tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20078507.post4908235780354491908..comments2023-11-18T09:51:52.115+10:30Comments on Medlar Comfits: The thinking person's tonicanna tambourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01338581782386113668noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20078507.post-90820088808723581312010-12-04T15:11:04.102+10:302010-12-04T15:11:04.102+10:30Your wish might be a better cure than any other, f...Your wish might be a better cure than any other, for this paralysis. I agree completely with you about this terrible state of being. Without self-doubt, there can be no discovery, but with too much of it, there can be no movement. If all creativity were thought of more as science, then there might be more enlightenment inherent in creative acts, and less ego involved that disguises the worthwhile from the gimmicks and the pre-loved sold as new.<br /><br />In last month's Scientific American, Scott O. Lilienfeld mulled over what he called the "Fudge Factor". As he wrote, <i>"Eminent scientists tend to be more arrogant and confident than other scientists. As a consequence, they may be especially vulnerable to confirmation bias."</i> Then he contrasted this with the spirit of science, with: <i>"As astronomer Carl Sagan and his wife and co-author Ann Druyan noted, science is like a little voice in our heads that says, 'You might be mistaken. You've been wrong before.' "</i><br /><br />Now, creative types in other fields might think, what does that have to do with me? No one has ever given me the break to know I'm right." Or they might have got something "right" once, and then do it over and over again as a career, for fear of getting something new and wrong. So then we end up getting a choice of new! breakthrough! discovery! that isn't, produced in a culture of many-party-orgy of fear of failure and people who have had a success and the industry that feeds them and off them, fed in turn by a public that likes, rightly or wrongly, no surprises, and certainly no discoveries.<br /><br />Even in science, paralysis and deep melancholia at least, must combine to kill many a fresh idea. We all must therefore be thankful that the scientist who swallowed mouthfuls of "bacteria" that he couldn't talk about in dinner parties, discovered the link between that stuff, and ulcers. Though he eventually won the <a href="http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2005/presentation-speech.html" rel="nofollow">Nobel Prize</a> is nothing compared to the vindication he must feel, for sticking with what he first theorised and then experimented with, and finally proved, to be right, in the face of ostracism and ridicule.<br /><br />As with anyone who does something worth doing, the focus was away from the ego, the value was correctly judged in the idea, and the creative impulse managed somehow, to keep its head above the waters of self-doubt, probably because the critical measurement was true. The search and focus was detached enough from the self to survive, whatever problems the self suffered.anna tambourhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01338581782386113668noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20078507.post-30721048706553078092010-12-02T18:36:17.578+10:302010-12-02T18:36:17.578+10:30I have to say that I completely identify with ever...I have to say that I completely identify with everything your infinite correspondent said. Melancholia may be a tonic, but self-doubt is a paralytic. <br /><br />I wish him/you/all of us luck. It's worth persevering. I think.JPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01544406500208399638noreply@blogger.com