Why Do We Need Creativity?

Thoughtrip
Jul 27, 2017 · 3 min read

Creativity

kriːeɪˈtɪvɪti/noun

noun: creativity

the use of imagination or original ideas to create something; inventiveness.

Daniel Kahneman wrote in famously in his award winning book “Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow” about the two systems of the brain:

System 1: Fast, automatic, frequent, emotional, stereotypic, subconscious

System 2: Slow, effortful, infrequent, logical, calculating, conscious

System 1 is what we can call the autopilot mode of the brain while System 2 is the more reflective side taking conscious decisions. System 1 is the program manager of our brain who has to make quick and efficient decisions. And since it has to its work really quickly. It, like a good manager, has come up with efficient shortcuts to achieve that. But the the down side of shortcuts is that the shortcuts might actually cause biases in the system of perception or judgement. And our System 1 is actually influenced by our own cognitive biases. Cognitive biases are a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment, where inferences about other people and situations are drawn. Individuals create their own subjective social reality from their perception of the input. An individual’s construction of social reality, not the objective input, may dictate their behaviour in the social world.

Thus, cognitive biases may sometimes lead to perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, illogical interpretation, or what is broadly called irrationality.

Basically to put it down simply, cognitive biases are our deep consolidated judgements and reinforced associations.

And how we reach cognitive biases ? — Heuristics.

In psychology, heuristics are simple, efficient rules which people often use to form judgments and make decisions. They are mental shortcuts that usually involve focusing on one aspect of a complex problem and ignoring others.These rules work well under most circumstances, but they can lead to systematic deviations from logic. The resulting errors are called “cognitive biases” and many different types have been documented. These have been shown to affect people’s choices in situations like valuing a house, deciding the outcome of a legal case, or making an investment decision. Heuristics usually govern automatic, intuitive judgments but can also be used as deliberate mental strategies when working from limited information.

In our day to day life, we work mostly from the autopilot mode. Most of our day is well rehearsed for a good amount of time. Usually on a given day when we get up in the morning, our routine is pretty predictable. We usually do not have an existential crisis on whether we need to brush our teeth or take a bath or get to work on time. These activities are well rehearsed and play out like they have a life of their own. That is our System 1 in command.

But quite obviously all our tasks throughout our day do not play in a similar fashion. Some days, we are getting late and need to figure a newer route or way to get to work or think of an creative excuse to be late. Somedays at work we need to reinvent a more efficient way or functioning or we have to devise innovative strategies to meet deadlines. That is where the system 2 kicks in, when we need to reflect, think and come up with a more in-genuine solution to an old problem. System 2 is our researcher cum designer of the brain that reflects and then gives creative solutions to problems.

And that is why creativity is so important. Until we can predict and plan our days to the last second, there will always be an element of unpredictability in the system that we are a part of. And in order to deal and function better in that system, we need keep imagining better solutions, better ideas, more thoughts.

Imagination is our weapon for unpredictability and stalemate. We need to constantly update ourselves pretty much like our macbooks and phones. And to update our lives, we need imagination.

And the fuel for imagination is creativity. The more we practise to devise our creativity in our day to day lives, the more interesting and exciting our day to day problem-solving becomes.

Thoughtrip

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We are a bunch of thought catalysts facilitating individuals & organisations to make creative leaps leading to innovative problem solving.

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