""Disorderly genius: How chaos drives the brain"

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""Disorderly genius: How chaos drives the bra... - 6/30/2009 3:06:26 PM

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One of my friends on another list pointed out this article. The video of brain-imagery is especially mesmerizing.

"Disorderly genius: How chaos drives the brain"

29 June 2009 by David Robson

"HAVE you ever experienced that eerie feeling of a thought popping into your head as if from nowhere, with no clue as to why you had that particular idea at that particular time? You may think that such fleeting thoughts, however random they seem, must be the product of predictable and rational processes. After all, the brain cannot be random, can it? Surely it processes information using ordered, logical operations, like a powerful computer?

Actually, no. In reality, your brain operates on the edge of chaos. Though much of the time it runs in an orderly and stable way, every now and again it suddenly and unpredictably lurches into a blizzard of noise.

Neuroscientists have long suspected as much. Only recently, however, have they come up with proof that brains work this way. Now they are trying to work out why. Some believe that near-chaotic states may be crucial to memory, and could explain why some people are smarter than others.

In technical terms, systems on the edge of chaos are said to be in a state of "self-organised criticality". These systems are right on the boundary between stable, orderly behaviour - such as a swinging pendulum - and the unpredictable world of chaos, as exemplified by turbulence."

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227141.200

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RE: ""Disorderly genius: How chaos drives the... - 6/30/2009 3:25:55 PM

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Well that explains a lot about my thought patterns.....now I know that they're not just little voices in my head.....

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RE: ""Disorderly genius: How chaos drives the... - 6/30/2009 4:08:35 PM

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I came across a mention on the application of chaos theory (aka nonlinear systems theory) that if the heartbeat is incredibly regular, then cardiac arrest is probable. The cardiologists are using chaos theory to analyze a bunch of arrythmias, too.

If small areas of the brain start synchronising, it leads to seizures.

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RE: ""Disorderly genius: How chaos drives the... - 6/30/2009 4:20:08 PM

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it's nice to see modern science reaffirm how I already thought(literally).

< Message edited by PyrotheClown -- 6/30/2009 4:21:01 PM >

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RE: ""Disorderly genius: How chaos drives the... - 6/30/2009 4:31:34 PM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: MasterG2kTR

Well that explains a lot about my thought patterns.....now I know that they're not just little voices in my head.....

Et tu, Brute?

I thought they were just messages from home...

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RE: ""Disorderly genius: How chaos drives the... - 6/30/2009 4:55:56 PM

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That's amazing, thorny!

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RE: ""Disorderly genius: How chaos drives the... - 6/30/2009 8:13:17 PM

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The info comes from Gleik's book on chaos theory (Chaos: Making a New Science).

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RE: ""Disorderly genius: How chaos drives the... - 6/30/2009 8:21:42 PM

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Living is not just making order from the chaos, it's also having chaos in your life.

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RE: ""Disorderly genius: How chaos drives the... - 6/30/2009 8:40:48 PM

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FR

I believe the mind has filters, which were awkwardly described actually by Charles Mansion in an interview. Like a message they would print for kids with all the color text all over it, which could only be read if one puts a color filter over it, our mind filters the chaos. Tests for color blindness work in a similar fashion.

The mind of an inventor or some type of genius simply contains the appropriate filters. The chaos is always there, but the difference is in what is included and excluded from whatever is gleaned. Many people can filter out one voice in a crowd, like in a crowded bar to have a conversation. Five people can look at a piece of art and not one of them sees the exact same thing. While they all looked at the same thing, each of them percieved it through their own mind, and it's particular set of filters.

What type of filters would a genius have ? When you can tell me that I guess you iz one.

T

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RE: ""Disorderly genius: How chaos drives the... - 6/30/2009 11:44:26 PM

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FR, after read thru

Huh. Fascinating article. I've come to think that linear thinking is over-rated, & have been working for some years now on developing my non-linear thinking as much as the linear sort. (Which is part of the joy, for me, of hanging out here on CM,

)

Similarly, I've been working to develop the chaos of my mind, given the incidental way information stored there can be accessed. As a creative person the cross-linked nature of memory yields the potential for all kinds of stuff to come pouring out. I find that a linear, organized, goal-oriented process actually gets in the way of my producing creative content. Organization can be a tool to enable the exterior portions of my process, but the interior stuff responds more strongly to looser expectations.

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RE: ""Disorderly genius: How chaos drives the... - 7/1/2009 12:17:27 AM

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Oh Kia, how a dear friend suffering being misunderstanding from their Aspergers would ADORE you for saying that.

They cannot choose how the linear thing "ruins everything" for them.

And they WRITE.

Imagine having the novel inside you, and...

UNtil the VERY FIRST SENTENCE is correct, until it is PERFECT on the first page...

you can't proceed. at all.

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RE: ""Disorderly genius: How chaos drives the... - 7/1/2009 2:39:54 AM

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That's a problem lots of non-Aspergers would-be writers have, I've noticed. There's some weird ideas about how books get written, the number one being the idea that the story will pour out in a reasonably orderly & linear process.

It has never worked that way for me, & thinking that way really interfered with my process for a long time. I would get so frustrated when I couldn't just write a story out from start to finish. For me stuff comes out in bits & pieces & I capture them, store them & worry about putting them together into some kind of linear narrative at some later point in time . .. .

Once I could learn to trust my process, I realized I have 2 or 3 basic storylines / universes that come out of my mind, & that, sooner or later, all the bits & pieces fit into one of those universes or the other.

But I have other, dare I say paradoxical, issues as a writer. Like the blank paper thing. Plenty of writers have talked about how intimidating blank paper is; for me, I have a hard time writing if I see other text, it distracts me. My creative process involves hiding what I've already written & keeping what's in front of my eyes free of words so that I don't get distracted. & then the words pour out . . . .

There's also separating out the 'edit' function of the mind from the 'write' (or 'flow') segment of the mind, that really got in my way for a long time. I had to train myself to turn off the editor when I want flow to happen . . . . That was something I learned from reading other writers on the subject of writing . . . .

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RE: ""Disorderly genius: How chaos drives the... - 7/1/2009 11:06:48 PM

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Kia,

That is a very important point to remember, turning off the inner editor to let the energy flow.
Sometimes we are our own worst critics.

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RE: ""Disorderly genius: How chaos drives the... - 7/1/2009 11:19:43 PM

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3 Questions that this article raised ((Awesome article BTW, on my favs now :D))
1. If your mind is a system that has "sand avalanches" as the article described, can these be directed?

2. If so, what kind of process would be involved? your typical "Flash of genius" is almost by definition, an unpredictable thing, correct? Imagine the possibilities of finding a way to harness and predict them?

3. Could this theory be used to create new types of programming, in effect creating a system that can mimic a human thought process?I mean, take a program, insert a few lines of code that purposely add instability so that 1+1=3 every now and again, then attach all of that code to your typical AI scripting used in thousands of games now, and see what happens?

< Message edited by Asherdelampyr -- 7/1/2009 11:20:54 PM >

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RE: ""Disorderly genius: How chaos drives the... - 7/1/2009 11:30:06 PM

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I am not the one who can answer your questions, Asher. Perhaps a neurological research facility?

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RE: ""Disorderly genius: How chaos drives the... - 7/1/2009 11:32:22 PM

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Sometimes it is more important to ask
This could explian the phenomina that seems to surface, where the most intelligent people are also nuttier than fruit bats.

I now want to see if I can make a computer network that runs the same way, peer-to-peer, with some sort of unpredictability factor thrown in

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RE: ""Disorderly genius: How chaos drives the... - 7/1/2009 11:55:01 PM

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Asher, not sure if you're aware, but that's one of the important ways that neuroscientists test models of the brain, with computer programs. The neuroscientists think they understand the flesh model so they put together hard- & / or soft-ware to mimic that understanding & see what results. This approach, its failures & successes, has taught an enormous amount about how the mind actually emanates from the fatty tissue between our ears . . . . .

& 'flashes of genius' are analogous, in my opinion, to creative 'flow' . . . . Those conditions that facilitate creative flow, again in my opinion, are the same kinds of conditions that produce 'flashes of genius' . . . . . & there's quite a lot of material out there about how to maximize 'flow' . . . ..

Of course I have a very renegade opinion on the subject of genius, to wit: I think genius of some sort or another is a natural capacity of the human mind, that everyone is capable of genius from the get-go, & it becomes a matter of nurturing genius, expecting genius . . . . .

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RE: ""Disorderly genius: How chaos drives the... - 7/2/2009 9:13:11 AM

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Woo HOO!! Not only am I "normal"... I'm scientifically advantageous!!!

DC

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RE: ""Disorderly genius: How chaos drives the... - 7/2/2009 9:23:47 AM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: DemonKia

for me, I have a hard time writing if I see other text, it distracts me.

Me too -- I end up going back over what I've already written and nudging, fudging, and otherwise fiddling with it, instead of writing new stuff.

I got past this with a program called WriteRoom -- it is a full-screen text editor, and I set it up with a completely blank page every time I sit down to write... then, I copy what I've written there and add it to the accumulated text for my WIP (work in progress) at the point that it seems like it fits into the story. I figure that, when I sit down to -edit-, I'll smooth it all out, but working this way got me past my biggest hurdle in writing novels -- that tendency to continuously add detail and change what I'd already written with all my new ideas I picked up while reading the old stuff, instead of working on the idea that brought me to the manuscript in the first place (I write every day, but don't write on every WIP every day... the one I work on depends on what ideas pop into my head when I think about sitting down to write).

DC

< Message edited by CallaFirestormBW -- 7/2/2009 9:28:05 AM >

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RE: ""Disorderly genius: How chaos drives the... - 7/2/2009 9:26:53 AM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Asherdelampyr

This could explian the phenomina that seems to surface, where the most intelligent people are also nuttier than fruit bats.

HEY... I represent that remark!

DC

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