, forbidden desire, or simply a pattern or connection you’d perceived at some level but never before had any reason to bring to mind. For example, perhaps the sculptor had a fear of or admiration for clowns, and the experience of creating one from stone helps them come to terms with the fear or find their own “inner clown.” Thus, each new conception of the idea may, in turn, alter the creator’s world-model; creators speak of achieving a greater sense of wholeness or integration as they create.
Summing Up
This resolution to the “invented versus discovered” debate doesn’t definitively settle the question of whether every conceivable idea exists in some timeless abstract realm. It does, however, offer a way to reconcile the two traditional answers.
Creative works are invented to the extent that our decisions and actions shape what comes into existence, altering the relative probabilities of subsequent outcomes. And they’re discovered to the extent that possibilities emerge that we hadn’t anticipated, arising from interactions between our evolving conception of the work and new perspectives that come to mind, sometimes without conscious awareness. People who follow a preconceived path to the completion of their creative work (those whom creative writers refer to as “planners”) may resonate more with the invented view. Those who are more open to the new possibilities that spontaneously emerge as the creative process proceeds (those whom creative writers refer to as “pantsers,” as in “by the seat of their pants”) may resonate more with the discovered view.
The resolution proposed here also suggests that each traditional answer misses something essential about the creative process. The discovered view misses that whether something gets created depends not just on whether it is possible in theory, but on whether it becomes sufficiently probable within the creator’s mind to influence—consciously or unconsciously—the creative process. And the invented view misses that creators aren’t fully aware of the contents of their own minds, particularly possibilities that depend on conditions that haven’t arisen yet.
