Fusion Thinking

                                                                                 FUSION THINKING

The 20th century can be marked as an era of major scientific and technological innovations. Relativity theory, Quantum Physics, Genetics, Cognitive Science, Artificial Intelligence, Computing, Aeronautics, Automobile, etc., etc., and the list goes endless. Science and technology brought prosperity and eased human living. With technological advancements, industries were in great demand for skilled professionals. They placed a premium on students graduating with science and math degrees. Professions in these disciplines were endowed with high paying jobs, much to the chagrin of their art counterparts.

With the advent of the 21st century - pure science, math, and technological skills are finding their limitations. Pure technocrats are merely turning out to be problem solvers and not innovators. Technological Institutions are now including art disciplines in their regular curriculum. Parents are enrolling kids right from childhood, in arts and music classes. Modern industry is in great demand for fusion thinkers. And society is now craving for ‘Scientartists’, ‘Technartists’ and ‘Mathartists’.

Fusion thinkers have always been the standouts in their domains. Eccentric geniuses like Einstein, Newton, Elon Musk, and Steve Jobs are notable examples of Fusion thinkers. Their achievements have always been several notches higher than even the best in their respective domain.

To understand how to blend scientific and artistic thinking, it is important to understand the nature of these two thought processes. If we understand how these two are similar and different in certain aspects, we can get an insight into fusion thinking.

Let us categorize our thinking processes into multiple classifications and see how Scientists and Artists employ these thought processes.

Correlative Thinking

Imagination.

Creative Selection.

Breaking barriers of Established Ideas.

Selective Memory.

Being in the Zone.

Logic.

Mastery of Tools

CORRELATIVE THINKING:-

A detective pondering over a case connects the dots to solve it. So does a scientist cogitating over a mathematic puzzle. Connecting the dots or distinct ideas is traditionally seen as a problem-solving attribute. But it is also an important creative trait.

Notable technological innovations are made possible by taking ideas from distinct platforms or systems and creating a fusion. Innovations are never stand alone and do not come out of the blue anywhere. They are always an evolution, connecting established ideas, transforming and amalgamating them. 

Fusion thinking is an important trait seen in correlative thinkers. They can see patterns in two distinct ideas and have a knack to create a blend out of them.

This trait is important for artists as well. A musician can create a fusion out of distinct tunes or ragas. A writer can blend History and Science genres and create a new genre.

Fusion thinking need not come from ideas in the same discipline, Steve Jobs got the inspiration for Fonts in Mac computer, from the Calligraphy classes he took in college - A perfect example of Art meeting science.

Correlative thinking is vital for both art and science. Innovators, Science geniuses, and Artists par excellence are all correlative thinkers.

IMAGINATION:-

 Writers, moviemakers, and artists construct a world out of their imagination and draw their audience to it. Genres like Science Fiction lets the audience to live in a world built out of a dream where they can forget their mundane day to day life. At the same time, conventional thinking is science requires a significant analytic thought process and less imagination. Such a conclusion is not valid on closer analysis.

As a simple example, let us consider Newton's law of Gravity.

F = m1 * m2/r^2

The force of gravity between two objects is a product of its masses, divided by the square of the distance separating them.

A child reading this equation can comprehend using his mathematical knowledge of numbers(by increasing or decreasing the value of variables involved). Another child can use his/her imagination and create a mental picture of two bodies, their masses, and distance. This child can understand the above relationship by imagining two heavier or lighter bodies and two bodies farther or nearer. Both are the right ways of learning. The second child imaginatively visualizes a science concept. He/she is a fusion thinker who blends both scientific and artistic thinking.

Another example is people who can make number calculations faster mentally. They are said to visualize the numbers and also the calculations in their mind, something which a normal person can only do on paper.

A technocrat or scientist who employs pure logical and analytic thinking will no doubt be successful. But another who uses the above along with visualization and imagination may just turn out to be an out of the league genius.

CREATIVE SELECTION:-

Writers and Artists most often experience the need for creative selection. At times a writer has multiple plot options staring before him. An artist has a dilemma of choosing out of multiple colors from his palette. At these moments they make a choice not guided by rational thinking but from an aesthetic sense rooted on intuition.

Scientists who strive to unravel deep conceptual questions also face this dilemma. They are confronted with multiple ideas to formulate a successful theory. They can navigate through all these ideas one by one and eliminate the false ones. Though ideal, it is pretty time consuming and inefficient. Scientists often take short cuts and perform only a smaller subset of these options. The criteria they use to do this selection and elimination is very interesting. To some extent experience helps. But mostly they employ creative selection guided by intuition and gut feeling.

Fusion thinkers with strong analytical, artistic, and intuitive thinking employ creative selection and avoid getting lost in the maze of ideas 

BREAKING BARRIERS OF ESTABLISHED IDEAS:-

Scientists and technocrats are constrained by established ideas in their respective fields. A programmer is limited by the syntax of the programming language. A mathematician by specific rules of his mathematic concept. A physicist by laws of nature and a writer by the grammar of the language.

Out of the box thinking is all about breaking these barriers. Einstein had to break the thought limitations imposed by Newtonian laws to discover Relativity. Modern writers employ non-linear narration and use novel sentence constructs that ignore grammar rules.

These radical thinkers always had to confront challenges from traditionalists in their domain. Traditionalists only accept gradual incremental changes. They feel a change should be a continuum of existing ideas and not a complete break from established conceptual models.

Out of the box thinkers in literature and music also face a similar conundrum. Tamil Writer Charu Nivedita was ostracized by his contemporaries for writing in the transgressive genre, something unheard of in 90’s Tamil literature.

Tamil Music composers like Santosh Narayanan, Rahman & Yuvan gave novel music to listeners. Unfortunately, traditionalist composers like Ilayaraja criticized their music as trash.

SELECTIVE MEMORY:-

Sound memory is considered to be important for human survival. In the normal world people who can remember traffic routes, names, faces, and recollect their childhood incidents have better survival prospects. Also, students and technologists who can remember mathematical formulae or programming syntaxes get tasks done quicker and faster. With the availability of Google, many claim it is not required to remember mundane program syntaxes or formulae. More emphasis is laid on conceptual understanding rather than rote learning. But a technocrat who has both conceptual understanding and better memory has a far better success rate.

On a different note, we hear stories of absent-minded scientists like Einstein. It is said Einstein walks daily from Princeton University to his residence. Despite walking down the route for several years he is sometimes found lost. How can a genius who revolutionized science cannot remember such basics?

Weird Geniuses are always found to have selective memory. They know human memory is limited and use that only to remember those that are of utmost importance to them. Remembering mundane details is generally a waste of limited memory capacity.

BEING IN THE ZONE:-

Artists frequently succumb to boredom. A writer may spend years not writing even a single sentence. But he/she gets a sudden burst of creativity turning out hundreds of pages in weeks. The writer feels he/she is in the zone and all the mental impediments don't exist.

In recent years even technocrats feel bored with doing routine kinds of stuff. They change jobs, take an international vacation, or indulge in hobbies to overcome the rut of routine.

Great artists and professionals find ways to overcome boredom. They have a way to be inspired and be in the zone consistently. Consistency requires not only skill in one’s domain but also in-depth self-understanding. One should be aware of one’s moods, strengths, weaknesses, and diligently find ways to overcome self-limitations.

LOGIC

Logic is an ancient science practiced by Indian and Western philosophies. Ancient philosophers used logic to not only validate their ideas but also debate with their counterparts. The constructs of logic are the foundation upon which stands modern scientific and mathematic establishment. Today scientists first use logic to validate their ideas and then use complex mathematical tools for in-depth analysis. Logic is also predominantly used in Computer Science. 

On the contrary, Logic has little role in Art. One may argue, to construct a story or a movie sequence requires logical thinking. But on closer look one may find a story or a movie is all about convincing the audience to ignore the logic loopholes and get immersed in the story flow. A reader while reading an interesting novel is unmindful of logical inconsistencies. Only when the story is substandard the reader complains about logic issues.

So we can safely conclude logic is a thought process that is crucial for Science discipline but not art. Art is all about going beyond logic and treading the unimaginable.

MASTERY OF TOOLS:-

A mathematician needs to have rigorous training in math. To be a good writer one needs to keep writing every day. The more time a guitarist spends on his musical instrument the better he gets at his craft. Bill Gates in his youthful days used to write code for several hours without break just thriving on his soda. Cricketers Virat Kohli and Sachin Tendulkar used to practice a particular shot for hours in nets. Practicing intensely the tools of one’s chosen domain is a basic prerequisite to being a master. This criterion is valid for any domain - art, science, and even sports.

However obvious this may seem it is not possible for all. Many lack the physical and mental stamina to intensely focus on their craft. It required great effort, discipline, and passion for a writer to spend years completing a mammoth novel series like ‘Lord of the Rings’.

Similarly, a scientist pursuing research on a theoretical idea has to spend years on it. People who have short span interests find it very difficult to put the level of dedication required for great endeavors.

WHY ARTISTS ALSO NEED SCIENTIFIC THINKING

So far we have explored why scientists and technocrats need artistic thinking. Let us now look from the perspective of whether artists need scientific thinking. Most artists find it very difficult to comprehend complex math and scientific tools. Of course, there are exceptions. 

But an artist needs to have multidimensional knowledge to sustain creativity. A writer needs knowledge in multiple fields including science. He/she need not understand Relativity theory down to its Tensor equations. But a writer should at least be able to understand and visualize time dilation. A lot of scientists currently write books that explain complex scientific concepts in layman's terms. Artists should step out of their comfort zone and explore books on topics of science and technology.

In the modern world, technology is invading the art sphere like music, visual media, photography, and film editing. Musicians and artists need to understand and use technology tools. 

We now realize modern education should have its curriculum structured to produce fusion thinkers. The question arises can a student be trained to become a fusion thinker. Or Fusion thinking is in-built into some one’s genetic code. We can find the answer if we explore women's education in India a few decades back Those days girls excel in art disciplines and found lagging in science subjects. But this situation changed gradually and today we find girl students topping in Science and math as well. So an education focussing on fusion thinking may not produce sudden changes. It may take a couple of generations to see changes in the ground.

While we emphasize fusion thinking, one also needs to have basic common sense thinking, good communication, and real-world skills. It is even more important for one to have a strong moral compass. Most eccentric geniuses are found lacking in these aspects. Fusion thinking should not be at the expense of the above-mentioned skills. Parents and teachers need to foster a harmonious environment for children where they can explore and thrive.

Finally, We need a world of happy, prosperous, and healthy individuals. Fusion thinking is a small ingredient to achieve this.