(17) How the mind makes new ideas: Spider Goats, Mario Bros, Dick Cheney | David Eagleman | Big Think

Overview of Human Creativity

• Humans have the unique ability to absorb and synthesize ideas, leading to the creation of new concepts.

• This process can be categorized into three main cognitive mechanisms: bending, breaking, and blending.

Bending

• Definition: Bending involves changing the attributes of an existing object or idea, such as its size or form.

• Artistic Examples:

  • Statues showing human forms that are exaggerated or altered for artistic effect.

  • JR's giant statue of Mohammad Idris leaping over a building for the Olympics.

  • Tiny sculptures that emphasize a different aspect of the original form.

• Scientific Examples:

  • Edwin Land’s solution to headlight glare involved miniaturizing polarizing crystals into a windshield.

  • The evolution of the mechanical artificial heart into a continuous flow model that eliminates the pulse.

  • Airplanes inspired by the mechanics of bird flight.

Breaking

• Definition: Breaking means deconstructing an idea or object into smaller parts or removing certain elements.

• Artistic Examples:

  • Cory Arcangel’s "Super Mario Clouds" stripped down the game to only display the clouds.

  • David Hockney's fragmented visual fields that challenge perceptions.

  • Pointillism used by Seurat to create images from colored dots.

• Scientific Examples:

  • The neuroscience technique Clarity, which allows observation of brain pathways by breaking down fatty molecules.

  • Fred Sanger's method of sequencing DNA through breaking long molecules into smaller segments.

Blending

• Definition: Blending occurs when two separate ideas are combined to create something entirely new.

• Artistic Examples:

  • Mythological creatures like sphinxes and chimeras represent blended forms from cultural stories.

• Scientific Examples:

  • The creation of Freckles the spider-goat through genetic engineering, blending spider silk production with goat milk secretion.

Conclusion

• The processes of bending, breaking, and blending illustrate the inherent creativity in both arts and sciences.

• While artistic expressions are overt and visible, the same cognitive mechanics operate behind scientific innovations.

• Unlike computers that retain exact data, human creativity results in dynamic and ever-evolving reinterpretations of input.