How to solve problems that cannot be solved inside the box of formal thinking? Can we “step out of the box”, can we experience the freshness of unhindered perspective? Is there a way to brand new solutions, a way that is transgressing mere extrapolations of the old mental structures?
Here are some guidelines (or rather kōans) that may help to understand this creative challenge. The question quoted above was originally raised with regard to transport in the Danube region, but our reflection should be accepted also in much wider sense.
The problem seems to be insoluble: Our highways are crowded with traffic, both heavy and light. Heavy traffic (it is growing exponentially) is now already blocking any fluidity of movement. Within a decade we shall get totally stuck. Within the last two decades, the situation got much worse – at least in my country (Slovenia). On the other side, modern railways could be (at least) a partial solution, but what we do experience here and now is a railway system which is old and obsolete, something unable to compete with the speed and flexibility of road traffic.
National and European officials are breaking their heads: Should we enlarge the highways – but how to solve the problem of emissions in the same time, not to speak about additional degradation of natural environment? And who will pay this investment? Or maybe, should we construct modern railway system (comparable to the one in Japan) – but such a huge project takes a long time and is also extremely expensive.
In short, there are different proposals, but all of them are merely extrapolations of something that is already known. None of them is without a hidden threat that the initially feasible idea would collapse, due to this or that deliberately neglected part of reality – since we know quite well that modern global reality is extremely complex.
So we are looking for solutions that are “out of the box”, out of the mental cage that we have built ourselves. A famous quotation from Albert Einstein says: “The significant problems that we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them.”
Great solutions that usher us to a new perspective are often named “radical inventions”. They do not follow the old line of thought, they are outside of that which is already known. But where do such inventions come from? Let us first start from the negative aspect: What radical inventions are not?
By rule, they are not engendered by plans, by projections of established institutions. Projections are based on the old, they refer to the known. Our institutions (like governmental agencies, universities, research centres etc.) may be of a great help; however, this fact should not mislead us. With regard to great new stories, institutions are not in the first place – although they keep a certain (and not at all unimportant) role in development to final success.
The heart of radical inventions was always belonging to small groups of brave individuals with imagination – creative imagination that may be even more important than scientific knowledge and technical skill (although these two are also obvious). The problem is that imaginative vision cannot be described, it cannot be foreseen inside the so-called “framework research programmes”.
However, when the first signs of “out of the box” solutions are detected, we should listen to them carefully. Institutions should respect such new sprouts, new beginnings. They should provide a precious support system for those who can move freely within the multidimensional space of new ideas.
Let us look at an example that is not so far from actual blind alleys of European transportation. All of us have heard about Nikola Tesla, one of the greatest inventors in human history. He was born in Croatia, therefore in the centre of our Danube region, but later moved to America, in order to supplement the obsolete small DC generators and other appliances with modern three-phase AC power. This deed gave way to modern industrialization. He invented also the radio, etc. Many historians of science agree that, with his achievements, “Tesla invented the 20th century”.
He was thinking “out of the box”, he was living a great deal ahead of his time. Like the great Pythagoras or Leonardo, he was following the so-called orphic methodology in creative work: fusion of science, art, and spirituality; and this holistic approach opened way to really great inventions. Only rare and precious people could understand him. But what he did, was extremely influential and beneficial for humanity. So one must be mindful to see things that “cannot be seen”, one must respect endeavours that are not (yet) in the interest of powerful capital.
Another example, a modern one, is from my own land, Slovenia. Nearly three decades ago we were dreaming (and already designing) electric vehicles of the new generation, lightweight shuttles with the wheels as the only moving part. This is called “in-wheel propulsion” (electric motors implemented directly inside the wheels). In that distant time (in the nineties), this idea seemed to be a little unrealistic, because ordinary electric motors are not able to develop sufficient torque inside a given mass of the entire wheel.
But the vision was in place, our calculations were correct, and soon the high-tech company Elaphe was founded to carry on this new concept. The initial idea of the new propulsion system finally received affirmation, but only after a long effort of the growing team (today approaching 100 young specialists), all of them wholeheartedly dedicated to a project that is in tune with the rules of ethics and ecology. Yes, dreamers who are able to make a dream tangible, can be found everywhere – also in our part of Europe. But one should give them a position that they do deserve.
Let us conclude with another citation from Einstein: “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex, but it takes a touch of genius, and a lot of courage, to move in the opposite direction.”
(2017)