Group Genius: The Creative Power
PART TWO | THE COLLABORATIVE MIND
（这一部分更多的是在讲个人创造力，介绍了很多相关的研究和实验来解释单独个体的创造性思维过程是怎么样的，受到了哪些因素的影响，尤其是破除了一些刻板印象，比如 insight。作者是希望通过对个人创造性思维过程的讲述，来印证在 collaboration 中对每个个体所产生的有益的影响，然后结合“任何创造性行为都是协作式的”这一观念，来强调 collaboration 的重要性。）
5 | Small Sparks
（一开始讲了托尔金和路易斯（《纳尼亚王国》作者）等人开始写作幻想小说的故事）
Our image of the writer is one of solitude and inner inspiration. But The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia were not solo works, authored by lone geniuses; they unfolded in a collaborative circle.
Even such a solitary act as writing has its origins in collaboration. （我们通常认为写作是很个人的创新行为，但其实并不是这样的）
（然后举了 Reed 在海滩上发明 ATM 的事情，他实际上是将很多已经存在了的东西联系到一起然后得出了新的想法）
Psychologists have discovered that creative sparks are always embedded in a collaborative process, with five basic stages: （协作创新的5大阶段）
- Preparation: （为之工作的时间，思考、交流等等）
- Time off: （去干别的事情的时间）
- The spark: （潜意识里产生了解决方案）
- Selection: （意识到这个方案挺好）
- Elaboration: （把这个好的方案实现出来）
（NASA 如何运用 five stages of collaborative creativity 来解决哈勃望眼镜的问题的）
As Susan Cain argued in her best-seller, Quiet, “solitude is an important key to creativity.” （这本书值得读一下）
They found that people who worked in teams performed better on solitary tasks than people who hadn’t experienced any collaboration, and, most surprisingly, they continued to perform better for up to five weeks later. （曾经在团队中工作过的人即便在后来的独处时间里也会持续显示出更高的创造力。这个研究的论文在这里：Agrawal, Ajay, Christian Catalini, and Avi Goldfarb. Slack time and innovation. No. w21134. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2015.）
（介绍了一些关于 insight 的研究，基本上是在否定传统的格式塔学派对于insight的老的认识）
Prior experience is sometimes part of what leads you to fixate on the incorrect path. （先验经验有时候会让人固着在错误的道路上。这是 Duncker 的实验结果）
These studies strongly suggested that insight was different from more ordinary, incremental problem solving and the constant collaboration that accompanies it. （这些研究显示，insight 不同于通常的增量式的问题解决）
He （指 Weisberg） believed that these were difficult not because you’re blocked by fixation caused by prior experience, but because you don’t have enough of the right kind of prior experience. （并不是先验经验在阻碍，而是缺乏正确的先验经验所以才会形成阻碍）
They concluded that thinking outside the box isn’t enough to be creative; you have to know how to think outside the box.
People are more creative later if, instead of just being told the answer, they actually solved a similar problem themselves. （也就是说之前如果有相关的经验，对解决问题更有帮助，所以他们认为解决不了问题不是因为被已有的经验所阻碍，而是因为缺乏有帮助的经验。Weisberg 的研究可见于：R. W. Weisberg and J. W. Alba, “An Examination of the Alleged Role of ‘Fixation’ in the Solution of Several ‘Insight’ Problems,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 110, no. 2 (1981): 169–192. ）
This study explains Weisberg and Alba’s finding; what’s happening is that you store information in a different way when you solve a problem than when you passively receive information. （Mary Gick 做的研究证明了 Weisberg 的发现，我们因解决问题而获得信息和我们被动接受到的信息在大脑中的储存方式是不同的，前者更容易被唤醒而参与到创造性思维活动中来，而后者往往就被遗忘掉或者忽略掉了）
（这些研究和实验推翻了格式塔理论关于创造力的一些论断：）
- Eliminating the false assumption only makes the problem slightly easier. （因此，我们过往的经验和不靠谱的猜想并没有阻碍我们的创造力）
- The “outside” hint opens up a new problem-solving domain, but that domain also requires expertise and prior experience. （因此，打破思维定式不一定就能得到洞见，因为你并不一定具备所需要的经验）
- Training in similar problems helps. （因此，洞见其实是与先验知识有关联的）
Creativity isn’t about rejecting convention and forgetting what we know. Instead, it’s based on past experience and existing concepts. And the most important past experiences are in social groups filled with collaboration. （传统说法中创新需要反抗传统的论断是不对的。创新是基于已有的经验和已存的概念，而最重要的经验则来源于社交团队的协作。也就是说，通过协作才可以更快更好地获得这些先验经验）
（作者讲了一些 Coleridge 关于自己写诗经历的种种不实故事， Coleridge 所宣称的突然而来的灵感其实也是经过了长期的酝酿和很多阅读的积累的）
If we can’t trust what people say, the only way to understand the role of collaboration is to examine insight while it’s happening. （自述并不可信。接下来作者从心理学上提出了原因：人在对自我的解释中多多少少都会有虚构的倾向）
Confabulation （虚构）: People have no trouble coming up with explanations for their behavior after the fact. （作者在讲 Norman Maier 的双绳实验，实验中大部分被试虚构了自己突然获得 insight 过程，其实他们是因为研究者给出的提示才想到解决方案的：N. R. F. Maier, “Reasoning in Humans, II: The Solution of a Problem and Its Appearance in Consciousness,” Journal of Comparative Psychology 12 (1931): 181–194.）
The myth that insight emerges suddenly and unpredictably persists because most people aren’t consciously aware of the social and collaborative encounters that lead to their insights. （所以说，去除掉这种先入为主的“认为创意来源于某个人的大脑”的观念很重要）
The studies described above were groundbreaking because for the first time they demonstrated that Gestaltist ideas about creative insight are wrong. （确实很重要啊！我又要修改我的 literature review 了……）
（如果不是 Sawyer 的这本书，我应该很久很久都不会注意到心理学已经对格式塔学派所提出的 insight 理论作出了根本上的否定吧，那么这些新的 memes 就一直都不可能被我运用在我自己的任何想法里咯）
One of the simplest ways to re-create insight in the laboratory is by using what’s called the Remote Associates Test. （RAT 实验其实蛮古老的了，后面会说明 RAT 的结果其实并不是很完善，因为 RAT 依然是依靠被试的自我报告，而自我报告总有一些虚构的成分在内）
Mednick’s theory was that people who can do this （RAT 测试） faster than others have a more intricate network in their brains that allows them to make connections between ideas that are farther apart.
（Mednick 的实验是用电脑分析被试的答案，看每次得出的过程结果与最终结果的相似度到底有多少，这比让被试自己去阐述思考过程要客观一些。不过，并不是所有问题都可以像“词语之间的相关性”这样能够被电脑分析出来，所以这个实验还是有蛮大的局限性）
Even before people knew they were getting closer, their guesses came closer and closer to fruit, and in a strikingly linear pattern. （Kenneth Bowers 的实验证明，其实被试的每一次思索每一次尝试都让被试更加接近正确答案，而并不是如被试所称的，在某个时间点突然得到 insight 。Bowers 的实验可见于：K. S. Bowers, G. Regehr, C. Balthazard, and K. Parker, “Intuition in the Context of Discovery,” Cognitive Psychology 22 (1990): 72–110.）
6 | Collaboration over Time
（关于 Morse 发明电报的故事）
As Mark Twain wrote, “It takes a thousand men to invent a telegraph. The last man gets the credit and we forget the others.”
All great inventions emerge from a long sequence of small sparks; the first idea often isn’t all that good, but thanks to collaboration it later sparks another idea, or it’s reinterpreted in an unexpected way. （所有的伟大发明都是从一系列小小的思维火花中逐渐产生的，这些最初的点子并不都是什么很好的点子，但它们能够引出另外的点子，或者产生新的解释，没有这些中间过程，最终的结果不可能出现）
If Morse had stuck with his sculpture machine, or Darwin with his gemmules, today few would remember them. But they used these bad ideas to spark new ideas that would change the world. （也许他们也能成功呢？）
（关于“历史测量法”的部分貌似写得比较早，应该是第一版就有的内容）
Using this type of data, we now know that in every creative domain most people are somewhat unproductive, and a small minority are super-productive. （这是指 Simonton 搜集的各个行业创意生产者及其所产出的创意成果的数据库）
But Simonton’s database shows that a person’s sheer productivity—his or her raw output of creative products—is highly correlated with his or her creative success. （最多产的创意生产者最有创造力，或者说，有创造力的人通常都很多产）
Moreover, it turns out that for any given creator, the most creative product tends to appear during the time of most productivity. （对任何一个创造者，他最有创造力的成果出现在他最多产的时期）
Paradoxically, slowing down and focusing on one work makes a person less creative. （专注在一件事情上让人变得不那么有创意，是不是很诡异啊？）
The testimony of innovators across domains amply supports the idea that creativity emerges from high productivity.
But now we know that solitude only helps when it’s embedded in a long process of collaboration over time. （在一段长时间的协作活动之后的独处才有可能帮助创新想法的产生，也就是说，协作所产生的效果，其实是在之后的独处中才会浮现出来的。但这个结论并不是绝对的，后面也说到了 conversational insight，直接在对话式协作中，灵感就出现了。我更倾向于认为：协作是肯定有用滴，但用处什么时候出现就要看情况咯）
（下面很长一段都在讲现在心理学上是如何解释创造性思维过程的，默认了创造性概念都是从一些小的灵感火花中累积而成的，而这个过程中可能发生四种不同的变化：概念迁移、概念组合、概念阐释、概念创造。其实，我用 meme 来解释会直观得多）
This new research shows how collaboration connects the small sparks of individual minds, even when those sparks sometimes happen to a solitary creator. This research focuses on four everyday mental processes that are at the core of creativity: conceptual transfer（概念迁移）, conceptual combination（概念组合）, conceptual elaboration（概念阐释）, and concept creation（概念创造）.
New ideas often come from conceptual transfer, also known as analogical thinking（类比思维）.
Remembering the right analogy isn’t enough to be creative; the key to creativity involves noticing the right analogy. （拥有一个正确的 meme 是不够的，觉察到这个 meme 有用才是关键。但这不是说了等于没说么……）
the fortress/x-ray study gives us an even better understanding of how to train for creativity. To be creative, you need to be aware of as many potential analogies as possible; and when faced with a problem, you should try as many different analogies as possible. （对各种可能性都要持开放的态度，任何可能的类比都要去尝试一下。但是，如果人真可以这么客观，那还是人么？是人就做不到绝对的客观和开放性啊。而且，绝对的客观开放不就等于“穷举”了么，从效率上来说“穷举”是完全不可取的呀）
These are emergent attributes, attributes that are not true of either base concept. （意思是说，两个单独的概念组合起来以后会出现新的属性，这个新的属性在两个单独的原概念中都是不存在的）
People are incredibly creative in coming up with emergent attributes for noun combinations. （人们会很快意识到新属性的浮现，前提是已经将组合完成了。也就是说，人们想不到A+B会出现新意义，但当人们看到“A+B”的时候，却能够很快感受到新意义。说白了，在“评价”和“欣赏”上，人的能力要比在“创造”上高，“眼”永远都是高于“手”的。这和后面的 visual imagery 其实是一个意思）
They discovered a fascinating result: the further apart two concepts were, the more likely it was that a truly creative idea would result. （这是关于一个用两个词组成一个新概念的实验，研究者尝试了多种可能的组合方式，比如很相似的两个词：可数人造物+可数人造物，或者差异很大的两个词：可数人造物+不可数自然物，最后得出结论差异越大的两个词的组合结果越创新）
Each concept is stored in the mind as a set of properties and the values of each property. ... For many concepts, the properties interact with each other. （任何概念在大脑中都是以一系列的“属性”以及其“数值”来存在的。我可以用 meme 更好的解释这种假说，根本不需要牵扯到“大脑”这个我们还不是很懂的东西）
（下面就是用这种“属性+数值”的角度来阐述人们形成概念组合的四种可能方式：）
- In the simplest type of conceptual combination, the properties for both concepts are joined together. Properties that are true of one concept but incompatible with the other are discarded. ... For two properties that are incompatible, you have to choose one. When combining, you’ll pick the one that’s most compatible with all the other properties of the new concept. （最简单的组合方式，A和B都有的属性保留，有冲突的属性只选择保留与其他属性最相配的一个。这种方式还真是机械啊！）
- In a second form of combination, property mapping, just one value is taken from one concept and merged with the second concept. （只把A的一个属性融合到B里面去）
- In a third, more complex form of combination, the two concepts are brought together through a relationship. （根据A和B的关系来融合其所有的属性）
- But the most creative combinations result from a fourth process, known as structure mapping, in which the complex structure of one concept is used to restructure the second concept. （最有创造力的组合方式，先将A和B分别结构化，然后根据结构来进行融合）
- internal structure （将 A 的内部结构应用到 B 上去，比如认为 pony chair 是样子像 pony 的 chair）
- external structure （将 A 的外部特性应用给 B，比如认为 pony chair 是很小的 椅子，因为 pony 是很小的马）
The more similar two concepts are, the easier it is to use the simpler strategies of combining properties and values. （两个概念越接近，越容易使用最简单的组合策略）
Concepts that are very different require more complex strategies of property mapping or structure mapping, and these strategies result in the most novel and innovative combinations. （非常不同的两个概念需要更复杂的组合策略，而复杂策略能产生最新颖最创新的组合结果）
conceptual elaboration: taking an existing concept and modifying it to create something new （就是说，对一个概念进行演绎，深度演绎直到产生一个新的概念）
The easiest way to elaborate a concept is to modify one of its property values while keeping the other properties the same. （最简单的演绎方法就是把其中一个属性的数值做调整，同时保持其他属性不变。这不就是在 memetic hierarchy 中对一个 sub-meme 做同类替换么……）
（对 Baking Soda 这个事例我有一点不同的理解。应该是商家受到了传言的启发才得到“小苏打可以用于冰箱除味”这一信息，然后将这一信息运用到了自己的商业行为中，对于“发面的苏打”来说是 elaboration，但是对于“苏打”来说，也可以是 combination）
（这些思维策略完全可以用 memes 来重新解释嘛！作者是从心理学角度试图用“人脑如何操作这些概念”来解释；而用 meme 的话直接就是看“这些概念互相之间是如何联系如何构建的”来解释，至于说究竟是人脑还是别的什么东西在构建新概念，who cares？）
But that insight was rarer and more difficult than creating yet another chicken and pasta dish, because the “function” property of baking soda was one of its core properties, and core properties are resistant to change. （核心性质通常是很难改变的）
some properties are linked together （对属性a的改变可能必然导致属性b、c的改变，也就是说对一个 sub-meme 的改变可能必然会改变另一个 sub-meme）
It doesn’t take much creativity to make a small conceptual elaboration.（，但是：）To be more creative, you need to make sure you consider changing all properties and values. （换掉了所有的 sub-memes？）
One popular creativity technique, morphological analysis（形态分析法）, does just that.
（这里关于“形态分析法”所举的桌面游戏设计的例子，完全就是我的 memetic hierarchy 的另一种表述嘛：board game 是 top-meme，properties 是 sub-memes，possible value 是更深一层的 sub-memes。但实际上，一个对象的 memetic hierarchy 很有可能不止3层哦！）
（会不会正是因为人可能受到偏见或者思维定式的影响而考虑不到所有组合，所以才需要用 collaboration 的方式来获取尽可能多的组合，然后整个 group 一起来 evaluate 这些结果从中找到最创新的一个呢？那么在这个过程中，collaboration 其实是可以用机器替代掉的哦，人的最大用途是 evaluation 而不是 exhaustion（穷举）哦！）
ad hoc concept （翻译成“专设概念”？关于这个概念可以参见：L. W. Barsalou, “Ad Hoc Categories,” Memory & Cognition 11, no. 3 (1983): 211–227.）
Barsalou’s surprising finding is that right after you create a category, you’re almost as good at thinking with it as you are with categories you’ve known about all your life.
（这个概念是说有一些想法并不是提前思考好的，而是当事情发生的时候（比如说突然发生灾害了），人脑中就很快构建起了这个想法（比如说要随身打包哪些东西以及这些东西的优先级）。作者认为这种概念的形成过程很神奇。但是我觉得，这是因为人脑中早就已经具备了相关的先验信息，而且这些信息的存放位置非常靠前，当事情发生时，人就会很快联系到这些先验信息而构建出一个合理的创造性思维结果来。）
We are all able to create these ad hoc categories quickly; in a flash, anyone can create a new conceptual structure to organize objects.
（但是，这个 ad hoc category 的相关信息是从哪里来的呢？不是很清楚作者写这个是想表达什么。是表达“人人都有能力构建全新概念”？）
The four types of creativity I’ve discussed are examples of a type of thinking known as propositional or linguistic.
（关于 Invention Exercise 的实验：1. 在规定时间内从15个对象中找出任意3个可以拼在一起成为有效创新的组合；2. 先随便选3个数字，然后用对应编号的那3个对象来组合成一个合适的结果；3. 先选定3个对象，然后再来做创新组合，这次的创造力最低）
Visual imagery is a powerful creativity technique because new combinations often appear suddenly, unpredictably, and spontaneously. （说白了，visual imagery 不就是试错么？）
That means that you’re more creative when you don’t know ahead of time what category your invention will belong to. （思维更开放的时候人更有创造力？）
With so many choices, it was too easy to start with a fixed idea of what they wanted to create and then just pick and choose the objects and category that best realized their preexisting concepts. （这是在说，当实验者要求被试先选定3个对象再进行创新组合的时候，因为在选择3个对象的过程中就不自觉地预先设想了要组合成什么东西，然后这个预先的设想反而变成为了阻碍创新的思维定式）
Problem-finding creativity sometimes goes unnoticed because when it’s over it appears more predictable than it actually was—another example of script-think. （问题寻找式创新有时候并不被人所留意到，这是因为当“问题寻找”完成的时候，这个问题显得好像理所当然地就应该这样的解决，人们会认为这是一个“程序性思维”问题，而不是一个开放式的问题寻找的创新需求。也就是说，前面提到的让被试先选定3个对象这一步骤，其实是将原本的1个问题强行分成了2个，从而破坏了被试在思考“如何进行组合”的过程中有可能因为“应该选择哪三个对象来进行组合”所带来的潜在的创新可能性。这其实是反而增加了创新的难度，因为剔除掉了用那3个对象以外的对象来进行组合的可能性！）
These studies of the creative mind show that hard work, collaboration, and deep familiarity with an area make you more creative. （想更有创造力，你需要：努力工作、与人协作、对相关领域更熟悉）
One of the most solid findings in creativity research is the ten-year rule（10年原则）: it takes a minimum of ten years of hard work and practice for someone to attain the high level of performance that results in great creativity.
Many new ideas are bad ones; collaboration over time is the best way to select the good ones. （关键在于选择啊孩纸！）
And although each single spark of insight is small, collaboration brings them all together and results in breakthrough innovation.
Collaboration brings distant concepts together; it makes each individual more creative; and, most important of all, the emergent results of group genius are greater than those any one individual could think of alone. （作者认为，group genius 所带来的创造力比任何个人思考所带来的创造力都要大！）
7 | Conversation and the Mind
conversation: the driver of group genius （作者认为“交流”是“团队天才”的驱动力）
A century ago, this wasn’t as obvious. ... the lack of telephone, email, and air travel made the pace of innovation incredibly slow. （上个世纪的人们不太能够交流主要还是因为缺乏有效而便利的手段）
synectics: a group creativity technique designed to foster collaborative analogies （类比法；集思广益；协合创作法）
（作者举了个例子：一个创新团队如何在讨论中从贝壳类比到嘴巴再类比到马屁股，最后得到利用 horse's ass 的原理来制作可以自动分发粘稠状液体的机械的创意）
Analogies are essential to collaborative creativity, and they’re more likely to emerge when participants bring their various experiences to the table. （类比在协作创新中很重要，其重要性主要体现在：参与者将其与众不同的经验通过类比的方式展现在团队面前，这样其个人的经验就很快变成了团队的共识经验）
the scientists came from a wide range of backgrounds were forced to use analogies to develop new conceptual combinations. （团队成员太过于相似会导致难以产生有用的类比，因为类比主要还是为了传递独特的个体经验，而相似的团队成员拥有相似的个体经验，传来传去都是一样的，没什么用处）
if your group is too homogeneous, it will be less creative. （同质化的团队比较没有创造力，但更适合于去完成“增量式”的任务）
Talking about building the spaceship had caused the first group to create categories that were richer and more complex than those created by the solitary workers in the second group. （这个实验是让两人一组来拼乐高，一个人只能动手拼，另一人只能看图示，两个人通过交流来完成任务，这样的交流在团队中形成了更丰富更复杂的分类概念（比如“火箭”）。与之对应，单人完成同样任务的对比试验中，被试只会用简单的颜色来对砖块进行分类。因此，“交谈”促进了复杂概念的产生）
Many of today’s most creative products emerge from collaborative conversation.
In this collaboration no one is in charge, and no one creates any more than anyone else; they practice the equal participation that leads to group flow. （有效的创造性协作需要每个成员都平等地参与其中）
（我认为，在谈话中其实产生了 meme exchange，这和在网络中进行的“模因交换”其实是一样的，正是在 meme exchange 中，新的 combined concept 才得以产生）
Indirect speech, unlike explicit speech, is impossible to understand out of context. （必须在情境中才能了解其真实意义）
This context-dependence is called indexicality; the most creative speech is highly indexical—deeply embedded in the immediate social context. （英文维基：In semiotics, linguistics, anthropology and philosophy of language, indexicality is the phenomenon of a sign pointing to (or indexing) some object in the context in which it occurs.）
（indexical 我认为类似于 contextual，也就是说一个词的意思必须结合语境才能明确了解，而使用这样的词会让听者必然地去联想语境，这样就容易形成概念融合）
Researchers have shown that even using single indexical words provides opportunities for creativity.
The most creative conversations are like improvisational theater dialogues; each speaker reinterprets what was said before and builds on it in a new direction so that unexpected creativity emerges from the group.
Equivocality （模棱两可性）
These databases are good at helping solve a well-defined problem, but innovation is more likely to happen when you don’t yet know what you’re looking for. （大公司建立的“产品信息库”根本没什么人去使用）
When no one knows exactly what the problem is or what question to ask, databases and keyword searches can’t help.
There’s another reason databases don’t contribute to innovation: computers don’t tolerate indirectness. （这是可以通过程序手段解决的，不论是“大数据”还是“人工智能”，都有可能解决关于“模糊性搜索”的问题，另外，改变信息储存的结构也可能会有一定的帮助，比如从树状结构变为标签结构）
Ideas that open possibilities, which he called equivocality, contribute to innovation by making it easier for ideas to be reused to solve a different and unexpected problem somewhere else in the organization.
An organizational culture that fosters equivocality, improvised innovation, and constant conversation—that’s a recipe for group genius. （造就 group genius 所需要的组织文化，应该是允许甚至倾向于孕育“模棱两可性”、“即兴创新”、以及“持续交流”的文化！）
