The Contribution of Other Voices to a Synthesizing Mind

I begin with two quotes–they appear to make opposite points.

The great seventeenth-century physicist, Sir Isaac Newton:

“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” (1)

The great twentieth-century philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein:

“It is good that I did not let myself be influenced.”

If one is interested in the origin and development of breakthrough ideas, one could not find two more different stances. And yet, as I argue here, they can be reconciled.

Background

Over the years I have sought to understand what might be unusual about my own cognitive processes in contrast to those that characterize many scholars in the disciplines. I came to the conclusion that I have a “synthesizing mind.” I like to draw on many different ideas and sources and then put them together in ways that are illuminating for me, and, perhaps for others. This is why I usually write books rather than articles.

I tried to understand how such an orientation might have developed. As a student, I resisted thinking of myself as pursuing one scholarly discipline—say, history, biology, or psychology—to mention some viable candidates. Instead, I read widely, if not systematically, in these and other disciplines. And, importantly for my own growth, I made a point of taking courses and spending time with individuals with a spectrum of interests.

On further reflection, I realized that early in my career, I joined the academic associations connected with my particular scholarly niches (developmental psychology, neuropsychology.) But over time, I relinquished those professional associations and instead began to devote time instead to organizations that are deliberately multi-disciplinary–the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, The American Philosophical Society, The Cambridge Scientific Club. Perhaps this immersion was a way of keeping my mind open, of avoiding the disciplinary trap.

A hypothesis

In the light of these reflections, I went back to a book that I had valued when it first appeared: psychiatrist Anthony Storr’s Solitude: A return to the Self. I hypothesized that master synthesizers might be more like Wittgenstein than like Newton, avoiding the company of others (whether scholars in their own or other disciplines.)

Important caveat: I am not putting myself in the same category as my exemplars—they are just catalysts for my own reflections.

At a superficial level, my hypothesis was confirmed. According to Storr, many of the world’s great thinkers led largely isolated lives. Hence the title Solitude. Indeed, the term “anti-social” could appropriately be applied to philosophers like Kant, Kierkegaard, or Wittgenstein (representing three centuries) as well as other luminaries like Beethoven. (Most of Storr’s examples are men—whether men have traditionally been more likely to be “isolates” is a separate issue.)

And yet, upon reflection, my hypothesis is better described as naïve. In their childhood and early adult lives, these apparently isolated exemplars were clearly in contact with other individuals. But—here’s the rub—this was not necessarily a direct contact. Rather, it was the ideas, the writings, the examples of earlier individuals—who are sometimes called paragons—that filled the minds, the consciousnesses of great synthesizers.

Moreover, when you look more closely, you also find that in early life such exemplars often had ample direct association with individuals of diverse interests. Wittgenstein grew up in Vienna—at the time, possibly the leading center of art, science, and thinking in Europe, if not the world—in a household that was constantly visited by great scholars and artists of various stripes.

Aside: In fact, in an earlier study of creativity, I described most highly creative individuals as having been born in relatively remote surroundings and then moving (as soon as they could) to a center of learning and culture, typically the metropolis of their nation. When confronted with the apparently disconfirming example of Wittgenstein, I quipped that if you are born in such a center, you spend the rest of your life trying to escape it! Even so, young Wittgenstein found his way to Bertrand Russell and the University of Cambridge. Moreover, Wittgenstein’s ground-breaking work (The Tractatus) would not have been possible without the example (and occasional tutelage) by Russell and others in his philosophical and mathematical circles.

Newton poses a somewhat more complicated case. He did not come from an intact family—in fact, he was reared primarily by relatives and others in his community. While he attended reasonably good schools, he did not emerge intellectually until he came in his teen years to the University of Cambridge. Like Wittgenstein, Newton was a precocious learner—he read the works of Aristotle, Kepler, Jesuit as well as Protestant thinkers—and was offered a professorship at an early age. When he famously referred to the shoulders of giants, it is as likely that Newton was thinking of individuals whom he knew principally through their concepts, techniques, and writings rather than from direct contact with such persons.

An interesting footnote: As suggested, Wittgenstein spent most of his years trying to escape from Vienna and then from England, and never really took root anywhere. Newton became an institution at the University Cambridge, never left, and acquired enormous power in many circles. But their personal lives remained a mystery even to their closest colleagues: Both men may have been gay, and it is possible that neither ever engaged in sexual relations. 

Back to Anthony Storr. Nowhere does Storr minimize the amount of time that highly creative individuals spent with other persons. But as he puts it “Conversation enriches the understanding but solitude is the school for genius and the enormity of a work dictates the hand of a single artist.”

Amplifying this point, Storr suggests that the greatest creators—at least some of whom were master synthesizers—are deflected or withdraw actively from human relationships so that they can focus instead on their “life projects”. And these projects are so ambitious, so enormous, that they tend to become all-consuming. And indeed, in not a few cases, these projects cause the genius to distance him or herself from others—the audience is no longer contemporaries, but rather posterity. Both Beethoven and Kierkegaard thought that their works would be better appreciated a century after their death: accordingly, rather than their contemporaries, succeeding generations would be their audience. As indeed has turned out to the case. 

To be sure, when young, such individuals immerse themselves deeply into the current sources of knowledge and skill—sometimes directly, sometimes through wide reading and observations. But as they age, they spend increasing time in isolation, carrying through an intellectual or artistic project that may last well beyond their own lives. These master synthesizers draw on the past in order to remake the future landscape.

(1) This quotation appeared in a letter written in 1675 but the general idea (and the evocative image) has been traced back at least to 11th and 12th centuries.

References

Merton, Robert, K. (1993).On the Shoulders of Giants. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Storr, A. (1988/2005). Solitude: A return to the self. New York: Free Press.