Creativity

I’ve kinda believed this for a while…but Scientific American has published a quick little article describing a paper in Brain and Cognition which confirms it. The found that musicians were more creative…as defined by being able to find alternative uses for household objects. On average, they came up with 14 more uses than nonmusicians could.

I’ve always believed that music was a fundamental abstraction of patterns and pattern recognition. And to me, thats kinda what creativity and intelligence are…the ability to understand and exploit underlying patterns.

I used to think that this song was “cute” and “fun”.  Now all of a sudden, Peter Pumpkinhead isn’t so funny.

Here are the words.  Wow.  Prophetic.

____

Peter pumpkinhead came to town
Spreading wisdom and cash around
Fed the starving and housed the poor
Showed the vatican what golds for
But he made too many enemies
Of the people who would keep us on our knees
Hooray for peter pumpkin
Wholl pray for peter pumpkinhead?
Oh my!
Peter pumpkinhead pulled them all
Emptied churches and shopping malls
Where he spoke, it would raise the roof
Peter pumpkinhead told the truth
But he made too many enemies…
Peter pumpkinhead put to shame
Governments who would slur his name
Plots and sex scandals failed outright
Peter merely said
Any kind of love is alright
But he made too many enemies…
Peter pumpkinhead was too good
Had him nailed to a chunk of wood
He died grinning on live tv
Hanging there he looked a lot like you
And an awful lot like me!
But he made too many enemies…
Hooray for peter pumpkin
Wholl pray for peter pumpkin
Hooray for peter pumpkinhead
Oh my oh my oh!
Doesnt it make you want to cry oh?

____

This would be a GREAT cover…if you really do it right…especially now.  Note to self: Do not do it like the fucking Crash Test Dummies.  Sorry Shifty.  This shit needs to be called out.  It’s a very karaoke performance. (TM Simon Cowell 2001-2008)

And the fucking “base lick”?  Frreal.  Dood.

Anyway.  XTC might be my new old favorite band.

I’m listening to Dear God again right now.

Wow.  Leroi Moore, the sax/flute/pennywhistle/etc. player of the Dave Matthews Band, has died at the age of 47.  That sucks.  My thoughts are with his friends and family.  A tremendous loss.  He was a true talent and a hell of a guy.

(Photo ripped from dmband.com)

I can’t even explain how spot on this is. The premise is that stop signs have not been invented yet. and that they are “being designed” by a group of marketing people from a major corporation.  Imagine me as that designer.  You can see why I am not a very good account guy.

Brillant.

Absolutely brilliant.

This is the hot shit.

Great article in the New Yorker on Buckminster Fuller…best known for his geodisic domes…the guy even got a molecule named after him.

Anyway…he was walking by Lake Michigan one day in a depressed mood contemplating suicide…or at the very least, the point of his existence. He says that all of a sudden, he was suspended above the ground…floating, if you will…when a voice spoke to him.

“You do not have the right to eliminate yourself,” it said. “You do not belong to you. You belong to Universe.”

It was this experience that pushed him to begin his lifelong quest to enhance “humanity’s success in the universe”.

Pretty profound stuff.

But, the article goes on to explain

He rejected fundamental tenets of modern science, most notably evolution. “We arrived from elsewhere in Universe as complete human beings,” he maintained. He further insisted that humans had spread not from Africa but from Polynesia, and that dolphins were descended from these early, seafaring earthlings.

Clearly, this is not nearly as profound.

I often become frustrated with radicals…not the kind that produce molecular damage…the kind that push their ideas on you.

Essentially, I’m frustrated with anyone who is arrogant enough to think that they are capable of truly “knowing” anything. Religious zealots, community college english professors, bad bosses, guys on infomericals…you name it. Let me tell you why I feel this way.

I believe that everything that we, as individuals, process is an approximation of what it really is. The Heisenberg Uncertainly Principle is a well-known articulation of this thought. Since different people have different frames of reference, no two perceptions can be identical.

It’s as if each of us looks through a pinhole to understand reality. None of us are right. But if we took those pinholes and combined them over the range of all consciousness, then we’d actually have a tapestry of experience that would, in essence, be that reality.

As such, someone else’s perception of the world is no more or less valid than mine. The abstraction may be universal. But the context cannot be. It’s simply impossible…at least at my level of thinking.

Ergo, how can anyone be “sure” of anything?

From my experience, the zealot is one who is so incredible ignorant to the world around them that they not only fail to understand the nature of the context in which they live…but they actual believe that somehow they are operating at some absolute level.

Reality check.

There are viruses, which by some definitions aren’t even living things, that are capable of selectively changing the behavior of higher order species as to create a more suitable environment for reproduction. Essentially, these viruses specifically change brain chemistry as to illict a response in the host…a “desired response” (not to personify the concept too much).

Maybe I’m not making the connection here as effectively as I could be.

My point is simply that in a world where viruses can “brainwash” us (a little dramatic but not untrue), how can we really think that we know much of anything. How can we be so sure that our view of the world is the only view? That our God is the only God? That my red is your red?

We can’t. And we shouldn’t. We’re all wrong and all right at the same time. It’s the abstraction that is real. The idea. Not the manifestation of it. Kinda like Plato’s forms, except without the pretense.

We should simply try to find what connects us. Not what separates us. We’re not that cool. We don’t know it all. We don’t know anything. We simply uncover what has always been there. Everyone knows the same things. We simply express them in different ways. Only the zealot truly believes that his vocabulary is the only vocabulary.

That’s why relationships and connections are so important. It allows us to understand and incorporate different vocabularies into our imperfect pursuit of understanding (in the bigger sense). This is why ideas such as chaos, network effects, and the like are so refreshing to me. They require us to zoom out of our localized existances. They allow us to everything as unimportant and essential at the same time.

Anyway…I’m starting to ramble…stream of consciousness soapboxing is starting to take over this post…so I’ll sign off.

But one last thought…if only educators could use this concept when teaching our children. If teachers could find ways to truly resonate with our children so that they could speak in the vocabulary (bigger sense) of each child, then the child would be able to begin to understand and untap the potential that he/she has. No one is stupid. They simple haven’t found the way to translate their own personal vocabulary with one that is more “mainstream”.

I’m probably making no sense now.

Oh, well…maybe I need to readjust my vocabulary.

Chrysler Building to be sold to Abu Dhabi (NY Post)

It’s oil-rich foreign governments who are using the money that we give them to buy our country out from under us. Essentially, the balance of power is shifting because these “third world” countries now hold the most valuable resources.

What are we going to sell next to feed our insatiable appetite for convenience? The Statue of Liberty? Yankee Stadium?

We need to put our frickin’ noses to the grindstone and get the fuck off of foreign oil. Actually, any oil. If we can get to the moon using Tandy computers from the 1960s, we can figure out how to harness the power of the frickin’ sun and desalinate water.

It’s about time we started getting our asses in gear. I’m encouraged by the direction that we seem to be leaning…but for Christ’s sake, I hope that we figure it out before the whole thing goes to shit.

P.S. The Italians just bought the Flatiron Building.  The end of American dominance is ending.  We’d better learn how to play well in the sandbox with the other kids.

Originally published October 16, 2003

CNN.com - Stanford sets new policy for med students - Oct. 16, 2003

I don’t have tons of respect for physicians as a rule. My background has afforded me an intimate view of medical and academic curricula…and although I don’t profess to have completed both of these courses of study…I know enough to know the “point” of each one.

A good clinician is not an academic. He or she uses direct and indirect techniques which require a certain level of feel and intuition to develop a set of parameters. For instance, heart rate is elevated…liver feels enlarged, confirmed by x-ray, etc. Based upon these parameters, a differential diagnosis is developed. This is rote memorizaton. Parameters 1, 2, and 3 means that it could be diagnosis 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5. Then they order predefined tests to rule out diagnoses so that they can, by a process of elimination, arrive at a diagnosis. It’s, in my opinion, more of an art of observation and less of a critical thinking exercise.

I have respect for clinicians in the same way that I respect auto mechanics. But no more.

Academics actually create new knowledge. They develop new techniques. They add to our understanding of the world around us. That requires a tremendous amount of intellect and creativity. At least to be a good one (there are a lot of hacks out there in all fields who simply do derivative work…there is no doubt about that).

But to see Stanford requiring their medical students to delve into the realm of academia gives me a new found respect for these docs. Rather that simply living in the “what”…these docs are now being forced to understand “why” and “how”. As such, they will be able to be more creative in their thinking and in their care…they’ll be able to solve bigger problems…and to think more critically. This allows me to think that perhaps medicine will now begin to address etiology rather than symptomology.

And if this is the case, we’ll all be the beneficiaries.

Originally published August 18, 2003

Andrew Zolli writes an interesting article about the infiltration of corporate brands into our culture. He writes:

For starters, brands aren’t invading the culture, for many they are the culture. The marketplace has trumped other ‘meaning making’ institutions in people’s lives, from political parties to religious institutions. Ask an average citizen to name their elected representatives and you’ll get a disinterested stare, but everybody has a passionately held opinion about Walmart.

I have to chime in here with my $0.02.

Now, most people are going to read these words and think that I am some tight-assed corporate fool. I’m not. I’m just a guy who is completely tired of the complete lack of context in our world today.

What I mean is that the logos that we see aren’t the problem. As most understand, a brand isn’t a logo. It’s the sum total of all the experiences that you get from any entity. This can be a person, or a place, or a company. Most companies engineer these experiences so that they are in line with their competitive positioning. Makes sense. Now, the argument against corporatization is that people are identifying themselves based on the suite of brands that they like.

For instance, people can be classified as “Coke people” or “Pepsi people”. And that pissed alot of people off. But in reality, its not about Coke or Pepsi. It’s about which positioning you see yourself more aligned with. For instance, are you traditional or are you cutting-edge?

I see absolutely nothing wrong with using brands as a shared language of expression. People have aligned themselves for what seems like forever with these sorts of things. In fact, the author says that political parties and religious affiliations are more important than corporate brands.

What?

They’re all the same thing. The Republican party is a brand. The Catholic Church is a brand. C’mon now. When I say “Republican” what do you think about? When I say “Catholic”, tell me that you don’t have a preconceived notion.

You can’t.

People associate themselves with whatever entities that they either feel close to or aspire to be like. It’s that simple. And if corporate brands are one instrument of this expression…then so be it. What’s wrong with secular associations or apolitical ones? I’m a big fan.

I don’t understand why these people think that one symbolic expression of self is better than another. So it’s corporate? So what? In fact, to be honest, I find government and religion more reprehensible than corporations.

Why? Because at least corporations will tell you…”We’re in it to make money.” They have to…they’re legally obligated to look out for their shareholders. They aren’t shady because you know the motivations up front.

That’s more than I can say for Andrew Zolli’s “meaningful-making institutions”.