Creativity and Selective Forgetting

April 22nd, 2006 Fred McVittie Posted in Baars, Bernard, Conference Abstract, Consciousness, Creativity, Illumination |

The moment of ‘illumination’ within a creative process in which a sudden insight, breakthrough, or intuitive leap is made, has been show to be decomposable into a number of discreet conscious stages. This contradicts the naive experience (and romantic mythology) of these moments, in which the creative outcome is usually reported as emerging fully-formed into consciousness, having been produced through non-conscious, non-personal means, (these means usually involving ‘the unconscious’, or occasionally a deity or muse. The feeling of ‘illumination’ furthermore, has been shown to occur after these conscious stages have been gone through and is accompanied by a kind of selective forgetting, in which, unless particular attention is paid, the intervening stages between problem and solution are forgotten, leaving only the illuminated moment. This phenomenon will be discussed in the context of the Baars Global Workspace model of consciousness.

Baars, B. (1997). In the theater of consciousness: The workspace of the mind. New York, Oxford University Press.