3 Creative Insights from Einstein’s Idea of ‘Combinatory Play’ – The Essential Feature of All Creative Thinking

‘Play’ and ‘creativity’ aren’t common terms you associate with science and mathematics, from an outsider’s perspective at least.

They seem vague and whimsical, ill-suited to the precise logic and rationality of scientific language.

But for Albert Einstein, one of history’s most brilliant scientists, the abstract play of ideas preceded discovery and its translation into the rational language of science.

Einstein used the term ‘combinatory play’ to describe the mental process underlying his scientific discoveries.

The process was personal to Einstein, but offers insights you can use in your own creative work.

Let’s look at three key insights from his notion of combinatory play, as outlined in his Ideas and Opinions.

Combinatory play precedes language 

Einstein wrote:

'The words or the language, as they are written or spoken, do not seem to play any role in my mechanism of thought. The psychical entities which seem to serve as elements in thought are certain signs and more or less clear images which can be “voluntarily” reproduced and combined.'

Language didn’t feature in the early stages of his creativity. Instead, his thoughts, or ‘psychical entities’, comprised signs and images that he connected and combined. 

He continues:

'There is, of course, a certain connection between those elements and relevant logical concepts. It is also clear that the desire to arrive finally at logically connected concepts is the emotional basis of this rather vague play with the above-mentioned elements. But taken from a psychological viewpoint, this combinatory play seems to be the essential feature in productive thought — before there is any connection with logical construction in words or other kinds of signs which can be communicated to others.'

The desire to arrive at a logical connection fuels the process of combinatory play, which Einstein claimed is essential to creative thought. Again, he stresses the point that this playful substrate precedes language and communication.

Play is visual and muscular

Einstein developed his idea of combinatory play further:

‘The above-mentioned elements are, in my case, of visual and some of muscular type. Conventional words or other signs have to be sought for laboriously only in a secondary stage, when the mentioned associative play is sufficiently established and can be reproduced at will.’

While the visual aspects of play correspond with the signs and images he mentioned previously, the ‘muscular’ elements likely relate to physical and mental ‘movement’. 

Some of his great ideas came to him while walking or playing the violin – two of his favourite hobbies.

The ‘muscular’ elements he refers to could also relate to mental representations of actions, or a kind of muscle memory visualisation or performance of experiences related to his subject matter.

Most importantly, language is explicitly described as a ‘secondary stage’, as if the abstract play of the substrate must be firmly established before you can even begin to try and articulate it with words.

Play can lead to logical connections

Einstein claimed that his play discussed above was ‘aimed to be analogous to certain logical connections one is searching for’.

His type of play wasn't random, but intended to resemble the logical patterns or connections he was trying to discover.

His imagination functioned as a mental workshop or lab, where he'd envision connections, combinations, contrasts, and the like. In this way, he could explore possibilities and test new things to see how they fit together logically.

To summarise, Einstein really saw this visual, playful base as something prior to language. Only once the connections were firmly established would language translate the discoveries into something he could communicate.