The Principles of Excellence -- King Solomon's Masterclass in Creativity

Having dealt in previous sections with the inspirational process by which unique works of art and even innovative business projects are conceived and carried through to a level of excellence, Solomon now focuses on two additional and very practical creative processes that are crucial to design and problem solving work.

These two processes, or tools, both of which can be deliberately used, are clearly illustrated by the growth and reproduction of plants – which probably explains why God placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, a magnificent and stimulating audio-visual environment, and why, in the central section of this division, Solomon compares the mind to a secret, walled garden that needs to be unlocked and watered and made productive.
The Genesis account of creation was, I suspect, the source of Solomon’s inspiration for the “Song”, when he originally set out, as the wisest man in the world, to investigate the creative processes by which the world could be transformed – which probably also explains why so many sections of it have a man and woman in a garden setting.

Metaphors
The first thinking tool is the use of metaphors, which is typified in nature by the process of pollination. In pollination, thanks to the accidental action of the wind or the obsessive work of a busy bee, an essential grain of pollen is transferred from stamen to stigma of a flower, resulting in the formation of a seed that can then be sown and grown by any interested person to create a useful new plant.
Without that crucial transfer, without the bridging of that gap between make stamen and female stigma, nothing can happen. Similarly, in the use of metaphors, a key idea from an apparently unrelated situation is transferred, like the grain of pollen, into the problem situation where it fuses with the needs to create a solution, a practical seed-like idea.

Sometimes the principle is discovered accidentally, but always by the prepared and searching mind. So it was that when the preoccupied Archimedes stepped into a bath and watched the water overflowing, he realized that because the volume of that water equaled the volume of his body, he had finally found a way to measure the volume of any irregularly shaped object, such as a crown. As a result, having weighed the crown, he was now able to measure its volume and so calculate its average density, and hence determine whether or not it was made of pure gold or a mixture diluted down with a cheaper metal such as silver. According to the story, the overjoyed Archimedes immediately shouted out “Eureka!”, meaning “I have found it!”.

No doubt the pollen with which the busy bee is smothered depicts the stock of useful knowledge accumulated by the creative designer due his obsessive study of books and magazines and the absorption of all relevant information – and the tiny drop of nectar with which the bee finds n the flower represents the joy of the Eureka moment .

Visualization
The second process, creative visualization, is illustrated in nature by the way a plant grows and develops, puts down roots, gets bigger and stronger, buds and branches, and bears leaves and fruit.
This all takes place slowly, but in time-lapse photography the process can be magically speeded up. In the same way, an object or system held in the mind’s eye will be seen to grow and change and spontaneously “mutate” into creative new forms. Such incremental improvement to already existing systems and devices is the main source of technological progress.

Imagination in a Strait-jacket
Nobel physicist Richard Feynmann said that the laws of science put the imagination in a strait-jacket, meaning that practical creative work in physics, chemistry, and engineering — unlike the productions of fiction writers, composers and poets — has to comply with the demands of reality and the laws of the universe. Business systems likewise must comply with economic reality and even the vagaries of human behavior and changing fashions.
It was far, far easier, for example, for the prolific Enid Blyton to sit with her portable typewriter on her lap churning out her children’s books from the dialogue her characters created in her imagination than it is for an engineer to design a better washing machine, or for a company to devise more effective marketing strategies for its products.
Feynmann’s point seems also to have been recognized by the great Russian composer Tchaikovsky who pointed out that writing good poetry is more demanding than composing music, saying: "For a lyric poem, not only must the mood be there but the idea must be there . . . In music it only necessary to evoke a certain general mood or emotion."

Creative Problem Solving
A simple yet comprhensive approach to problem solving isfound in the Appendix.

Contents	PART 4 -- PRACTICAL PROJECTS & PROBLEM SOLVING Having dealt in previous sections with the inspirational process by which unique works of art and even innovative business projects are conceived and carried through to a level of excellence, Solomon now focuses on two additional and very practical creative processes that are crucial to design and problem solving work. These two processes, or tools, both of which can be deliberately used, are clearly illustrated by the growth and reproduction of plants – which probably explains why God placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, a magnificent and stimulating audio-visual environment, and why, in the central section of this division, Solomon compares the mind to a secret, walled garden that needs to be unlocked and watered and made productive. The Genesis account of creation was, I suspect, the source of Solomon’s inspiration for the “Song”, when he originally set out, as the wisest man in the world, to investigate the creative processes by which the world could be transformed – which probably also explains why so many sections of it have a man and woman in a garden setting. Metaphors The first thinking tool is the use of metaphors, which is typified in nature by the process of pollination. In pollination, thanks to the accidental action of the wind or the obsessive work of a busy bee, an essential grain of pollen is transferred from stamen to stigma of a flower, resulting in the formation of a seed that can then be sown and grown by any interested person to create a useful new plant. Without that crucial transfer, without the bridging of that gap between make stamen and female stigma, nothing can happen. Similarly, in the use of metaphors, a key idea from an apparently unrelated situation is transferred, like the grain of pollen, into the problem situation where it fuses with the needs to create a solution, a practical seed-like idea. Sometimes the principle is discovered accidentally, but always by the prepared and searching mind. So it was that when the preoccupied Archimedes stepped into a bath and watched the water overflowing, he realized that because the volume of that water equaled the volume of his body, he had finally found a way to measure the volume of any irregularly shaped object, such as a crown. As a result, having weighed the crown, he was now able to measure its volume and so calculate its average density, and hence determine whether or not it was made of pure gold or a mixture diluted down with a cheaper metal such as silver. According to the story, the overjoyed Archimedes immediately shouted out “Eureka!”, meaning “I have found it!”. No doubt the pollen with which the busy bee is smothered depicts the stock of useful knowledge accumulated by the creative designer due his obsessive study of books and magazines and the absorption of all relevant information – and the tiny drop of nectar with which the bee finds n the flower represents the joy of the Eureka moment . Visualization The second process, creative visualization, is illustrated in nature by the way a plant grows and develops, puts down roots, gets bigger and stronger, buds and branches, and bears leaves and fruit. This all takes place slowly, but in time-lapse photography the process can be magically speeded up. In the same way, an object or system held in the mind’s eye will be seen to grow and change and spontaneously “mutate” into creative new forms. Such incremental improvement to already existing systems and devices is the main source of technological progress. Imagination in a Strait-jacket Nobel physicist Richard Feynmann said that the laws of science put the imagination in a strait-jacket, meaning that practical creative work in physics, chemistry, and engineering — unlike the productions of fiction writers, composers and poets — has to comply with the demands of reality and the laws of the universe. Business systems likewise must comply with economic reality and even the vagaries of human behavior and changing fashions. It was far, far easier, for example, for the prolific Enid Blyton to sit with her portable typewriter on her lap churning out her children’s books from the dialogue her characters created in her imagination than it is for an engineer to design a better washing machine, or for a company to devise more effective marketing strategies for its products. Feynmann’s point seems also to have been recognized by the great Russian composer Tchaikovsky who pointed out that writing good poetry is more demanding than composing music, saying: "For a lyric poem, not only must the mood be there but the idea must be there . . . In music it only necessary to evoke a certain general mood or emotion." Creative Problem Solving A simple yet comprhensive approach to problem solving isfound in the Appendix.
	LESSON 15 -- MAKE METAPHORICAL Behold, you are beautiful, my love, behold, you are beautiful! Your eyes are *like* doves behind your veil Your hair is like a flock of goats, moving down the slopes of Gilead. Your teeth are *like* a flock of shorn ewes that have come up from the washing all of which bear twins and not one among them is bereaved Your lips are like a scarlet thread, and your words are delightful Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate behind your veil. Your neck is like the tower of David, built for an arsenal whereon hang a thousand bucklers, all of them shields of warriors Your two nipples are like two fawns twins of a gazelle, that feed among the lilies Until the day breathes and the shadows flee I will go quickly to the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense. You are all fair, my love; there is no flaw in you Song of Solomon 4:1-7
	Solomon’s purpose here is to enlighten the reader to the power of the metaphor, as signaled by the seven-fold repetition of the comparative like. The girl’s nipples, for example, are like two fawns that feed among the lilies – contrasting the creamy colour of the lillies to the brown fur of the fawns, and no doubt the shape of the fawns with their heads bowed and their backs arched is indicative of the girl’s state of arousal, as is the scarlet colour of her lips, which is why the lover now proposes to move quickly on to the next stage -- where commentators suggest that the mountain of myrrh and the adjacent but much smaller hill of frankincense allude to intimate details of the female anatomy, namely the vulva and the clitoris. Parallels Pairs It is interesting also that the girl’s teeth are said to have twins, or be twinned, as in fact they literally are, with each tooth having a twin both on the opposite side of the jaw and also directly below or above it in the mouth. Just as twins carry very similar genetic information, situations connected by metaphors are twinned by the use of parallel principles or significant similarities. Great Inventions from Metaphors Metaphors have been a major source of scientific discovery, which is why Sir Humphry Davy, inventor of the miners’ safety lamp said: "Perceiving analogies and comparing them by facts is the creative source of discovery” – and David Lamb comments: "Analogies [ a class of metaphor] are very powerful in scientific thought and probably generate . . . more ideas than any other mode of thinking”. The principle of the ship’s propeller, for example, pulling it through water was derived by a Victorian inventor from the way a wood screw pulls itself through a piece of timber, and the concept of a suspension bridge from the way spiders can span a gap with a web. The young Belgian doctor who invented the stethoscope, because he was too shy to put his ear to the breasts of lady patients, found the idea he needed when he saw some children whispering messages to one another through a piece of tubing. Louis Braille found a way of helping the blind to read by copying the dot patterns on the dominoes he had played with as a child before he lost his sight. A Basis of Genius Speaking of the English clergyman inventor of the system of boolean algebra on which computer programming relies, Knowlson, in “Originality”, says:: "Boole traced the analogy between logic and algebra, just as Descartes had previously shown the likeness between algebra and geometry . . . Genius is often another name for the power to see similarities in phenomena, natural or mental, that have hitherto been undetected". Metaphors in Medicine The word metaphor simply means "carried over" or transferred, and. Harvey’s theory that blood circulates around the body and back to heart by a different path was based on a perceived parallel with the way the earth moves around the sun and so returns to its original position. Metaphors can, however, mislead us, and before Harvey’s discovery, the movement of the blood was compared to the motion of the tides of the sea, supporting the erroneous notion that the blood flowed to and from the heart along the same tubes. As the original document in the British Museum shows, when Harvey recorded his breakthrough discovery, that although he started writing in medical Latin, he became so excited and impatient that he finished it off in English. Monty Python Metaphors Metaphors were widely used to create humour in the classic Monty Python series, where for example, the old saying "I could have died laughing" became the basis for a sketch where a joke that was so funny that it killed its writer, one Sid Scribbler. Then, because of its hazardous nature, the British army had the joke was translated into German, phrase by phrase, by separate translators, for safety’s sake, and used as a weapon by broadcasting it over loudspeakers on the battle field. William Gordon's "Synectics" System— the Method of Genius The use of metaphors in solving technical problems, the “method of genius”, was formalized by William J.J.Gordon in his "Synectics" system (APPENDIX F). A more simple, yet amazingly effective metaphorical technique, also exists, known as “Random Word Searching” (APPENDIX E). The Metaphorical Garden The problem-solving principle of the metaphor is demonstrated in every garden by the pollination of flowering plants. The transfer of pollen across the physical gulf between stamen and stigma of a flower, due to the action of the wind or bees, results in the fusion of male and female gametes, and the formation of fruit and seeds. Without that transfer, nothing would happen, and no fruit would develop. So it was with the invention of the printing press. When Johan Gutennberg observed the power of a press in a vineyard, squeezing the juice out of the grapes, he immediately perceived that the same principle could be used to press a block of type firmly onto a large sheet of paper, thereby making possible his dream of printing of the Bible one whole page at a time – causing him to comment: “To work then . . . God has revealed to me the secret that I demanded of Him."