Monday, November 29, 2010

Where Ideas Come From

2010-10-11

One of my latest moleskine entries which is partly related to the previous "Muse" spread:

Sometimes I ponder on the question, "Where do ideas com from?" In a contemporary world we live in, where ideas has become a valuable commodity even before they are materialized, it seems it could spring forth from almost anywhere... people are social and minds process incessantly everything that is fed into it voluntarily or not, and it produces a notion whether we could ever or has ever produced an original idea. Or rather, ideas are never original but a filtered or processed result of an internal mindstorm... even stimulated by external influences... Science proposes that an idea is born with a resulting new connection within the already complicated network of our mind.... a formation of a new connectome slightly different from a thought earlier. Imagine, we incessantly think, thus, we are constantly shifting!

I have to say that while I was working on this, I saw the following TED talks in YouTube, which directly inspired the drawing and the texts. The first one is a very interesting lecture by Steven Johnson about how ideas, rather than born from instant "Eureka" moments are actually brewed inside our heads quite differently.

The second talk is by Sebastian Seung as he discusses his work which involves mapping the connections in our brain, and how our "connectome" as he calls it, could open up a new way of understanding how our brains work.

Now let's all say... "I am more than my genes! I am my connectome!" Interesting!

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