The human nature of creativity.

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Since we're getting deeper into philosophies and truths, some may be interested in this article from brain.com on The Human Nature of Creativity.

If you get through the read, I'd be interested in your guess on "How much deeper WOULD the oceans be without sponges?

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), May 21, 2000

Answers

HOW MANY ANIMAL,S CAME OUT OF NOAH,S ARK??

-- al-d. (dogs@zianet.com), May 22, 2000.

Anita,
Botheration! Now I know these "cyborgenetic nanobots" are all the rage these days, but I reckon my brain was a sponge even before them. Thus I gave it up and appreciate everything a bit better. I probably drank an ocean in 17 years. I was a cidergenetic megabotic sponge, commonly know in OZ provincial patois as a 'pisspot!'

Great article by the way...

-- Pieter (zaadz@icisp.net.au), May 22, 2000.


"Do you hear colors or see sounds? Perhaps you feel smells or taste colors."

I don't normally, but I do know how one can shift their senses. First order of business is to purchase a guide to mushroom identification...

As far back as I can remember I had the notion that each of us is a scientist. I felt such a grand level of curiosity that I had to ask questions, follow my sense of adventure. I didn't believe then & I don't believe now that I should take someone's word when I can experience 'it', whatever 'it' may be, myself.

This drive was beaten down by my parents, teachers, coaches, neighbors. A kid who asks questions about subjects most adults have little or no knowledge of is a bothersome child to those adults (in my experience). In turn I looked upon these adults as the living dead. Really. They were just living out the string.

What I later realized was happening was that I was inadvertently revealing to these adults their lack of knowledge & curiosity to learn. In short, I was putting a mirror up to their faces & they didn't like what they saw.

So I paid the price.

Wait, I hear a little violin playing just for me.

-- Bingo1 (howe9@shentel.net), May 22, 2000.


Wait, I hear a little violin playing just for me.

Yes, but can you smell it?

-- (hmm@hmm.hmm), May 22, 2000.


A Method to the Mindness Blakeslee describes the four stages of the creative process identified in 1945 by G. Walas:

preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification.

"The preparation stage consists of gathering relevant information and narrowing the problem until the obstacles are visible. Incubation is a period in which the unconscious processes of the mind seem to work on the problem. During this time, it is permissible to think occasionally about the problem, but generally there should be no pressure for a solution. The illumination stage may come spontaneously or as a result of conscious effort. This is where intuition and insight produce possible solutions to the problem. Finally, in the verification stage the intuitive solutions are logically tested for validity, then organized and elaborated into a finished solution."

The middle two stages involve unconscious processes, while the first and final stages are well-defined conscious tasks. The creative process is a whole brain synergy of both processes. Visual thinking generates ideas and verbal thinking verifies them.

This reminds e of a dream. Three things happened in that dream, I figured out a problem I had been troubleshooting at work, I remembered where I had left the broom and I forget the third. I believe if you get enough information your mind will do it's own thing and find the solution, especially if you leave it alone for a bit instead of trying to force it. My main function in the early days of working was troubleshooting the electronics on computers. Most problems did not have a known solution, you had been taught the basics and it was up to you to use them to figure out what was wrong. It was interesting and a lot of fun, you never got bored. When eventually we had mainframes that required us to just pull a board and replace it, as opposed to tracing the problem doen to chip leval, I got really bored and that is when I spent most of my time developing software.

Software could get boring too, I hated doing repititious things, so I figured out how to make the computer do them, macro's, rooms within rooms. Developing shortcuts and subroutines to go and do the repitious stuff, I would set it into motion and go off to do something else.

The best time of my working life is when I had a three simulator shop to myself, I would come in in the morning fire up the sims, prefy them, the crews would come in and I would work in my software, and manage the office. If a bell rang (meaning the flight crews had a problem) I would go fix it for them, and go back to work. Later I would check the writ-ups (problems encountered by the crews) and fix them, power down the sims, power down the building, lock the door and go home to my new Baby girl.

Life was perfect in those days.

-- Cherri (sams@brigadoon.com), May 22, 2000.



"How much deeper would the oceans be without sponges?"

I say they would be shallower. And alot of Greek guys would be out of work.

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), May 22, 2000.


Bingo:

It's REALLY too bad you didn't reproduce. NOTHING is more humbling. My first child asked me at a wake if Uncle Greg was going to be buried with his glasses on. I said, "Yes." She then said, "So the glasses are gonna sit on the bones?" I said, "Yes." She said, "Does this make sense?" I said, "It's tradition." Of course then we had to discuss tradition. She was 2.5 years old at that time. My second child removed the word IMPOSSIBLE from my vocabulary. She'd awaken before anyone else in the house [so she thought], unlock the back door [by climbing on a chair], go to the garage, open the door [the one that stuck so badly that adults would curse when they needed to go in], drag out her tricycle, and proceed to ride it up and down the slim sidewalk consistent with backyards in a city. Halfway between the garage and the front gate, the edge of the house had a small garden of flowers, veggies, etc. At the sidewalk edge was a good-sized boulder [placed there by design so folks wouldn't simply fall into the garden.] Her trike hit the boulder. Rather than adjust the direction of the trike, she got OFF the trike and attempted to move the boulder. I stood at the window watching this toddler in the overnight sagging diaper thinking "Move the trike...you'll never be able to....." Once the boulder was moved, she went on her merry way.

The next-door neighbors watched this scene as I did, having a habit of sharing their morning coffee on an enclosed sunroom at the back of their house. The man commented to me that day on how determined she was. Yep.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), May 22, 2000.


Anita:

Wonderful story.

I truly believe that in the right moment we can "move mountains".

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), May 22, 2000.


Anita,

Thanks for sharing that story. A former co-worker of mine has two amazing children. Old souls for sure. Incredibly inquisitive & wise practically since birth. The boy, age two-and-a-half, has such incredible energy flowing through him he leaves me speechless every time I'm in his presence. It's like sitting in a warm bath - my whole body relaxes & my face generates this big smile. His eyes radiate a knowledge both ancient & alien (in a good way). I'm not kidding!

Me reproduce? That's a scary, scary thought!

-- Bingo1 (howe9@shentel.net), May 23, 2000.


Computer creativity? I don't think think this is possible; at least not with silicon and S/W. Not even Deep Blue was creative. It has huge computional ability and, when programmed (by humans) to weigh all possible chess moves, it defeated a human chess master.

But will a computer ever be capable of independent (non-programmed) thought? Will a computer ever be able to have a conversation (Turing's ctiterion for AI); will a computer ever write poetry, make a joke, have an original thought? Not until computers become independent life forms and then the cyborg wars begin.

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), May 23, 2000.



Great story Anita. Kids, they are amazing animals aren't they!

-- FactFinder (FactFinder@bzn.com), May 23, 2000.

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