I.1 Synthesis, Connections, Patterns, and Classification
Understanding Creativity through Quotations of the Creative
Cartoon by Hugh MacLeod, @gapingvoid. For other variation
https://informationversusknowledge-blog.tumblr.com/
Synthesis is the process of combining objects or ideas into a complex whole. Analysis, the other side of the coin, is the division of a physical or abstract whole into its constituent parts to examine or determine their relationship or value. Making connections among the constituents often leads to new insights. Henry Ford may have been one of the first to make use of synthesis in business: "I invented nothing new. I simply assembled the discoveries of other men behind whom were centuries of work. Had I worked fifty or ten or even five years before, I would have failed. So it is with every new thing. Progress happens when all the factors that make for it are ready, and then it is inevitable. To teach that a comparatively few men are responsible for the greatest forward steps of mankind is the worst sort of nonsense."
TYPE QUOTES
Invention consists in avoiding the constructing of useless combinations and in constructing the useful combinations which are in the infinite minority. To invent is to discern, to choose.
-Jules Henri Poincare
The idea that in order for us to truly create and contribute to the world, we have to be able to connect countless dots, to cross-pollinate ideas from a wealth of disciplines, to combine and recombine these pieces and build new castles.
-Maria Popova
Mathematics is the classification and study of all possible patterns.
-W. W. Sawyer
Classifying the stars has helped materially in all studies of the structure of the universe.
-Annie Jump Cannon
TYPE POSTERS
QUOTE COLLECTION
There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.
-Mark Twain
There is synthesis when, in combining therein judgments that are made known to us from simpler relations, one deduces judgments from them relative to more complicated relations. There is analysis when from a complicated truth one deduces more simple truths.
-Andre-Marie Ampere
Invention consists in avoiding the constructing of useless combinations and in constructing the useful combinations which are in the infinite minority. To invent is to discern, to choose.
-Jules Henri Poincare
Living is like tearing through a museum. Not until later do you really start absorbing what you saw, thinking about it, looking it up in a book, and remembering - because you can't take it in all at once.
-Audrey Hepburn
The idea that in order for us to truly create and contribute to the world, we have to be able to connect countless dots, to cross-pollinate ideas from a wealth of disciplines, to combine and recombine these pieces and build new castles.
-Maria Popova
all ideas are second-hand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources.
-Mark Twain
Everything of importance has already been seen by someone who
did not discover it.
-Alfred North Whitehead
In the university, the specialist and analyst is king. But resolution of problems in society generally is not to be found in a single discipline ... In society the non-specialist and synthesiser is king.
-Lord Eric Ashby
Go some distance away because the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance, and a lack of harmony of proportion is rapidly seen.
-Leonardo da Vinci
Ideas awaken each other....because they have always been related."
-Diderot
Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than in the one where they sprang up.
-Oliver Wendell Holmes
It is the function of creative man to perceive and to connect the seemingly unconnected.
-William Plommer
People often say that I'm curious about too many things at once... But can you really forbid a man from harbouring a desire to know and embrace everything that surrounds him?
-Alexander von Humboldt
From the mouth of Lord Peter Wimsey:
"If ever you want to commit a murder, the thing you've got to do is prevent people from asociatin' their ideas. Most people don't associate anything'--their ideas just roll about like so many dry peas on a tray, making' a lot noise and goin' nowhere, but once you begin lettin' em string their peas into a necklace, it's goin' to be strong enough to hang you, what?"
-Dorothy Sayers writer of mysteries
"I stole everything I ever heard, but mostly I stole from the horns."
-Ella Fitzgerald
We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.
-Steve Jobs
inventiveness, imagination, and sustained innovation. He knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology,
-Walter Isaacson on Steve Jobs
I invent nothing. I rediscover.
-Auguste Rodin
Look for patterns, and then ask why those patterns exist.
-Debra Kaye
Classifying the stars has helped materially in all studies of the structure of the universe.
-Annie Jump Cannon
A dinosaur out of context is like a character without a story. Worse than that, the character suffers from amnesia.
-Jack Horner
SELECTED POSTERS (A -E )
The above posters are (A - E) from my poster collection. I will be publishing more posters later. The following table Displays the position of these posters in my classification of Phases and Topics of the Creative Process. My posts will follow the order of the following table. This post is I.1 on Synthesis, Connections, Patterns, and Classification. It is I point 1 because I have many more posters on this topic and anticipate posting more as I.2 etc.
List of the Phases and Topics correlated to the Steps in the Scientific Method. These phases and topics have been derived from study of quotations from many creative individual from many fields of endeavor.
Last Paragraph
My goal is to publish quote poster collections on A through W as individual posts, eventually. Currently my quote collection numbers over 4,000 and my poster collection includes nearly 1,400 different individuals. I have created over 50 posters for each Phase and Topic listed in the above table. Advise and wisdom from as many individuals as possible is my goal. These quotes and the posters have driven the classification above. - Apply for a free subscription. Thanks Walt.
The next phase of the process is labeled J.1 Hypothesis Formation, Ideas, and Models
Walter H Pierce