David Bohm - On Creativity

“One of the primary blocks to such latent creativity is what Bohm refers to as ‘self-sustaining’ confusion in the mind, in contrast to ‘simple’ confusion. Simple confusion is that which we experience when for instance, we don’t understand directions we are given, or when we can’t find the solution to a puzzle. Self-sustaining confusion, on the other hand occurs ‘when the mind is trying to escape awareness of conflict…in which one’s deep intention is really to avoid perceiving the fact, rather than to sort it out and make it clear’ Bohm points out that this process creates an order of its own: a reflexive state of dullness in which the natural agility of the mind is replaced is replaced with a torpor on the one hand, mechanical and meaningless fantasies on the other. Unfortunately says Bohm, this has come to be considered a normal state of mind, and is therefore endemic to our culture.”

-Lee Nichols, Preface to the Routledge Classics Edition of David Bohm’s “On Creativity”, Routledge 1997.

On Physics and Philosophy - Bernard d'Espangnat

This highly credentialed French physicist applies the disciplines of quantum field theory and philosophy to refute assumptions commonly held by scientists, philosophers, and lay people about what is "real," and to sort out such views as are consonant with experimental data. I take pleasure in D'Espangnat's clean writing, his dedication to accuracy, and his insistence on addressing the ground from which our concepts arise. Here D'Espagnat expands on his earlier work regarding "veiled reality." The book is accessible to lay intellectuals who like to savor ideas and reflect on them.

Du vide et de la création

For those of you who read French, this books comes highly recommended. It is science mixed with poetry on a breathtaking level and totally changes your perception about what void is! If you want to read the glorious Michel Cassé in English try this one.

Edge: Intuitive Thinking according to Daniel Kahneman

The power of settings, the power of priming, and the power of unconscious thinking, all of those are a major change in psychology. I can't think of a bigger change in my lifetime. You were asking what's exciting? That's exciting, to me.
 
 Pretty nice read, and discussion

Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain

Completing the trilogy that began with Descartes' Error and continued with The Feeling of What Happens, noted neuroscientist Antonio Damasio now focuses the full force of his research and wisdom on emotions. He shows how joy and sorrow are cornerstones of our survival. As he investigates the cerebral mechanisms behind emotions and feelings, Damasio argues that the internal regulatory processes not only preserve life within ourselves, but they create, motivate, and even shape our greatest cultural accomplishments.
If Descartes declared a split between mind and body, Spinoza not only unified the two but intuitively understood the role of emotions in human survival and culture. So it is Spinoza who accompanies Damasio as he journeys back to the seventeenth century in search of a philosopher who, in Damasio's view, prefigured modern neuroscience.
In Looking for Spinoza Damasio brings us closer to understanding the delicate interaction between affect, consciousness, and memory--the processes that both keep us alive and make life worth living.

A pretty extensive review on the Guardian

On Creativity- David Bohm

In this short text Bohm looks at creativity, what it is, what it means in human life, how it works and various other aspects and particularly in art and science. Bohm shys away from any form of solid definition. Bohm insists that any form of thought, concept, idea which becomes crystalised as truth interferes with the natural flow of reality which is ever changing and never static. The book includes ideas about this flow which he also expanded on earlier in "Wholeness and the Implicate Order". In this book he considers the art of fitting in the flow.