Brain White Matter Connections for Intelligence and Creativity

[From Joel. Source of Brain Image] We're all familiar with the close associations that memories have that are stored in the brain. We have rapid access to words that rhyme, synonyms and antonyms. We have rapid and easy access to words that are associated with experiences in our lives. However, some researchers believe that the "white matter" (as opposed to the "gray matter") of our brains makes longer connections between various areas and controls intelligence and creativity. A crossword puzzle exercises the short gray matter connection. Here's a puzzle which exercises the white matter.

We have a significant amount of memory which deals with music. We have a significant amount of memory which deals with philosophy. Let's see if we can exercise the links between the two areas. Select an associated pair from music and philosophy. An example would be "Que Sera, Sera" and the concept of stoicism as advanced by Marcus Aurelius. Another would be "I want a girl, just like the girl that married dear old Dad" and the Freudian doctrine of psychology.

I found that having been immersed in preparing for this presentation for a month or so, there was a after effect or "habit." Picking up the mail the other day, I saw and heard a bluebird. Immediately, the song "Bluebird of Happiness" sprang to mind. Then the phrase "life is no abyss" from that song arrived. This was followed by Pascal's "Man constructs obstacles so that he cannot see that he is marching toward an abyss."

Originality or lack thereof

[from Joel] David Hume was of the opinion that nothing is totally original. All our creative ideas are either rework of the ideas of others or the result of new information from our senses. This is another way of saying that one does not have a divine Muse that sends ideas from out of the blue. Here's an interesting example.

I'm preparing a talk for our philosophy club that extracts notions from pop music (mostly oldies) that contain the kernal of an idea expounded upon by classical philosophers and/or are worth some small-group discussion at our meeting. Since most pop music is about moon-June-spoon romantic love, it's taken me some time (a few weeks) to gather together enough material for a session lasting an hour and one half. I was going to post the list of tunes on this blog today for your input and suddenly realized that Ira had done something of this sort with Gilbert and Sullivan about a year ago. What I thought was a novel idea on my part turns out to be just an extension of Ira's idea. So, although I will post the tunes I'm going to use as the basis of a philosophical discussion, my main point turns out to be that David Hume was right about originality.

A Different Kind of Game

My son-in-law put me on to this wonderfully new and different kind of sensory sight and sound game that appeals to our faculties of intellect, reason, and art all at the same time.

Please try it and perhaps we can discuss the philosophical aspects and figure out why the "shoot 'em up" types of video games are so much more popular.

Ira Glickstein