Is rationality perhaps antithetical to revolution and discovery? Rationality seems to imply a playing within the rules and bounds of a system, whereas revolution is often a rethinking of the very ontology of the world. Mathematics seems like it should be the exception because discoveries require using the rules and bounds to their logical conclusion. But even mathematics is heavily intuitive, and the formalisms are often used to prove and codify the intuitions rather than the other way around.
von Neumann was famous for crashing fast cars in Princeton, including both drunk driving and reading while driving. I don't think he's the pinnacle of Spock-like rationality, here, even if he happens to be ultra-intelligent.
For me I think the model is more like generator/discriminator. Straw-rationality is closer to being a really good discriminator than being a really good generator of ideas, which is closer to our intuitive notions of creativity.
Relatedly, this does not align neatly with your models of aesthetic sensibilities, since of course someone can have strong aesthetic intuitions and judgments (really high-powered art critics), without being great artists themselves.
There are clearly two kind of geniuses: the ultra intelligent type: Euler, Gauss, David Hilbert, von Neumann. They allways produce a massive amount of important work, often by extending the current paradigm.
Then, the imaginative type: Cantor, Einstein, Godel. They often produce a very limited number of seminal papers that create new fields of Research.
Is rationality perhaps antithetical to revolution and discovery? Rationality seems to imply a playing within the rules and bounds of a system, whereas revolution is often a rethinking of the very ontology of the world. Mathematics seems like it should be the exception because discoveries require using the rules and bounds to their logical conclusion. But even mathematics is heavily intuitive, and the formalisms are often used to prove and codify the intuitions rather than the other way around.
von Neumann was famous for crashing fast cars in Princeton, including both drunk driving and reading while driving. I don't think he's the pinnacle of Spock-like rationality, here, even if he happens to be ultra-intelligent.
For me I think the model is more like generator/discriminator. Straw-rationality is closer to being a really good discriminator than being a really good generator of ideas, which is closer to our intuitive notions of creativity.
Relatedly, this does not align neatly with your models of aesthetic sensibilities, since of course someone can have strong aesthetic intuitions and judgments (really high-powered art critics), without being great artists themselves.
I urge us not to frame this as either/or
There are clearly two kind of geniuses: the ultra intelligent type: Euler, Gauss, David Hilbert, von Neumann. They allways produce a massive amount of important work, often by extending the current paradigm.
Then, the imaginative type: Cantor, Einstein, Godel. They often produce a very limited number of seminal papers that create new fields of Research.