In his excellent book: “Scientific Genius, Dean Keith Simonton of the USC-Davis, suggests that genuises are forming more novel combinations than the merely talented. His theory has etymology behind it: Cogito- “I think”- orginally connoted “shake together”. Intelligo, the root of intelligence, means to “select among”. This is a clear early indication about the utility of permitting ideas and thoughts to randomly combine with each other and selecting from the many the few to retain.
Like the highly intelligent child with a case of Legos, the genius is constantly combining and re-combining ideas, images, thoughts into different combinations on both the conscious and unconscious levels.
When asked how he was able to come to E=MC2, Einstein called it “combinatory play”. He hadn’t, after all, invented energy, mass or speed but he was able to look at the same world as everybody else and come up with something different. In fact, he considerd this combinatory play to be essential to his thinking.
In my book: “The Secret Creator Within”- 23 Ways To Awaken Your Creative Genius, I actually start...