Brain matter

Have you ever really sat down and thought about your brain? The strange and funny process is that you very rarely do. You can sit and think about your other extremities, but rarely do you consider the one part of the machinery network that actually makes it all function. Maybe, if you have a headache you will feel bad through over drinking of tiredness, or some other ailment. However, because this two pound lump of gray matter sits behind all of your sensory receptors it gets ignored. The brain is in fact a miracle of evolutionary magnitude. The actual fact that it is capable of doing what it actually does is a technical marvel. Scientists for example have been trying to figure out these aspects and recreate them in such a way that computers could have, what we call, artificial intelligence. That we could build a robot that functions in the same way as humankind. the sad truth is that this seems like it will never happen. Reading Steve Pinker's book on the subject has shown some fascinating aspects of the human brain that not many people consider. A simple example is the amazing ability to move a hand from one place to another. Why would that seem to be such an amazing thing? Well you would if you literally see the action. Just a hand going from one place to another. Well, it isn't actually. What some scientist have done to try to understand this action, is to ask some people to move an angle poise lamp (quite a good replicator of a human joint structure) to move the lamp in the same way as a hand would move to the same point of movement. It is always near impossible. If you can imagine that it is not simply about moving the hand from A to B. The brain has to calculate the correct aspects by which to move each and every single muscle in such a coordinated fashion that the subtle and precise action results in the hand reaching the correct position flawlessly. On top of that, it also has to calculate all the environmental aspects that may affect the movement. Compensate for internal issues related to the muscles, tendons, etc. All in all, this is an amazing process. Now, if you consider that, but then transfer it to the process of walking, then the amazement is extended further. There has not been one scientific achievement that can replicate bipedal walking actions. Now, these aspects of the human brain are simply related to the process and function of kinetic action.

The brain is the powerhouse of our entire system. It has to pulse information on heart beats, on digestion, etc. but what it also has to do is to take in neurological input and convert it into the more abstract elements of our life, such as thoughts and emotions. The brain has to convert matter into dreams, whilst at the same time realise that we are asleep and to disfunction our motor-neural functions (in order to stop us acting out our dreams). It takes impulse of electricity and makes images that our eyes say they see. It takes invisible waves and makes sounds that we hear. The more amazing aspect to this whole process though is that it doesn't just create a jumbled collection of shapes and or sounds. It has the amazing ability to order all this and to give focus, depth and importance to many parts of that communication jungle. If, for example, you look at the scene in front of you (like I am now), technically it is simply a series of colours that enter into our brain. The light bounces from the sun, hits the object and rebounds the inbuilt colour values that object or material has and sends it to our receptors. These receptors don't actually see pictures. They see data. Information code. Simply put, it could see red as a '5'. So what then happens is that the brain translates all this information and makes a picture. But what has to be extended from this is the fact that the brain is able to make the depth distinction of the edges of objects, the lighting variations of objects, etc, etc. All in all a very wonderful achievement.

What has all this got to do with creative thinking. Well, if you consider that the brain is, as I said, a powerful analytical tool, one of the aspects that can be very much disregarded in connection to our function as a human life form, is the process of how the brain takes in data and how it then uses it in order to have form and meaning. A good way to see this is the simple fact that knowledge is about information. You can't simply know something simply by it existing. What is required is the necessary about of investigation in order to give an appropriate value to that form. The more you seek this information, and the more the brain is allowed to analyse this data, the more knowledge is gained. A very simple example on this, and a function I try to teach my students, is the process by which learning a computer program is a simple case of making mistakes. I added a chinese proverb to the FB site some days back. If you take on board the message it states then this is the simple building process of knowledge.

One who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; one who does not ask a question remains a fool forever.
- Chinese proverb

However marvelous we see the brain and the mind, in all its functions and actions, we have to understand one clear aspect to all this. If data doesn't go in, then it will not come out. This relates to al aspects of the brain functionality. The part that relates to creativity is also compounded with several other aspects that can be discussed in other posts. The main concern is how the brain is divided into two halves. Each half having a specific value in its operation outcome. Much of the existence in life on this planet requires a degree of rationalisation, and therefore the brain has evolved to hold a stronger 'left side' that computes all this logic in a formal way. This has a strong and powerful affect on the 'right side', or the 'artistic' side. For example, the reason we dream during the night is because the right side has relaxed. There is less functioning for the left side when we sleep so the right side becomes more dominant. Therefore creative people have a disadvantage in the simple fact that during the working day the dominant side is not simply geared to be creative. Have you ever woken up in the night with a wonderful idea? Well, its because your creative centre is able to be more active. One of the ways to challenge this is as previously stated. Allow for your brain to be continually analytical of data. Observe more, hear more, touch more. Allowing the subconscious questions to arise about such things will promote knowledge. And with this knowledge will come greater scope for creativity.