Koestler Arthur. The Act of Creation

Penguin Books, 1990. — 752 p. — ISBN 978-0140191912, 0140191917.Arthur Koestler’s "The Act of Creation" is an attempt to develop a general theory of human creativity covering both the similarities and the differences between creativity in humour, science and the arts.
While the study of psychology has offered little in the way of explaining the creative process, Koestler examines the idea that we are at our most creative when rational thought is suspended--for example, in dreams and trancelike states. All who read The Act of Creation will find it a compelling and illuminating book.The Jester
The logic of laughter
The Triptych
The Laughter Reflex
The Paradox of Laughter
The Logic of Laughter: A First Approach
Matrices and Codes
Hidden Persuaders
Habit and Originality
Man and Machine
Laughter and emotion
Aggression and Identification
The Inertia of Emotion
The Mechanism of Laughter
The Importance of not being Earnest
Varieties of Humour
Pun and Witticism
Man and Animal
Impersonation
The Child-Adult
The Trivial and the Exalted
Caricature and Satire
The Misfit
The Paradox of the Centipede
Displacement
Coincidence
Nonsense
Tickling
The Clown
Originality, Emphasis, Economy
From humour to discovery
Explosion and Catharsis
'Seeing the Joke' and 'Solving the Problem'
The Creation of Humour
Paradox and SynthesisThe Sage
Moments of Truth
The Chimpanzee and the Stick
Archimedes
Chance and Ripeness
Logic and IntuitionThree illustrations
The Printing press
Gravity and the Holy Ghost
Evolution through Natural Selection
Thinking aside
Limits of Logic
The Unconscious before Freud
The Mechanization of Habits
Exploring the Shallows
The 'Hooked Atoms of Thought'
Exploring the Deeps
The Word and the Vision
The Snares of Language
Underground games
The Importance of Dreaming
Concretization and Symbolization
Punning for Profit
The Benefits of Impersonation
Displacement
Standing on One's Head
Analogy and IntuitionThe spark and the flame
False Inspirations
Premature Linkages
Snowblindness
Gradual Integrations
The Dawn of LanguageThe evolution of ideas
Separations and Reintegrations
Twenty-six Centuries of Science
Creative Anarchy
'Connect, Always Connect'
The Thinking Cap
The Pathology of Thought
Limits of Confirmation
Fashions in Science
Boundaries of ScienceScience and Emotion
Three Character-Types
Magic and Sublimation
The Boredom of Science