a blending of elements drawn from two previously unrelated matrices of thought into a new matrix of meaning by way of a process involving comparison, abstraction and categorisation, analogies and metaphors. He regards many different mental phenomena based on comparison (such as analogies, metaphors, parables, allegories, jokes, identification, role-playing, acting, personification, anthropomorphism etc.), as special cases of "bisociation".
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is a 1964 book by Arthur Koestler. It is a study of the processes of discovery, invention, imagination and creativity in humour, science, and the arts. It lays out Koestler's attempt to develop an elaborate general theory of human Creativity.
In his wonderful book, The Act of Creation, Arthur Koestler defines the creative process as starting with the juxtaposition of two concepts from separate conceptual spaces.
> Such a conjunction creates not merely a new idea but an enlargement of the space of ideas, a cross-fertilization that is the very stuff of which innovation is made. If we, by education, by scientific practices, by social norms, restrict the development of individual talents to narrow specializations, we will thereby lose the ability to innovate. (Collective Electrodynamics, Foreword)