Another interesting post by Jonah Lehrer's, as always filled with fascinating references. This time he writes about identifing good ideas. My favorite quote, remindes me of architecture school when I was pondering on how to know whether someone is a real artist.
This is Nietzsche's take on this:
"Artists have a vested interest in our believing in the flash of revelation, the so-called inspiration … shining down from heavens as a ray of grace. In reality, the imagination of the good artist or thinker produces continuously good, mediocre or bad things, but his judgment, trained and sharpened to a fine point, rejects, selects, connects…. All great artists and thinkers are great workers, indefatigable not only in inventing, but also in rejecting, sifting, transforming, ordering."
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/01/how-do-we-identifiy-good-ideas/
