Polymathy and creativity, polymathy and great ideas

We’ve been defining the polymath (or trying to define it), but we still have to keep in mind the concept that I have addressed here and there over the past couple of weeks – is polymathy a good thing? And a narrower way to think about whether polymathy is a good thing is this question: Is the polymath a more interesting person?

Other related questions are whether the polymath is a more creative person and whether the polymath is a wiser person.

I have hauled out some quotes on these issues from thinkers from the last couple of thousand years, but those guys were just philosophers and writers. Is there any empirical evidence that shows that polymaths are more creative, wiser, or just more interesting?

It turns out that there is some evidence on these issues. Scientists have been looking at polymathy recently, and have come up with some conclusions, which we will explore over the coming weeks.

But let’s begin with this thought. Let’s assume that great and creative ideas often come from linking arguably unrelated concepts. And one can only link arguably unrelated concepts when one knows those unrelated concepts. Thus, the link is only possible when the thinker is in command of many unrelated facts. In other words, he/she has to know a lot of stuff, i.e., be at least somewhat polymathic.

This line of thinking is not new. In fact it goes all the way back to ancient Rome, where the architect and engineer Vitruvius wrote in Book I, Chapter 1.3, of his De Architectura that, for example, “an architect should be ingenious, and apt in the acquisition of knowledge. Deficient in either of these qualities, he cannot be a perfect master. He should be a good writer, a skilful draftsman, versed in geometry and optics, expert at figures, acquainted with history, informed on the principles of natural and moral philosophy, somewhat of a musician, not ignorant of the sciences both of law and physic, nor of the motions, laws, and relations to each other, of the heavenly bodies.”

Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man