Posted by Eddie Sylvano on September 24, 2002, at 10:13:08
In reply to Creativity:psychosis:emotion, posted by Eddie Sylvano on September 22, 2002, at 12:06:31
Ok, I've stated that creativity is a product of the brain's constant vigilance in finding patterns in our sensory input and memories (even nonexistant patterns). So why do most of us not experience these interpretations?
The brain is born knowing nothing about how sensory input represents the real world, so it must devise a way to do so. It makes sense to me that (without any road map) it would begin by simply generating many different interpretations of the senses (seeing many different patterns), and then keeping those that (through feedback with other senses) best represent the world. A baby's brain would then be constantly refining itself by forming a bias towards representations that provide the most useful model of the world. If one model fragment showed a soccer ball as a human face, and other senses failed to validate it, it would be whittled away. In this way, we slowly focus in on the real order out of the chaos of our creative brain's many interpretations. This model implies that the brain also has a module that can appreciate what constitutes an accurate interpretation of the world, which I see as constantly comparing the differing sensory patterns for meta-patterns (higher order patterns) that are the most consistant over time.
By the time we are adults, our brains have a highly refined and durable waking preference for sensory patterns, which is only vulnerable to things like heavy drugs or brain damage. The invalid patterns that we highly tune out linger in the background, and may only make themselves known if we attempt to focus on them (think), degrade our primary focusing mechanisms (drugs), or fall asleep (dream).
It's all a grossly simple model, but I like trying to figure it out; to reverse-engineer it.
poster:Eddie Sylvano
thread:1117
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20020829/msgs/1128.html