Science House: Creativity and the Imagination Age

James Jorasch is the founder of Science House, an organization dedicated to supporting science and making investments in high tech companies. James, a named inventor on more than 350 issued patents, is an intriguing individual with an impressive library that includes pictures of light cones, shown above.

Last night, at the invitation of Katelan Foisy I attended a dinner at Science House in NYC, where the topic of the evening’s discussion was the Imagination Age.

Many of the guests were first timers. Some of the scientists had been there before. The artists were connected through Science House’s special events manager Megan Kingery (a figure model who has posed for event attendees Kurt Huggins and Zelda Devon of Teetering Bulb, an illustration duo from Brooklyn).

We arrived at 7 pm and shared some Indian food. I took a peek through powerful binoculars into windows all around Manhattan. Without the binoculars, the buildings were all just layered gray rectangles studded with light and dark windows, but with them I could actually see smeared colors on a painter’s palette several blocks away.

Jorasch is planning an expansion soon, but the conversation about the Imagination Age took place in his current midtown digs, cozily ringing a coffee table filled with Kingery’s spectacular grasshopper brownies and other delicacies. As people went around the room introducing themselves I wished I had an entire evening for each of them.

Alex Pasternak, George W. Hart, Michael Malice, Porter Fox and Paul Hoffman (whose work explores the relationship between genius, madness, obsession, and creativity) said a few words. The room was full of brilliant women including Ayesha Khanna, Elizabeth Stark, Laure Parsons, Michelle Edgar and Julia Fisherman.

Shane Hope may have been reading from the bio that got sent out in advance of the event when he introduced himself:

algorithmicracked-out crypto-junk-DNAnarch-keys to un-nanoblockonomic-lock fine jouler-bots-that-gots-watts-a-lots and freely power prescient peek-a-boo plunderware portraiture...

I took notes for three straight hours while the conversation flowed. The theme centered on the relationship between technology and the sense of self. I was most interested in the conversation about the relationship between creativity and freedom.

What is Creativity?
If 10,000 hours is a requirement for mastery, then extreme class division creates a nefarious secondary peril of preventing genuine diversity from infiltrating the global culture and economy, with only the wealthiest citizens able to devote that kind of time to a new endeavor and setting the agenda for everyone else.

The group tossed around a question: What is creativity? Is it reserved just for writers, musicians and artists of all stripes or is it the result of finding an unexpected solution that arises in relation to a specific problem? Is a machine being creative when it beats you at chess? Conversely, is a child who learns how to play chess like a machine being creative or just a masterful copycat? And really, what’s the difference?

Can machines write beautiful poems or is the human element necessary to truly capture the nuances of what it means to be alive, to experience the visceral wonder of an endless sky full of hazy galaxies and twinkling stars?

Is creativity just a sudden burst of novelty registered as unusual by a pattern-seeking human brain? Are people who work on assembly lines or in cubicles able to weave creativity into their monotonous routines, and if so, is it even desirable? You wouldn’t want a pilot getting creative when he’s supposed to be making a routine landing, but you would want him to be agile and creative if the plane needs to make an emergency landing on one wheel or in a river.

The question arose: Is creativity better served by freedom or discipline? And what if your discipline is giving yourself space to experience the new every day? If freedom means giving yourself the space to deviate from norms, then what about the billions of people around the world shackled by various factors from poverty to extreme disability who will never have the luxury of that pleasure?

If a “God Helmet” can stimulate the part of the brain that Buddhist monks and nuns activate through hours of meditation, is the resulting feeling truly a spiritual one? If software is good enough to help you make decisions, when will it be good enough to make decisions for you?

Maybe the only difference right now is that machines don’t yet mimic a sense of wonder when faced with the unexpected. As Khanna pointed out, millions of people are fans of the Japanese hologram rockstar Hatsune Miku who isn’t “real” but nevertheless seems real enough to evoke strong, growing emotion. Eventually, robots and digital creations might be capable of returning the affection.

Creativity is one of those concepts that barely translates from the intangible and poignant feeling it evokes, like Brazilian saudades. The inability to define authentic saudades doesn’t take away from the feeling. When you’ve got it, it’s like love or a broken heart: You just know, and you can’t explain it.

Creativity is no less powerful whether triggered by discipline, freedom, new experiences, sudden awareness, a snippet of overheard conversation, a sudden problem or something entirely unique to the moment. Creativity is an encounter.