The neuroscience of creativity

How is it that some of us are so highly creative? Doctor (and musician) Charles Lamb is a scientist who studies musical improvisation using fMRI scans, and he has developed theories that apply to all forms of creativity. The subjects were asked to play written music and then to improvise using a mini-keyboard while they were jammed into an fMRI scanners. The brain works very differently when it improvises. It appears that an area of the brain involved in self-monitoring turning off and an area that is autobiographical/expressive turning on. His hypothesis is that the latter area needs to shut off so that we are not inhibited and we are not afraid to make mistakes. Lamb found that when jazz musicians were "trading fours" taking turns improvising four-bar sections, their language areas of the brain lit up (11:30). He also did an experiment regarding free-style hip hop rap music by putting a rapper into an fMRI machine, performing a pre-written tune and a free-style session. When free-style is being done, visual and motor coordination areas light up.

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Taking Cues

In the last post, I opined about the atmosphere in the country generated by overheated rhetoric and the irrationality that has resulted from seemingly intransigent positions. Some of the responses I received to that were of the “well, both sides do it” variety (which is true to an extent, but I think beside the point) and the “you can’t legislate civility or impose censorship” stripe. As it is developing, the young man who attempted to murder Representative Gifford—and succeeded in killing six others—appears to be not of sound mind. We’re getting a picture of a loner who made no friends and indulged in a distorted worldview tending toward the paranoid. How much of his actions can be laid on politics and how much on his own obsessions is debatable. Many commentators very quickly tried to label him a right-winger, based largely on the political climate in Arizona and that he targeted a moderate, “blue dog” Democrat. This in the context of years of shrill right-wing political rhetoric that fully employs a take-no-prisoner ethic, including comments from some Tea Party candidates about so-called Second Amendment solutions. It’s looking like trying to label this man’s politics will be next to impossible and, as I say, if he is mentally unbalanced, what real difference does that make? (Although to see some people say “Look, he’s a Lefty, one of his favorite books is Mein Kampf ” is in itself bizarre—how does anyone figure Mein Kampf indicates leftist political leanings? Because the Nazis were “National Socialists”? Please.) Whatever the determination of Mr. Loughner’s motives may turn out to be, his actions have forced the topic of political stupidity and slipshod rhetoric to the forefront, at least until Gabrielle Gifford is out of danger of dying. Regardless of his influences, in this instance he has served as the trigger for a debate we have been needing to have for decades. This time, hopefully, it won’t be shoved aside after a few well-meaning sound-bites from politicians wanting to appear sensitive and concerned, only to have everyone go right back to beating each other bloody with nouns and verbs. But while it may be fair to say that Mr. Loughner is unbalanced and might have gone off and shot anyone, the fact is he shot a politician, one who had been targeted by the Right. Perhaps the heated rhetoric did not make Mr. Loughner prone to violence, but what about his choice of victims? [More . . . ]

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Early computing memories

I took an unexpected walk down Nostalgia Lane yesterday when I stumbled across my copy of The Best of Creative Computing, Vol. 2 in my library. I know at one point, I used to have Volume 1, but I think it disappeared long ago in one of my many moves. Creative Computing was founded by David Ahl in 1974 for the hobbyist and home/personal computer enthusiast as a more accessible version BYTE. I subscribed for several years (though I didn’t have a personal computer and did all my work on mainframes and an IBM 1140 via...punchcards!) and learned a lot on programming from its pages. I copied, adapted, and created from the programs Ahl and his contributors provided in each issue. The Best of that I still have was published in 1977 and has articles from 1974 through 1976 , grouped in topics on technology, programming theory, quite a bit on computers in education, humor and puzzles, resources, (as mentioned) programs (whoa – open source!) for different applications and games, hardware of the day and reviews. When I was young, I was more interested in the programming and puzzles. Still have that interest, but I this time read with increasing interest and amazement several of the other articles. One of the first pieces on technology in the collection looked at video discs (this was 1975 – before Betamax and VHS). Alfred Bork, from UC Irvine, wrote a piece called “Videodiscs – The Ultimate Computer Input Device?” I decided to look up Mr. Bork and found that the entire three (apparently a third came out after I stopped subscribing) volumes of the Best of Creative Computing here, so you can read Bork’s article yourself here. If you follow the next few pages, you’ll see a side-by-side of Philips-MCA’s laser disc with RCA’s (failed) competing videodisc. Cutting edge discussions with eerie future parallels pepper the compendium: - page 68, “Information Anyone?” by Bill Griffith of Boston College opens

With the CIA collecting information on private citizens (Why don’t they stick to overthrowing foreign governments?), commercial credit companies recording the contents of your trashcans and your seven year old using words like “software” and “hardware” and “PL/I”, is it any wonder you wonder?
Hmmm...CIA (Homeland Security, FBI, etc.) – check; credit…recording…trash = targeted ads from cookies and internet use – check; seven year old using foreign words - always going to be a check there…. - Two pages later, a Charles Winn voices an opinion lamenting “The Government Dinosaur”, and offers a vision that could have been written today (need to outsource to private sector) and pre-sages some things that have become a reality (electronic voting – though not quite as envisioned, firewalls – though not called such – to prevent tampering and misuse, use of radio/television to gage the pulse of the constituents), and was a little wishful in hope (instant demographics from the public recreating a true democracy – in use for “reality” shows...but not where it really matters, massive data availability which would render lobbyists unnecessary – yeah, right!). - David (Ahl) comments on the problems of the new Electronic Funds Transfer System and having to pay fees for services rendered, though no service was actually performed! Should the urge take you, I recommend checking out an interesting Way Back look at how some of us learned computing, what we were using, and the way of the future (circa 1976): ads for computers and printers, Star Trek (of course!), computers in teaching geometry, [Hunt the] Wumpus 2 – again, open source, a review of the HP-25 (go back one page for a review of the Magnavox Odyssey). I have a feeling at least one reader (contributor) will enjoy the flashback.

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9/11 as an excuse to say stupid things.

I work in a big office building located in downtown St. Louis, the "Bank of America Plaza." Early this week, I was interviewed for a newspaper article, and I needed an updated photo of myself. A coworker offered to snap that photo using a small digital camera. We want down the elevator to the first floor public lobby of the building, at street level, where we found a large neutral colored wall that we could use as a backdrop for my photo. I stood in front of the wall and my coworker stood about 10 feet away from me. As she took a photo of me a security guard suddenly approached. Me: "In the lobby? In a public lobby?" Guard: "You may not take any pictures here. It’s because of 9/11 and homeland security." Me: "I understand that your employers have instructed you to say these sorts of things, but what you have just told me is about the most idiotic thing I've ever heard. My coworker is simply trying to take a picture of me in front of a wall." Guard: "Sir you cannot continue doing this. You will need to take pictures elsewhere." We left. Apparently, taking pictures of me threatens the United States. Or maybe the threat was taking a picture of the wall behind me. Certainly, the guard made it clear that the building owners prohibit any sort of photos in the lobby. We walked across the street and threatened the United States by taking my photo inside the lobby of a office building across the street, where friendly security guards don’t appreciate the risk of what we were doing. Instead, they naively laughed at our stories about security guards in my own office building.

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