So this weekend I decided that Tuesday is the new Friday night as I opted to check out one of the free public lectures at the London School of Economics.
Sadly I didn't follow my father or brother in to the world of finance and if I'm honest I've never been fussed about economics. However, thanks to a random spot on Facebook, I discovered that the university happened to be hosting a debate right up my street - the creative mind.
Now I'm a firm believer that each and every one of us has some inkling of creativity in our minds. Unfortunately we are just not that great at accessing this creativity nor are we given many opportunities to do so as we are a society obsessed with fact over fiction.
Unluckily for society I love fiction and take every opportunity to be creative or as my friends describe it "hyperactive." It also happens to come in handy as my profession requires a good bit of creativity.
With a prime position in the lecture theatre (has it really been four years since I last stepped in to the educational arena?) I embraced the philosophical, psychological and linguistically to explain creativity.
Chaired by Dr Kristina Musholt we were overwhelmed by the knowledge and passion of the expert panel. Professor Margaret Boden, Research Professor of Cognitive Science, broke down the word 'creative' in to three key words - new, surprising and valuable. A sleep deprived Professor Nicholas Royle, professor of English, created anagrams from the word creative, but the most thought provoking was philosophy professor Gregory Currie.
He listed four ways to look at creativity which will now shape how I think in the future.
1. Don't think of creativity as special
2. Don't over-intellectualise creativity
3. Don't think exclusively about individuals
4. Creativity has cognitive costs
Check out the LSE website, www.lse.ac.uk, to find out more about their public lectures and to see what's coming up!
No comments:
Post a Comment