How Creativity Functions in the Brain
To quote Mark Runco, “…creativity is part of what it means to be human. We all have it. Most of us need to fulfill more of it” (Deanne & Gute, 2015, p. 14). Accordingly, studying how creativity works in the brain becomes imperative to understanding or learning how to fulfill more of one’s creativity. This understanding is also valuable in knowing how the brain functions to produce “ideas out of the box,” a fundamental ingredient of creativity. In this light, the Santa Fe Institute Working Group and the National Endowment for the Arts provide insights about creativity in the brain. Their material provides key learnings about creativity, prompts the need to know more about creativity, and reveals challenges in conducting creativity research.
Three key learnings from the material include:
- The complexity of defining creativity. Creativity has distinct meanings across various disciplines; still, its baseline definition should account for novelty, value, and utility (Deanne & Gute, 2015).
- Creativity requires the harmonious functioning of memory, divergent thinking, and convergent thinking, a phenomenon called magic synthesis. The brain’s magic synthesis occurs when ideas are fashioned together to generate creative output and requires the brain to be convergent and divergent (Deanne & Gute, 2015).
- Divergent thinking can be seen from the age of two. Ironically, as children grow up, they have few opportunities to explore their divergent thinking but have many opportunities for taking convergent thinking tests, yet tests for divergent thinking are good for originality.
Further, these learnings prompt the need to know more about the brain’s magic synthesis and divergent thinking. First, the brain’s magic synthesis is responsible for creativity; what activates this phenomenon, and how can it be evoked? Second, divergent thinking is necessary for originality. Therefore, how can one be driven to explore fluency, originality, and ideational flexibility?
Conclusively, creativity is a complex research topic as it lacks general biology and depends on things dealing with value and utility. Based on this complexity, exploring creativity from the collective perspectives of neurobiology, cognitive psychology, learning, complex systems, and art might be challenging. Besides, tension persists due to the dissimilarities in the different disciplinary theories and how they approach creativity and creativity research.
References
Deanne, & Gute, G. (2015). How creativity works in the brain: Insights from a Santa Fe Institute Working Group, cosponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts. In arts.gov. NEA Office of Research & Analysis.
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Question 
How Creativity Functions in the Brain
Read the material attached and answer the following questions for a discussion board.
1) List 3 things you learned from the material. Briefly explain
2) What 2 things would you like to know more about? Briefly explain
3) What is something that concerns you or that you think might be challenging? Briefly explain