Introduction (for TECHNICAL CREATIVITY)

In ancient times it was believed that the secret of creating inventions is available only to the gods. The Egyptians believed that God Thot invented astronomical instruments, and Osiris invented the method of making beer. The Greeks attributed the invention of wine to Bacchus, the invention of the plow to Hera. The Romans considered the inventor of the method of tilling the soil of Saturn and believed that the goddess Demeter suggested the cultivation of cereals to the legendary inventor Triptolemus.

For a long time, the creative process under the influence of metaphysical ideas, dogmas of religion, agnosticism, biological determinism and other idealistic theories was considered mysterious, fundamentally unknowable. The creation of scientifically grounded ideas about creativity became possible only as a result of the development of materialistic philosophy, which considers creativity as an immanent characteristic of human activity in general. Marxist-Leninist dialectics became the method of all creativity. She allowed to rise to the correct conclusions, generalizations and conclusions in the scientific methodology of invention.

Innovators of technology used the dialectic long before its laws were formulated. They empirically came across some dialectic solutions without suspecting that they use dialectics as a methodology for technical creativity. However, the conscious application of the Marxist-Leninist dialectical metamethod in the thinking and creativity of innovators of technology gives an invaluable advantage. Spontaneous thought without the conscious application of the scientific method is often losing the right path, which leads to errors. Mastering the Marxist-Leninist methodology is not limited to memorizing its categories, laws, formulas and mechanically applying them to certain phenomena in the field of technology and technical creativity. Creative mastery of the Marxist-Leninist methodology involves a comprehensive and in-depth study of the techniques, patterns of its development, various factors of technical creativity - objectively, in a multilateral connection with other phenomena and in development, which occurs according to the laws inherent in the phenomena and objects themselves.

In addition to understanding the essence of the Marxist-dialectical metamethod, one must be able to apply the laws and categories of materialist dialectics in each specific case, in each specific area of ​​technology. F. Engels noted: “With one knowledge of the fact that the barley stalk and the infinitesimal calculus are covered by the notion of“ negation of the negation ”, I can neither successfully grow barley, nor differentiate and integrate, just like the knowledge of the laws of the dependence of tones on the size of the strings does not give me the ability to play the violin. "

The laws and categories of materialistic dialectics act always and everywhere, but their action in each area of ​​phenomena is unique, specific. This circumstance is connected with the fact that, as in every science, in the methodology of technical creativity, along with the universal Marxist-dialectical metamethod, specific general and particular methods are formed. The inventor uses those and others. Marxist-Leninist methodology is a powerful instrument of technical creativity precisely because it warns against one-sidedness and subjectivism.

The classics of Marxism-Leninism K. Marx, F. Engels and V.I. Lenin, who created the Marxist-Leninist dialectical metamethod, also expressed many fundamental ideas about technology and creativity in general and about various particular phenomena in these fields. Of particular importance for the development of the methodology of invention are the works of Karl Marx, who wrote that ever-increasing social needs put forward new technical tasks, and "mankind always sets itself only such tasks that it can solve," and "the task itself only occurs when the material conditions for its solution are already there, or at least are in the process of becoming "2. "The creation of inventions is partly determined by the cooperation of contemporaries, partly by the use of the work of predecessors" 1, and the inventors also use the unfortunate ideas of the past. As a rule, "every major invention in the field of mechanics is followed by an increase in the division of labor, and any increase in the division of labor leads, in turn, to new inventions in mechanics."

K. Marx also noted a number of private methodological principles for the development of technology. He believed that labor cooperation leads to the differentiation of the means of labor. Differentiation of the latter, in turn, leads to their combination, transformation, and vice versa - the combination implies differentiation. Inventions are created by various methods: changing the source of energy that drives the means of labor, increasing the number of simultaneously operating tools, switching to continuous processes, dividing the labor process, increasing technical objects to cyclopean sizes, increasing the speed of machines, mobility of tools, working arenas, etc. .3

The objectivity of the existence of private methods of creating inventions was later confirmed by researchers of various specialties who studied and summarized a great deal of factual material from various historical eras. The historian Т. B. Taylor believed that technical objects were not at all invented by means of bare fantasy, but appeared only in the process of changes to the existing one.

He considers the lowest category of tools to be those that nature delivers to us in finished form or in such that they only need final finishing (for example, flint for striking and throwing, branches for clubs and spears, spikes or teeth - punctures, fragments of flint for cutting or scraping). First, universal purpose tools are created for the rough performance of several operations, which are later improved by the method of specialization. Thus, the pieces of obsidian, used initially for cutting and scraping, began to be used by the Aztecs for shaving. A mace, a club with notches for making cloth from bark, a mace as a symbol of power, was created from the ancient cudgel by the method of specialization. In other cases, the invention was created by imitation - the North American Indians, for lack of tobacco, were looking for some plant similar to it, using, for example, willow bark. The methods of transforming a technical object, methods of changing the material, combining technical elements (for example, Scythian onions were invented by combining by means of glue or lived several pieces of wood and a horn) were also used.

The researcher of the history of primitive invention, O.T. Mason, believes that historical evolution (inventions occurred as a result of the use of the following methods of invention:

• use of objects of nature for their intended purpose (rodent teeth as chisels);
• making small changes in the structure of natural objects in order to improve their functionality) (handles to the tool);
• making small changes in natural substances and materials to perform various functions (stone processing in the form of a hand hammer);
• copying the shape and structure of nature objects in different variations (imitation woodgrain, clay products);
• transformation of objects of nature for various purposes;
• changes in active forces (wind, water flow);
• imitation of human actions;
• multiplication of human forces by mechanical means (wedge, hoist);
• complex integration of technical objects to perform several functions.

The historian G. Schurz in his study on the history of primitive culture gives examples of creating primitive tools by means of differentiating tools, simplifying technical objects, aesthetic ennobling things, replacing materials, combining, universalizing, etc.

On the basis of studying the development of technology in the Stone Age, the well-known Soviet historian S. A. Semenov notes a number of general and particular laws of the development of technology. Among the general laws he identifies the following:

• changing the natural forms, physical or chemical state of natural objects by combining whole or parts;
• change by breaking the whole into parts;
• change by imparting other properties to the treatment (heating, drying, mixing with particles of other substances);
• increase the mechanical power of guns by increasing the weight and volume of guns, the use of levers;
• use of energy of the surrounding nature;
• using the combined efforts of many people (simple cooperation);
• the use of animals as a force of power;
• Forcing the most important parameters of a technical object (speed, power, accuracy, etc.);
• geometrization, symmetrization, standardization of tools;
• ensuring continuity of the production process;
• the use of gravity and elasticity of bodies for mechanization and automation;
• transition to rational movement;
• differentiation of tools by selecting them in shape, weight, size, size, material, processing features, functions;
• production specialization;
• rationalization through simplification, two-sided processing, transition to progressive production methods;
• involvement of new natural substances and changes in their physicochemical state in the range of economic activities;
• complex use of useful materials (recovery, recycling, etc.);
• inventive activity in engineering.

A number of particular methods of technical creativity directly follow from the above listed laws. In the development of a separate technical object one can see the use of different methods of technical creativity. S. A. Semenov in the process of improving the methods of drilling notes the following main directions:

• increasing the force effect by using body pressure or hanging weights;
• increase the number of revolutions of the drill per unit of time;
• improvement of the drill by changing its shape - the working part and in general;
• increasing the volume of a useful well by switching from conic and biconical drilling to cylindrical;
• differentiation of drill sizes through an increase or decrease in diameter and length;
• saving labor by reducing unnecessary waste with a combination of cutting and punching with drilling (boring) or moving from cylindrical drilling to tubular and circular (cutting);
• the transition from drilling to boring in the production of stone vessels (from cylindrical to spherical);
• The tendency to universalization of drills in plastic work on stone (sculptures of ancient Egypt).

Nowadays, traditional methods of finding solutions to inventive problems in a way of blind trial and error do not satisfy continuously increasing social needs.

German scientist and inventor Just Liebig wrote in the 19th century: “An inventor is a person who creates a new or improves a well-known idea in such a way that it becomes effective or workable, it moves away from the trampled path, does not know where it goes, and out of a thousand, maybe one achieves a goal; he does not know the origin of his thoughts and cannot give an account of his activity. " Even Francis Bacon compared the invention with a labyrinth, whose intricate intersecting and insidious moves cannot be unraveled without practical experience. However, the one who has solved the secret of the labyrinth can reveal it to others in order to prevent them from failures and blind wanderings.

This way of consciously using the generalized experience of mankind, knowledge of the mechanisms of creativity to optimize the process of creating inventions is used by innovators of technology who have mastered the basics of the scientific methodology of technical creativity. For about three decades, innovators in technology have already been taught how to find solutions to inventive problems. The most serious results of such training have been achieved in the USA.

Questions of technical creativity techniques are of particular relevance in the conditions of the scientific and technological revolution and the creation of the material and technical base of communism.

Recently, many researchers in our country have been fruitfully studying the process of technical creativity, the mechanisms of creativity, and the laws governing the development of technology. Among these researchers are specialists in philosophy, psychology, history, sociology, physiology, logic, cybernetics, bionics, design, etc. However, as noted by academician I. I. Artobolevsky and many other Soviet researchers, the weak development of methodological issues of technical creativity is one of the main reasons why theory lags behind practice. Yu. A. Dmitriev sees a way out of this situation in the creation of special schools. 1 Inventive art, special universities in the theory and methodology of technical creativity. M. Ye. Pomortsev believes that the methodology of invention should be taught in all schools, technical schools, and higher technical educational institutions. In addition, training and research institutes of inventive creativity are needed.

Teaching techniques of technical creativity is now carried out mainly under the guidance of the All-Union Society of Inventors and Innovators (VOIR), at national universities of technical creativity, public institutes of patent science, at special faculties of technical creativity techniques, courses, and seminars. One of the centers for teaching the techniques of technical creativity and its development is Riga.

The methodology of technical creativity is not an established science. Although much has been written about it, among the publications, along with serious research, "there are works that are not scientifically sound and misleading. However, criticizing publications of this kind and being guided by metaphysical ideas about the creative process, some experts altogether deny the possibility of creating technical creativity techniques. The basis of this approach is the agnostic denial of the possibility of knowing the mechanism of thinking, allegations such as "the inventors will never wait Bedecker’s, “never was and never will be a book that would explain how to invent something new, unknown to anyone”, “the power of innovation is mystical and generally inexplicable.” Similar statements appeared in print abroad, and sometimes in our country until recently. In the past two decades, such statements, however, are becoming less common. Most of the serious scientists at home and abroad recognize that technical creativity has its own laws that can be learned and used (to optimize creative of the inventor's process. In addition, the results of practical training in the technique of technical creativity, the use of methods for creating inventions proved the possibility of creating and the expediency of applying the methodological rules, | principles, techniques.

The development of methods of technical creativity is threatened, like Scylla and Charybdis, hyperbolization of possibilities, unrestrained praise of the technique, on the one hand, and the unfounded denial of its very existence - on the other.

In this paper, an attempt is made to acquaint technical creativity enthusiasts with some practical methods of finding solutions to inventive problems, as well as with the general course of development of technical creativity techniques. Methods for finding solutions to inventive problems are only one kind of tactical methods used by the inventor, therefore the brochure does not pretend to systematically set out the course of technical creativity techniques. However, most of the proposed methods belong to the gold fund of the inventor’s tactical means and can be used with various methodological approaches, strategies and action programs. The expediency of using these methods has been proven by inventive practice, their effectiveness has been tested in the process of mass training of inventors and rationalizers.