Introduction

The "scientific method" cuts across all geographical and cultural lines. Chinese or French, theist or atheist, the scientific method is the same and the striking successes of science lend credence to it.

However, can the scientific method as it is currently understood and applied be greatly improved upon?

Generally, we think of the scientific method as being a method for verifying our creative insights, but not for arriving at them. Creativity is the engine of science. How can we separate the scientific method from the process that generates the very insights that it is meant to verify? The scientific method is how we "do" science and, although we need to empirically objectify our findings, it is the creativity that leads to new insights that is the very essence of this "doing".

The role and place of creativity in the scientific process must be reconsidered. A shift in emphasis towards the creative generation of ideas calls for a revamping of the creative motor of science. We must set the stage so that the eureka sparks of creativity - the short bursts of inspiration that have driven science until now - will be replaced by more enduring states of creativity.

Just stimulating the creativity of scientists is not enough. We need to empower scientists, already electrified by some new possibility, to single-mindedly pursue their vision. To do this requires an environment favoring their existing intensity and the state of creativity to which it leads.

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Creativity
It is clear that creativity is the engine of science and that, without Eureka sparks of creative vision, there would be no truly original ideas to verify in the laboratory. The problem is that these visions come, almost always, as sparks - short bursts of inspiration - rather than as extended, enduring creativity. (Imagine trying to run your electronic appliances on sparks of static electricity generated from rubbing the carpet.) We are proposing a "Mind Tank"[1] that will establish a new standard of creativity in science swiftly producing the advanced breakthroughs that we so urgently need.

Effort
The effort we put out is always a function of what we believe possible. Until Roger Bannister ran the four-minute mile in 1954, it was widely considered impossible. Soon after, it became commonplace. We are able to go to extraordinary lengths once we know something we want is possible to us.

All effort boils down to the intentional movement of energy within us - the energy of attention or focus. Focus is basically an effort to stabilize attention so as to allow focus to form. It is an attempt to bring more and better quality energy (e.g., intellectual, emotional, motor) to the point of observation in order to prolong our participation in the "present" and allow us to experience more of reality. This requires a sustained level of effort.

Mind, Vision & Knowledge
The function of mind is to integrate outer and inner - resulting in vision. This vision is called "knowledge". The obstacle to learning more than is already known about any given phenomenon boils down to natural limits imposed upon our efforts of observation, limits that prevent us from mobilizing.

Extrapolation
The ability to make use of visions representing natural phenomena is found, most particularly, in the minds capacity to extrapolate and correlate. If the mind grasps, in sufficient detail and with sufficient accuracy, the aspects of a phenomenon, it can, in principle, hypothesize and project estimations concerning aspects that are as yet undiscovered. Some qualities of a phenomenon will suggest possibilities and constraints in one direction while others will suggest possibilities and constraints in others. Numerous features are normally accessible to perception and each such feature, in combination with others, points to the possibility of still more features.

The Eureka sparks of creativity - the short bursts of inspiration that have driven science until now - need to be be replaced by more enduring states of creativity. We call the enduring state of creativity "Accelerated Thought".

In the absence of this creativity we see tiny parts of the whole, painstakingly piecing together clues - the isolated parts of the "puzzle" that we stumble upon.

Extrapolative vision (Accelerated Thought), possible once intense focus passes into observation, is far more penetrating and revealing of knowledge than short eureka sparks of creativity.

Candidates
We are looking for those people who have the desire to use their scientific creativity to discover specific scientific and technological breakthroughs.

Realization
Everything possible will be done to furnish them with conditions of existence that will enable them to realize their discoveries. First and foremost, they will be given shelter from the mundane pressures of the world. Beyond that, and still more important, they will be provided with the physical support that will allow them to sustain Accelerated Thought.

These individuals will need to be surrounded by a support team. The members of this team will have strengths of character complementing the candidate for accelerated thought and be experienced with the kind of difficulties he is likely to encounter. He in turn will bond with this, made-to-order, team of experts and their rapport with him will enable him to accept, with confidence, the advice he will receive at critical junctures of discovery.

Under the auspices of the Project Mind Foundation, a specialized facility has been designed for this function. This building is to serve as the center from which a new standard of scientific creativity will be established.

The necessary elements are now being assembled, but in parallel, the forces of negativity are also growing. Each day sees a global increase in pollution. And with each new day, more lethal tools become available to fanatics committed to kill and die for some narrow ideal. Each day brings new crises.

Moral Force
Imagine newspaper headlines, daily announcing the good news of life saving and life enhancing scientific and medical breakthroughs. Is it possible to control matter at the atomic and subatomic level? This is the explicit mission of nanotechnology. But while nanotech accurately defines the purpose of science and provides it with the focus it needs, the issue of creative effort as the key component of the scientific method remains unaddressed.

We are searching for those scientists who believe in their ability to discover breakthroughs. Through a new level of commitment and effort they will accelerate the uncovering of knowledge and establish a new standard of scientific creativity.