There are many considerations about the origins of creative thinking, but their adequacy is questionable due to the fact that, for example, until now, these considerations do not imply a relationship between creative people and people who are simply smart, which are distributed from hatred and envy to relatively friendly, but nevertheless zealous cooperation.
The emergence of the artificial intelligence (AI) allows us to finally eliminate the still prevailing misconception that people with a high IQ (intelligence quotient) are more focused on understanding the world around them than others, allowing a person to think rationally.
Of course, the high IQ allows us to think rationally, but they do not always allow us to discover something new.
The fact is that IQ characterizes a person"s mind by its speed, the volume of short-term memory, and the combination of images received that is understandable to a person, but it is these indicators that characterize the capabilities of AI, manifested in digital form, which immeasurably exceed the capabilities of the mind of any person, if, of course, we take the IQ indicator of a person as the basis for the effectiveness of his thinking.
But, on the other hand, IQ did not fall out of thin air, but emerged as a completely adequate characteristic of people who are certainly smart, but, as is now clear, smart within the framework of the characteristics indicated above.
Who are these people who were considered the smartest before the advent of AI?
Apparently, they included all the so-called intellectuals, that is, scientists, effective managers and businessmen, highly qualified engineering and medical personnel, leading lawyers, art historians with degrees, famous writers and artists, as well as those who lead us.
A significant part of them really has outstanding thinking abilities, being able to cover and systematize various objects and phenomena in their field of activity and even sometimes penetrating into the details and connections of discovered phenomena, formulating certain patterns in accordance with the rules of logic. They also quite often have a significant amount of memory, are able to quickly make quite adequate decisions. However, these widely educated and intelligent people, due to certain reasons, not necessarily completely, but nevertheless, find it difficult to search for non-obvious knowledge, being able, at best, to combine the known in new combinations.
However, their inability to create is mainly due to a low degree of dissatisfaction with the surrounding, which attracts them to adapt mainly to what they have.
True, some of them try to go beyond the known, and they succeed, but these people are not just smart, but also gifted to a certain extent, which allows them to productively satisfy their interest in creativity. In other words, people with a predominantly logical way of thinking may have a certain amount of creativity, but, due to a relatively low degree of dissatisfaction with the surrounding, they still prefer to adapt to what is.
As a consequence of such a degree of dissatisfaction with the surrounding, a significant part of intellectual workers has levels of both the animal component of consciousness and self-consciousness that do not reach values that require mandatory renewal of the environment by searching for something new. That is, such people, no matter what they think of themselves, belong to the conservative-conformist stratum of society, and mostly pay attention only to themselves, trying not to notice the troubles and misfortunes around them, and also rarely express displeasure to their superiors, despite all antics of the superiors.
In other words, they lack a passionate desire to learn something new and persistence in discovering it, although many of these "intellectuals" work in the field of science and may have certain abilities. The absence of such a desire cannot but lead them, in particular, in science, at best, to verification, justification, systematization and further development of new ideas and phenomena discovered by creative personalities, but often, for the sake of strengthening their own status and well-being, they try under various pretexts or using connections or a leadership position to ingratiate themselves with the discoverers or simply imitate creative activity.
Such intellectuals can be very smart indeed, possessing developed logical thinking, a good memory, the ability to instantly orient themselves and coherently express certain judgments. Therefore, they feel great when teaching children, young people and students. There are many of them among cultural figures, which they try to lead or, at least, instruct artists and writers, not understanding their own narrowness, but making up rather numerous army of the so-called intelligentsia in developed countries, although they prefer to call themselves intellectuals.
All these persons may be interested in this or that activity, have good mental abilities in terms of logic, possess a strong will, developed abstract thinking, excellent memory, large and varied experience and even some giftedness. But the lack of creativity, based on the ratio of a high degree of dissatisfaction with the animal component of consciousness and almost the same degree of dissatisfaction with the altruistic component of dissatisfaction with self-consciousness, can raise these "intellectuals" in terms of cognition only to the level of combinatorics, as well as a sensible explanation of what has already been discovered or invented by others.
Be that as it may, these people create a significant amount of useful things that improve the lives of the population, and to some extent ensure technological and scientific progress.
However, now these people, who in the eyes of the rest of the population represented the elite of society, have turned out to be completely replaceable by AI. It copes with this work much better and does not need to be paid a salary equivalent to the wages of tens of millions of "intellectuals".
Isn't this a disaster for them, and not only for them, but for the entire society, from which the usual foundation seems to disappear, if, of course, we rely on pragmatism, the consequence of which is the replacement of "intellectuals" with the artificial intelligence.
On the other hand, AI has clearly demonstrated not only the limited capabilities of high-IQ intellectuals in terms of development and cognition, but also the unlimited capabilities of people whom AI cannot replace and who very often are not part of this elite, but exist either on their own or combine their work with a kind of hobby in the form of invention, moreover, their IQ may be not high.
The artificial intelligence cannot replace them because the formal-logical way of processing and using information, which is also inherent in the overwhelming majority of "intellectuals", is not characteristic as the only one for these creative people, whose direction of thinking goes beyond the framework of formal-logical thinking, and it is useless in itself for the process of cognition in relation to the discovery of non-obvious connections, phenomena, relationships, and therefore can only serve as an auxiliary tool for those who are striving for something new, even in the case of their not very high IQ.
Practice shows that for every true master-creator or discoverer there are many specialists who, at best, formalise, implement or develop his invention or discovery, and at worst, try to ingratiate themselves with him, which is especially typical for the scientific class, or even try to push him into the background, promoting their own, less valuable developments.
And in general, they all envy these same creative people to one degree or another, since some of these smart and reasonable people, as they do not try, cannot get or produce anything new, just as AI cannot do this. But it, nevertheless, is deprived of the feeling of envy, as well as all other feelings, and these "intellectuals" cannot tolerate the superiority of creative individuals who organize progress, and very often quietly hate them, and on occasion, try to remove them away from themself, humiliate or harm them even after their death.
The feeling of envy of such intellectuals has always been ineradicable in relation to creative persons. And, indeed, their uselessness in relation to the discovery of something new has been clearly demonstrated by artificial intelligence. It is only a question of degree.
The explanation for this phenomenon, as well as the commitment of some to the formal-logical way of thinking, and others, predominantly to the creative one, is embedded in the dual nature of human consciousness, the animal component of which, prone to dominance at the slightest opportunity, cannot be eliminated, as and the awareness of one's incapacity or capacity in terms of creativity, which is not artificially reproduced.
The paradoxical thing is that this same animal component of the consciousness of a person, but at a higher level, is the basis of his creative activity, but only in combination with a high level of altruism of self-consciousness, that gives a person, unlike animals, an understanding of himself as a self-active subject who has not only needs, but also various interests and values.
Behind both lies dissatisfaction with the animal component of consciousness and self-consciousness, respectively.
If the dissatisfaction of the animal component of the human consciousness by birth (the corresponding genome and brain structure) is oriented toward dominance in relation to consumption within the framework of adaptability, rather than searching for new sources of consumption and dominance, and at the same time the parts of the brain responsible for voluntary thinking are underdeveloped, and the parts of the brain to which formal-logical thinking is accountable function perfectly, then before you appears a ready-made intellectual, enjoying life in all its manifestations, except for creativity, which is actually inaccessible to him.
This intellectual may be smart enough to understand his shortcoming and try to eliminate it in order to expand the range of his interests and even become famous for his future discoveries, but is forced at best to be a support to creative individuals, regardless of the position he occupies.
Therefore, the feeling of an inescapable, unrealizable dissatisfaction with regard to creativity makes the "intellectual" to one degree or another envious, cunning and insidious, which leads him to one extreme - to rage and wild hatred of creative people, especially if they are successful, which most often manifests itself in representatives of the cultural sphere, who often use the vilest methods to slander a talented rival.
This is explained by a strong egocentric element of dissatisfaction with the animal component of the consciousness of this intellectual with a very weak share of altruism of self-consciousness in him.
At the other extreme, the feeling of an inescapable, unrealizable dissatisfaction with creativity leads the "intellectual" to form a ersatz of creativity, that is, to replace creativity with possession, which is expressed, for example, by buying a doctorate or, at worst, by insinuating oneself, if possible, into a group of inventors or discoverers, collecting masterpieces of painting, autographs of great people or rare cars that were not created by him, but seized by him with the appropriate means, in order to at least compensate for his incapacity in terms of creativity and at the same time to gain fame in society.
Creative individuals, and they can be smart or not so smart and not even very educated, as a rule, prefer not long reflections, not systematization of facts and phenomena, that is, not rational actions, but spontaneous actions or actions in which the set goal can be achieved at once, as if by intuition, although, of course, they have to work hard in acquiring craft skills and gaining experience. And they are attracted to such activities not from the position of consuming some goods - they are interested in the process of obtaining something new, unknown.
Similar instantaneous response to a threat without thinking is characteristic of any type of purely natural consciousness, the owner of which, as a rule, does not have time for lengthy reflections, for which his brain, if there is one, is not adapted, otherwise he will be devoured. It is this property that has been preserved in the animal component of the human consciousness and the degree of its awakening is highest for creative individuals, manifesting itself mainly in instantaneous insights.
In essence, the creativity manifests itself only with the above-mentioned relationship of animal consciousness (subconsciousness) and self-consciousness, accompanied by some giftedness, finding itself in the corresponding interest, which is an enduring stimulus for creativity.
It is creativity that is the main property of thinking that does not allow the driving force of development to stop, manifested in the struggle of opposing aspirations of self-consciousness in its altruistic component and the animal component of the human consciousness with its egocentrism; and the source of all this is a high degree of dissatisfaction with both components of consciousness - self-consciousness and its animal component, moreover, the spontaneity of the latter's manifestation in thinking prevails over the logical constructions characteristic of awareness of a particular phenomenon or event.
The process of discovering something new repeatedly accelerates the development of the human communities and, together with them, consciousness itself, which cannot be guaranteed by the logical-formalized approach used also by rhe artificial intelligence, which does not have consciousness, but can be ensured, as a rule, by insight (intuition). Logic, intelligence, that is, the analytical-synthetic properties of the brain, only help to prepare for insight and systematize the results of insight with their appropriate framing.
However, the mass nature of invention (the number of patents for inventions in the world) does not mean the widespread implementation of these innovations, which is often hindered by the conservatism of society and the limited resources.
In addition, quantity here is not able to turn into quality, that is, into high efficiency and significance due to the impossibility of providing resources for everything offered within the framework of competitive struggle, which is not always fair.
Therefore, the most significant achievements for science, technology and art throughout the entire time of civilization are comparatively few in number.
The point is that their authors need not only some conditions, but also they need a high degree of their own giftedness, which arises due to a random combination of certain fields and subfields of the brain, the presence and size of the latter, as well as the corresponding knowledge, skills, experience, mastery of one or another method of entering into insight. Even more rarely, a proportionality of the interests and abilities of a person is created, guaranteeing a stable desire for the set goal, despite its apparent unattainability at first.
Be that as it may, but at the basis of creativity lies the intense dissatisfaction of their animal component of consciousness, which demands to dominate among its own kind, since the specific person has such abilities and opportunities, and self-consciousness in this case as if agrees with the animal component of consciousness, supporting it in this aspiration for the time of insight.
Obviously, the basis for creativity can be such a structure of the information processing and body control center (brain), which, unlike the information processing center of artificial intelligence, is capable of both logical and arbitrary thinking.
Such combination based on sensations, creating a strong-willed impulse that keeps a person in his labor-intensive aspiration for discoveries, makes, in principle, any person capable of creativity.
True, the extremely diverse structure of the human brain makes the scale of creativity quite stretched. Therefore, only a small part of people know how to use it quite effectively. In addition, the problem of survival and poverty does not allow the majority of the population to join this intellectual sphere of activity.
Thus, a high degree of dissatisfaction of the animal component of consciousness with the existing surrounding, combined with a high degree of dissatisfaction of the human self-consciousness with the existing surrounding with a considerable share of altruism in self-consciousness , are oriented together both towards their own separation in society from the flow of gray individuals (personal dominance), and towards bringing benefit to the entire collective (society), which is most of all - and creative individuals are well aware of this - facilitated by the construction of a new reality through non-obvious solutions.
These solutions can be relatively simple, but incredibly original, improving only everyday life, or they can fundamentally change the current reality, as, for example, the Internet has done.
More details about smart, but not creative people, and creative individuals, creativity itself, intuition (insight, or illumination), characteristic of creative individuals, the features of the artificial intelligence and the difference in its functioning from the thinking of animals and humans can be read in my earlier works.
Now it is worthwhile to support with examples the above-stated considerations about the sources and peculiarities of thinking of creative people, as well as the thinking of simply smart people, described above, who, in general, show themselves well in science and art, consolidating the discoveries of creative individuals, known to all for their outstanding achievements, but who, at the same time, often cannot get rid of jealousy of their creative partners or rivals, since they understand that it is not they in their vast majority, but namely the comparatively few creators of the new, which "intellectuals" would like to be, who actually ensure the scientific, technological and cultural development of society, entering the annals of history of grateful posterity.
F. Dostoevsky and N. Strakhov
Dostoevsky, unlike the overwhelming majority of his fellow writers, was not only exceptionally gifted by birth, which was reflected in his literary work with its all-encompassing scale and extraordinary depth of penetration into the human soul, but he was also incredibly offended and shocked by life.
In his youth, he stood on the parade ground, saying goodbye to life before the inevitable shooting for participating in circle of Petrashevsky, where the serfdom was being condemned, socialist ideas were being promoted of socialist ideas and was being supposed establish an underground printing house. However, the execution was completely unexpectedly for him at the last moment replaced by the penal servitude.
In the penal servitude, Dostoevsky was more than one year in the cold and hunger with the same poor fellows, and he understood a lot about their character and about himself, turning knowledge which he received into insight and versatility that amazed his readers in the future.
In addition, Dostoevsky suffered from epileptic seizures all his life, having acquired this disease in the same penal servitude, which has shortened his life, and which regularly threw him to the sidelines of consciousness, but sometimes helped him to expand his consciousness to its maximum values.
To top it off later, because of his kindness and decency, he took on significant debts of his older brother, thereby falling into bondage to ruthless lenders, who persecuted him almost until the end of his life, forcing him to often sit on hungry rations with his family.
However, all these misfortunes served as the basis for the originality and amazing depth of Dostoevsky's approach to the human soul. This approach was carried out by him, as a rule, by placing his heroes in border situations, in which he himself fell.
That is, the unusualness and at the same time vitality, completeness and amazing perfection of the description of events and the inner world of the heroes of Dostoevsky's novels manifested themselves not only due to his giftedness, but also life collisions, illness and his own experience of constant suffering.
Therefore, each hero of his novels was being passed through the soul of the writer, who poured himself entirely into the image of this hero and what was happening to him, which, apparently, in addition to the admiration of readers, caused ill-wishers and envious people to accuse Dostoevsky by oneself of committing the crimes of the heroes he created, and therefore so convincingly described them.
It is curious that all these envious people, of whom there are still many, belong exclusively to smart person, who, despite their mind, have not reached the heights of creativity, and not to literary geniuses, and the latter, indeed, often argued with each other, but they did not do any meanness to their great rivals in creativity.
Whatever, Dostoevsky's appearance in the literary series so amazed the reading public both in Russia and in the cultural and pragmatic West, which did not expect such a unique phenomenon, which had not been seen in the world before, that Dostoevsky was ranked among such geniuses of world literature as Shakespeare and Leo Tolstoy, staying in this row until now.
The intellectuals of the Western world, although they have read all of Dostoevsky's works and even studied his correspondence, thereby learning about the existence of such a strange world in their eyes as Russia, still have not been able to understand what causes the tossing and turning of the "Russian soul" - restless and always striving somewhere, but not always for a specific benefit so familiar to the West.
Dostoevsky's highest literary achievements are due in no small part to the fact that he intuitively, that is, beyond any logic, came to understand the ineradicable duality of the human soul (consciousness), which always manifests itself, on the one hand, in a beast-like manner, and on the other - close to holiness, but merged in such a way that sometimes one side of the same person's consciousness unexpectedly comes to the surface, then the other. And often this same person does not understand why so happened.
In particular, Dostoevsky brilliantly and with unusual poignancy showed such action in two of his works, "Crime and Punishment" and "The Idiot".
In the first, he debunked the superman, who was brought into the world by Nietzsche approximately at the same time.
Dostoevsky demonstrated the transformation of a completely decent, educated and cultured young man into a beast in the desire to separate from the philistines for the sake of getting into the category of those who can do anything because of their magnificent qualities of mind and the height of their "flight". Along with that, Dostoevsky, relying on his penal experience, led his hero to repentance for what he had done, who, after much reflection, became convinced of the absurdity of the desire to separate from the established being and his own nature, which is not capable of being absolutely shameless and ruthless.
That is, in essence, Dostoevsky showed the compatibility and at the same time the heterogeneity and dynamism of the animal and noble-human components of consciousness, incapable of separation.
In the novel "The Idiot" Dostoevsky did the opposite. He showed us a man of the highest soul, kindness, empathy, who wants to lead everyone he meets to goodness and happiness, considering it possible, but who not only does not achieve this, but also loses his own personality, going crazy.
Equally high qualities of Dostoevsky's soul and his extraordinary talent coexisted, due to constant illness and financial troubles, with his certain irritability and anxiety, which was noted by his contemporaries. He himself, perfectly understanding his importance and uniqueness, sometimes allowed himself to speak unflatteringly about literary figures who were untalented, who, nevertheless, moved in literary circles, mainly engaged in criticism and other research, although without any special discoveries.
Such was the well-known at that time N. N. Strakhov - a very intelligent, educated and dexterous gentleman, who knew how to present himself and gain the trust of outstanding personalities, and about him literary achievements Dostoevsky once has spoken quite objectively with a dismissive tone.
Strakhov visited Dostoevsky and other outstanding writers of that time for a long time, participated in the work of literary circles, worked in magazines, was engaged in criticism and even wrote two natural science works "The World as a Whole" and "On the Basic Concepts of Psychology and Physiology", as well as a critical work "On the History of Literary Nihilism".
In addition, Strakhov translated into Russian the works: K. Fisher "The History of New Philosophy," I. Teng "On Mind and Cognition," A. Brem "The Life of Birds."
Strakhov's works were not noticed by contemporaries, apparently due to in them lack of at least some discoveries, as well as inexpressiveness, without arousing the lively interest of readers.
As a literary critic, Strakhov, when first getting acquainted with Dostoevsky's work, assessed him quite objectively in the journal "Otechestvennye Zapiski" (1867), noting the following regarding the novel Crime and Punishment: "... the capacity for very broad sympathy, the ability to sympathize with life in its very base manifestations, insight, capable of discovering truly human movements in souls distorted and suppressed, apparently, to the end." In addition, Strakhov noted the subtlety of Dostoevsky's depiction of the inner life of people in a state of stress and the spiritual struggle in each person of healthy forces and internal ailments.
But after he learned of Dostoevsky's mocking and at the same time objective assessment of his literary work, he harbored a grudge against him, taking it out on him in a letter to L. N. Tolstoy after Dostoevsky's death.
In this letter, he, an educated and even refined man, behaved like a spiteful savage, who, in his impotence before the genius, having endowed him with all conceivable vices, invented or exaggerated by him, which simply cannot be rationally explained, although, if we turn to the duality of human consciousness, then Strakhov's literary failures in comparison with Dostoevsky's successes in literature could not help but cause in his animal component of consciousness the aspiration to defame Dostoevsky and thereby forever topple him from the pedestal of literary geniuses, since genius and villainy are incompatible.
This aspiration was supported by Strakhov's realization that true literary creativity, taking for the soul of every reader, was inaccessible to him, quite naturally causing first envy, and then hatred and a desire to crush genius, dishonoring him forever.
In our opinion, this example shows that between creative people and people who are only smart and educated there is always an invisible barrier in the form of creative people's awareness of their superiority in discovering new things in front of the smart and agile. And those, despite all their everyday and career achievements, often grind their teeth, realizing for themselves the inaccessibility of creativity, which alone can give a remarkable and developed person true satisfaction, and they in the event of a significant dominance in them of the animal component of consciousness with its egocentrism and dissatisfaction with self-awareness with a small degree of altruism, they can offend, to belittle and even try to destroy the creative personality, if not physically, then having humiliated and slandered him.
Lev Landau and Evgeny Lifshitz
Landau's achievements.
In 1927, he introduced the concept of "density matrix" into quantum mechanics.
In 1930, he created the theory of electron diamagnetism of metals.
In 1933, he predicted the existence of an antiferromagnetic state of magnets
In 1936-37, he created the theory of second-order phase transitions and the theory of the intermediate state of superconductors.
In 1940-41, he created the theory of superfluidity of liquid helium, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics.
In 1941, he created the theory of quantum liquid.
In 1946, he created the theory of electron plasma oscillations (Landau damping).
1957 - creation of the Fermi liquid theory.
1957 - description of the weak interaction.
Participation in joint research
In 1935, together with E. Lifshitz, he developed the theory of the domain structure of ferromagnets and derived the equation of motion of the magnetic moment.
In 1957, together with V. Ginzburg, he constructed the theory of superconductivity.
Achievements of Lifshitz.
In 1946, he constructed the theory of instabilities in the expanding Universe.
In 1954, he developed the theory of molecular forces acting between condensed bodies.
Participation in joint research
In 1935, together with L. Landau, he developed the theory of the domain structure of ferromagnets and derived the equation of motion of the magnetic moment.
In 1970-72, together with I. Khalatnikov and V. Belinsky, he found the general cosmological solution to Einstein's equations with a singularity in time.
Participated in theoretical calculations for the creation of atomic weapons.
Participated in editing the journal "Experimental and Theoretical Physics".
Participated in compiling a course on theoretical physics.
From the list of achievements of both physicists, the highest degree of creativity of Landau and the comparatively low level of creativity of Lifshitz, who either participated in certain studies or developed theories under the guidance of the same Landau, are quite clearly visible.
This also implies the much higher degree of Landau"s talent compared to Lifshitz, and Lifshitz"s clearly greater inclination towards calculated, descriptive editorial work indicates his preference to a formal-logical type of thinking, whereas Landau always avoided even writing articles, asking for help in this matter from friends and partners, including the same Lifshitz, striving to spend his time on purely research activities, which, judging by his discoveries, did not do it within the framework of a logic alone.
Therefore, for Landau, Lifshitz was an ideal partner in scientific work, perfectly educated, understanding everything and grasping Landau's ideas on the fly, framing them accordingly.
Naturally, Landau could not help but treat Lifshitz, at best, condescendingly, and Lifshitz, who eventually became an academician thanks to Landau, could only endure, although during the extinction of Landau after a car accident, Lifshitz could not stand it and tested his mentor in relation to mental abilities, making sure with satisfaction for himself in their fall.
Thus, the dominance of the animal component of consciousness on the part of the creator often involuntarily breaks through in a condescending, and sometimes contemptuous of his partner, despite all the merits of the latter, and on the part of the younger partner, the unattainable superiority is also being expressed involuntarily or not in a greater or lesser extent by a feeling of envy, since, despite its outstanding mind in terms of logical constructions, this mind is not capable of producing such a number of magnificent and unusual ideas. Hence the satisfaction at the collapse of this creative mind.