As a writer involved in both scientific and artistic writing, I have personally felt the difference in my thought processes and in the way I ‘create’ a scientific document as opposed to an artistic piece. The process of creation in art, poetry or even science has many common components.

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Creation involves evoking emotions and it is the emotions that are used along with insights to provide unique images. Creation almost always has to do with visualization: we have strong images in our minds that may not be well formed. Our mind seeks a closure or ‘gestalt’ and wants to see the whole picture of these images that are not clear to us when they first appear.

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Creation is about trying to complete these incomplete images or pictures we have in our minds and evoked by emotions. Emotion in creation figures both in the sciences and in the arts. We may think that science is about rationalization, about reason but finally it’s the beauty of the scientific theory that appeals to a scientist, so the primary role of emotion is revealed even in sciences. The scientist accepts and studies the most harmonious and beautiful theories and this is not about reason but about emotions. Just like the scientist seeks beauty in the theory, the artist also seeks to paint or write about strong emotions and about things that stir these emotions. Thus the trigger for both the scientists and the artist seems to be the same, they are motivated by a similar emotional need to create and to understand or shape their images through emotions.

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But is there any difference at all between the process of scientific creation and the artistic creation? Beauty or our sense of aesthetics is almost the central part of any scientific or artistic discovery because when something appeals to us, we naturally feel it is right. So when a theory appeals to a scientist or a phrase appeals to a poet or a shape appeals to an artist, this theory, or phrase or shape is considered beautiful and it is the beauty inherent in these elements of creation that finally motivates the creator to create.

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Thus the process of creation is a process of seeking harmony and beauty and we ‘create’ because we want to make things beautiful. Anything that is incomplete disturbs us and we create something to complete the pictures we have in our minds. When writing a poem or a short story or even a novel, I am driven by some hazy images and these images disturb me to an extent that I feel compelled to sit and write so that I can give a form, a shape, a structure and most importantly a meaning to these images of the mind.

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Whether we create an artistic masterpiece or a theory, a family, a business or society, we are simply looking to finally complete these incomplete images in our minds and in the creative process we choose those options that appeal to us as the most beautiful and the most harmonious of all.

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Saberi Roy is a writer, analyst, poet, political commentator and psychologist. She has written a book of poetry and is the author of an ongoing series in Psychology (Reflections in Psychology) where she provides new insights into human thinking. She edits an online scientific-spiritual magazine (The God Signs) and regularly writes political columns for many journals. Visit her website http://www.saberiroy.com/site  - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor