Daily Times

Creativity is an activity that creates something new such as an idea, either from nothing or from the recombination of old ideas. The former can be called a better form of creativity than the latter. In either case, incubation is an important part of the creative process. Nevertheless, in 1926, Graham Wallas, an English psychologist, described his four-stage theory of creativity. The four stages were preparation, incubation, illumination or insight and verification. It is now generally recognised that incubation is an important stage of creativity but the importance of incubation has waned.

Incubation is a gap of time between the origin of an idea or the procurement of used ideas and the construction of an improved version to meet the needs of the solution of a given problem. In the process, working on a problem for quite some time, taking a break, doing something else (or taking rest without thinking over the problem) and then coming back to the problem afresh, it is the stage of incubation in which a person does something else or takes rest (even sleeps on a problem). Whereas thinking and activity are done by the conscious mind, incubation is done by the subconscious mind (both types of mind are abstract forms of the brain.) The better the input to the conscious mind before incubation the more the chances of good results after incubation. Similarly, the better the quality of incubation the more the chances of creativity to meet the needs of the solution of a given problem. Nevertheless, the intention to work on the problem again is important in keeping the subconscious mind stimulated.

In the human body, there are two major organs dedicated to creating new things either as originators or procurers. One is the lymphoid system of the body and the second is the brain. Within the sphere of the lymphoid system of the body, the primary lymphoid organs such as the bone marrow and the thymus keep on originating new lymphoid cells such as B-cells and neutrophils to provide generalised immunity to the body against pathogenic microorganisms such as bacteria and viruses. The first round of recombination of B-cell genes also takes place in the bone marrow before its interaction with a pathogen. On the other hand, the brain produces new ideas that may be accepted or rejected as per the needs of a given problem. In this case, the brain produces a new idea only when confronted with a problem. Nevertheless, in both cases, the next stage is the incubation period. This is a period of recombination. In the case of B-cells, the secondary lymphoid organs such as the spleen and lymphoid tissues are places of the second-time recombination of genes from five to seven days to provide the body with a specialised immune product (or immunoglobulin) against the invading pathogen. On the other hand, the brain recombines the available (created by a conscious effort) chunks of information or old ideas from a few seconds to a few minutes to create new ideas subconsciously. In this way, whereas the lymphoid organ gives a concrete end product (i.e. immunoglobulin), the brain gives a hypothetical end product (i.e. the idea), which needs to be materialised later on.

In the past, philosophers and scientists used to value the incubation of ideas owing basically to less material or scientific development, since there used to be more emphasis on brainpower. In the present age, however, when time is considered to be in limited supply, the prevalent trend has been to create secondary or tertiary products such as mobile phones having dozens of accessories, ranging from a camera to tape recorder, instead of laying emphasis on original discoveries and primary inventions.

The human immune system is meant for survival against pathogens (and cancers). The example of the immune system is important in this regard because it teaches us two things. First, it teaches us pre-emption. That is, it pre-empts a pathogen’s response by innovating its products even before an interaction with the pathogen takes place. Secondly, it teaches us the importance of incubation. That is, after its interaction with a pathogen, the system relies necessarily on incubation to elicit a specialised, secondary and specific immune response (through the process of recombination each of B-cell and T-cell genes to clear the body) from the pathogen. It is known that the strength in the work of great scientists such as Newton, Einstein and Edison was their reliance on incubation. The same was the case with poets and philosophers. Incubation is considered as engendering intuition or insight in its wake.

In the realm of creativity, the stage of incubation, which may last from a few minutes to a few hours, caters to the needs of both critical thinking and lateral thinking. Critical thinking is used more in an academic and research setting than lateral thinking, which is used more in the business and marketing fields. It seems that people are not generally habitual in using their subconscious mind, which incubates and generates innovative ideas to solve their problems. Generally, people rely more on their conscious mind while major discoveries and primary inventions are produced by the subconscious mind. It seems that the value of the subconscious mind is still underestimated.

In the case of Pakistan, where the field of research is still at a rudimentary stage, especially in comparison to western countries, there is a trend in research institutes and related universities to imitate western research results in the context of a phenotype study (functional differences in gene products) than making an effort for original discovery or invention. Not at all is there given an emphasis on the importance of the incubation of ideas and the way incubation can be used to generate a host of new ideas. Special seminars and lectures should be arranged in research centres and universities to underscore the significance of the role of incubation (and the subconscious mind) in research.

The writer is a freelance columnist and can be reached at qaisarrashid@yahoo.com