
Isaac Asimov Mulls “How Do People Get New Ideas?” (1959) - Dnguyen
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/531911/isaac-asimov-mulls-how-do-people-get-new-ideas/
======
sayemm
This reminds me of Walter Isaacson's biography on Steve Jobs and how it
detailed his many eccentric habits and behaviors early on before starting
Apple... how he never took showers while working at Atari, his odd dietary
habits, his daily wardrobe, etc. But that's why he was able to "think
different"...

"A person willing to fly in the face of reason, authority, and common sense
must be a person of considerable self-assurance. Since he occurs only rarely,
he must seem eccentric (in at least that respect) to the rest of us. A person
eccentric in one respect is often eccentric in others. Consequently, the
person who is most likely to get new ideas is a person of good background in
the field of interest and one who is unconventional in his habits. (To be a
crackpot is not, however, enough in itself.)"

Also very good is Richard Hamming's "You and Your Research" talk -
[http://www.paulgraham.com/hamming.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/hamming.html)

~~~
emotionalcode
I think things are a bit different in the age of the internet. Seeing into the
private lives of others, their quirks and eccentricities, you might find that
these traits are fairly common, and even desirable by certain sociocultural
groups to be as 'odd' and 'quirky' as possible, as it seems to correlate with
success and the capacity to think differently.

Self confidence, I agree is huge, but it can't be faked. It has to actually be
known. Sometimes that seems to mean letting your mind go for a loop, coming
back again, and realizing you can never know anything while also knowing
something.

I just don't really think any of the side effects of being a percieved genius
matter as much as the work actually done. Sometimes it means going against the
crowd, sometimes it means going with.

------
jjoe
Does this mean Reddit is a more auspicious environment for new ideas to
flourish? HN is way too confined of a place for "foolishness", that Asimov
sees as conductive, to be permitted without things going haywire.

~~~
delecti
I would absolutely agree with that assessment.

One of the (potentially) negative sides of the same phenomenon is the
acceptance of and tendency towards memes. They can certainly be annoying, but
a strong flow of memes is indicative of a lot of culture and ideas bashing up
against each other until some of the bits stick together in a novel way.

A cleverly applied meme comment on a Reddit thread can easily get hundreds or
thousands of upvotes. Front page HN threads don't even get any meme comments,
because people here know that their comment would be buried immediately, if
not outright deleted (I admit to being much less familiar with the inner
workings of HN than Reddit). Reddit threads are definitely a place of quantity
over quality, but the sheer volume of creativity swirling around is bound to
uncover a couple gems.

All of that said, I've never viewed HN as a place for ideas to be generated.
This is a fantastic whetstone with some brilliant minds, but it can also be
merciless.

~~~
DavidSJ
I've always felt that a part of the problem on sites like reddit is that
upvoting has essentially zero cost: just move your mouse and click the up
arrow on whatever tickles you to do so. This means that a lazy comment which
mildly amuses 1,000 people will get as many upvotes as an incredibly
thoughtful comment which profoundly touches 1,000 people, and ten times as
many upvotes as one which only 100 people appreciate, even if the appreciation
runs far deeper.

If each account had a limited vote rate (perhaps tied to that user's
activity), I think this might help to reduce this effect somewhat. Much the
same analysis probably applies to downvotes: currently users will click the
down arrow on anything they disagree with, rather than only downvoting
comments that severely detract from the conversation. Of course you'd have to
be careful about this system being gamed, but all voting systems can be gamed
and it's not obvious that this approach is any more vulnerable than usual.

To some extent I think Hacker News' greater discussion quality is due to its
poor user interface, as weird as that may seem. Upvoting/downvoting on a
mobile device, for example, generally requires zooming in to hit a small
target, whereas on reddit I don't need to do that on my iPad at all, and on my
iPhone not as much. Commenting on Hacker News also requires visiting another
URL, whereas on reddit it happens more effortlessly. These are small things
but they can be the hurdle that causes someone not to bother to post that joke
or upvote the 17th reply in a meme sequence.

I know this probably sounds like a technical solution to a social problem, and
I don't mean to deny the important effect that cultural norms and community
policing play. After all, subreddits have widely varying qualities of
discussion depending on their community standards, and there's no question
Hacker News' quality survives in large part due to community vigilance. But I
do think the effortlessness of voting on reddit is a factor which contributes
to the prevalence of lowest common denominator comments, and I'd be very
interested in seeing reddit or other social forums experiment with imposing a
scarcity of voting power.

~~~
derekp7
Sites like Slashdot have this kind of system, however there are still a lot of
comments that get buried, which means you have to browse at -1 or 0 in order
to not miss something. Kind of like reviewing your spam filter periodically.

What I think could be a better system is for everyone to be able to mark what
they like and don't like, then have the option of sorting by votes of other
people that typically vote the same way you do. So people that like a lot of
meme humor will see that more, and those that don't won't. Add in the ability
to select from various "clusters", so you can also have the experience of
reading comments based on alternative tastes, then I think you would have
something that is immune from being gamed.

------
dkarapetyan
> To feel guilty because one has not earned one’s salary because one has not
> had a great idea is the surest way, it seems to me, of making it certain
> that no great idea will come in the next time either.

Feynman has a similar story about playing with ideas and just enjoying the
process instead of worrying about the pressures associated with being great:
[https://www.physics.ohio-
state.edu/~kilcup/262/feynman.html](https://www.physics.ohio-
state.edu/~kilcup/262/feynman.html).

~~~
joaorico
From the same book, there's also his comment on Princeton's Institute for
Advanced Study from which he refused an invitation:

"When I was at Princeton in the 1940s I could see what happened to those great
minds at the Institute for Advanced Study, who had been specially selected for
their tremendous brains and were now given this opportunity to sit in this
lovely house by the woods there, with no classes to teach, with no obligations
whatsoever. These poor bastards could now sit and think clearly all by
themselves, OK? So they don't get any ideas for a while: They have every
opportunity to do something, and they're not getting any ideas. I believe that
in a situation like this a kind of guilt or depression worms inside of you,
and you begin to worry about not getting any ideas. And nothing happens. Still
no ideas come. Nothing happens because there's not enough real activity and
challenge: You're not in contact with the experimental guys. You don't have to
think how to answer questions from the students. Nothing!"

------
ronilan
Very disappointing. The author seems ignorant of the entire science of
Psychohistory. Since it is now possible to predict human development hundreds
of years into the future no idea is really new anymore.

~~~
siscia
May you elaborate ? How you claim that is possible to predict the human
development ? In which way ? It to me seems a very over-simplification...

Anyway, from the wikipedia the first time the term "psycho-history"
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychohistory#Emergence_as_a_di...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychohistory#Emergence_as_a_discipline))
is been used is 1958, it is a good guess to say that the article is been
written no later than the 1960...

I guess we can forgive Asimov...

~~~
snowwrestler
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychohistory_%28fictional%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychohistory_%28fictional%29)

~~~
siscia
Thanks

------
noproblemo
I am reading a short story collection of Asimov compiled in a book called
Gold.

The second half of the book contains extensive commentary by Asimov on how to
write science fiction. He delves into a lot of topics like writing style,
grammer, ideas and many other things.

There is a whole chapter on a how to generate a story from an idea and how to
get the idea to start with. In it, he stresses on thinking. As in real, solid
literal thinking, what we would normally call brainstorming. As a science
fiction author, he says that the brainstorming is not something that he used
to do in short bursts like someone would normally do. He writes that a science
fiction author has to think to a point where her/his head starts aching,
literally.

------
scobar
"If a single individual present is unsympathetic to the foolishness that would
be bound to go on at such a session, the others would freeze. The
unsympathetic individual may be a gold mine of information, but the harm he
does will more than compensate for that. It seems necessary to me, then, that
all people at a session be willing to sound foolish and listen to others sound
foolish."

This is something I've always felt, but remained unable to express as well as
Asimov did here. I'm so grateful for those with a gold mine of information who
resist temptation toward arrogance and scornful correction, and instead show
patience and joy in teaching the foolish.

------
legohead
Reading biographies about Einstein, I came to the conclusion that the man
wasn't really a genius in the intellectual sense, but a genius when it came to
ideas, and had the passion to pursue them.

------
genericone
Interesting idea here:

Draw from a pool of people who wish to be involved in cerebratory pursuits,
and who are willing to accept and give ideas freely to others. Out of this
pool, some combination of 4 or 5 individuals within the same geographical
region can be drawn randomly from this group for cerebration sessions
following a few Asimov Cerebration Guidelines (ACGs):

-"ease, relaxation, and a general sense of permissiveness."

-"short reports to write, or summaries of their conclusions, or brief answers to suggested problems, [and be paid for that]"

-"educate the participants in facts and fact-combinations, in theories and vagrant thoughts."

-"meeting in someone’s home or over a dinner table at some restaurant"

-"a session-arbiter will have to sit there, stirring up the animals, asking the shrewd question, making the necessary comment, bringing them gently back to the point."

After the session, the session can be given an evaluation by each of the
participants:

A. did the session feel neutralized by any of the participants reputations?

B. was any insight gained?

C. was the session jovial?

I think I, as well as some others, would be interested in attending something
like this if it could be organized well.

~~~
laglad
This is a very interesting idea. Perhaps taping a sample session with some
extraordinarily easeful people and showing it to participants can help model
the openness involved. I'd be game.

~~~
filoeleven
I am not sure that one can learn to have that kind of openness without
practicing it oneself. An equally esoteric practice that might help to foster
this is the Bohm Dialogue.[1]

[1][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohm_Dialogue](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohm_Dialogue)

------
anmonteiro90
A bit offtopic, but a necessary interpretation from my perspective is how the
so-called "corporate culture" with all its dresscodes and formal manners
doesn't promote the ascent of new ideas - Asimov even goes on to suggest they
could actually come from an informal dinner, etc.

I'll be sure to save this one to read periodically. Thanks for the submission.

------
xsmasher
"Feynman's Rainbow" has a dialog on how to get new ideas, with some advice
from Feynman. Chapter five I think.

------
cantlin

       "It seems to me then that the purpose of cerebration sessions 
        is not to think up new ideas but to educate the participants 
        in facts and fact-combinations, in theories and vagrant thoughts."
       
    

For me the best meetings, conferences and conversations are the ones that come
closest to this description.

------
kumarharsh
Just last month, I finished reading "Magic", Asimov's collection of small
witty stories, which were NOT SF, but Fantasy.

Although the stories themselves were quite mundane, what struck me as I
somehow forced my way forward in the stories, was Asimov's clairvoyant tone
while writing. Most of the things he wrote, even in apparent jest, hold true
today.

And never have I been so enthralled by a bunch of essays as Asimov has done
it... Reading his second momoir and many more essays underline his wisdom more
and more.

------
KhalilK
This reminded me of Bret Victor's great talk Inventing on Principle[0].

0.[https://vimeo.com/36579366](https://vimeo.com/36579366)

~~~
cpg
Great talk. Do you know what tools was he demonstrating?

Are these tools available to use?

~~~
KhalilK
Though those exact tools are not really available, there are a couple of
"alternatives" when it comes to live coding; a HTML5 canvas playground[0] and
another similar one[1].

If you are interested more in live coding you might want to check
[http://toplap.org/?title=ToplapSystems](http://toplap.org/?title=ToplapSystems)

0.[http://htmlivecode.com/canvas-animation-
playground/](http://htmlivecode.com/canvas-animation-playground/)

1.[http://tnlogy.github.io/tnlogy/](http://tnlogy.github.io/tnlogy/)

------
pitchups
For anyone interested in this subject, highly recommend reading Steven
Johnson's book "Where Good Ideas Come From".

To get a summary of the book you can also view his TED talk:

[http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_johnson_where_good_ideas_com...](http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_johnson_where_good_ideas_come_from?language=en)

------
pm
I don't come to HN looking to generate new ideas. I come to be exposed to
things I might potentially be interested in, and to learn from those who might
know more than me. If I generate any new ideas at all, it's outside of the
time I'm engaged here (when things have time to percolate and my focus isn't
so narrow).

------
segmondy
Permutation.

You take an old idea, and you pull out all the variables and you start
permuting upon them.

~~~
tiger10guy
Yes!

... but which variables?

Permutations grow exponentially as you add dimensions, so you can't have too
many.

~~~
theoh
You want Systematic Inventive Thinking:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systematic_inventive_thinking](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systematic_inventive_thinking)

