The Philosophy of Creativity

Rick Lewis asks what's new in this fascinating field

How can you be more creative? What is the connection between creativity and inspiration? Where do inspirations come from? The novelist Terry Pratchett, who knew a thing or two about

imagination, had an amusing theory about this, as follows: “Little particles of inspiration sleet through the universe all the time travelling through the densest matter in the same way that a neutrino passes through a candy floss haystack, and most of them miss.”

In a more earnest vein, Robert Pirsig wrote in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974) about the relationship between the mechanic’s mind, hand and eye, as one of constantly assessing a problem and making the changes that seems to be called for, and then reassessing and making further changes, in a continually unfolding creative process. This process, Pirsig claimed, was what united motorcycle mechanics with sculptors and other artists.