[Matt Q]

Originally Posted by Rick Mullin

The brain comes in by getting in the way of creativity to varying degrees for different people.

If the censoring part is the brain, isn't the generative part also the brain? I don't see how you can have it just one way. Otherwise we're saying: all these wacky associative ideas are appearing from the ether and the brain is censoring/blocking them. But I'd want to say: all these wacky associative ideas are being produced by one part of the brain, and another part is censoring them/getting in the way. (Here, I mean "part" in functional, non-spatial sense.)

If that sounds off, try removing the word 'brain' altogether and just say: part of me comes up with wacky, groovy stuff, another part gets in the way.

Or perhaps I've completely misunderstood?

[Rick Mullin]

What I mean is that we are taught not to howl at the moon, Matt. Obviously there are all sorts of brain functions involved in everything we do. My point--and it ain't original thinking--is that creativity is not a cerebral function. It is not about ideas, but about feeling and revelation. We place so much stock in the science enterprise telling us what is true, that we could find ourselves first "finding out" how we create and then find ourselves following formulas for how to create. I do think it is insidious at a certain level. Don't get me wrong, I think science is a grand pursuit. Cog Po will contribute to art therapy and should be funded. Etc. Depression and the brain obviously should be studied and I'd like to see more effort on finding a cure for Alzheimers, which will soon be an enormous plague, dragging down economies all over the world. And I will again leave the door open, for myself, by declaring that I have not read the Atlantic article.

RM

[Janice D. Soderling]

Coincidentally, I recently heard about the Swedish study that Matt refers to. One of our public service radio channels has a decades long tradition of summer music talk programs where the daily DJs are chosen from various walks of life: culture personalities of course, but also scientists, journalists, erstwhile politicians or diplomats, professionals of various kinds.

It just so happened that that I listened on the day Dr Kyaga, who is chief physician at Karolinska Institute, discussed his study, his experiences as physician and .

In addition to the TED talk already mentioned, he discusses creativity here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ke40u2zkqhw

Apparently Aristotle asked the same question about connection between creativity and melancholy.

[R. Nemo Hill]

"We place so much stock in the science enterprise telling us what is true, that we could find ourselves first "finding out" how we create and then find ourselves following formulas for how to create."

Amen, Rick.

One word: SOUL.

Nemo

[John Whitworth]

Some creative people are red haired. Some are not. Some creative people have big feet. Some do not. Some creative peple are mentally ill. Some are not.

Everybody is melancholy. It's a melancholy world. But not all the time.

[Charlie Southerland]

John, I didn't know you knew me so well.

I was red-headed, now I'm gray. I had big feet, now only one. I was mentally ill, now, I am still. I am melancholy-- head like a melon, face like a collie. I'm also left-handed. None of it matters except soul, all the time.

[Allen Tice]

Perhaps the fact that the categories "creative people" and "mentally ill people" are judged to overlap is due to the fact that both categories are filled with individuals who confront a world that is a poor fit with their first responses to it. So the categories can, in actuality, overlap, but there are still two more or less genuine categories overlapping. This will occur with "odd-balls" of all sorts, some of whom may be about as sane as anyone could ask, and others who clearly (alas) are not. And, naturally, seriously troubled people will struggle as creatively as they can to cope with their world and find some comfort in it. Their solutions may carry them well or not.

I wouldn't romanticize or belittle either the creative sane or those less sane.

[Stephen Hampton]

"Capturing human mental processes can be like capturing quicksilver. The brain has as many neurons as there are stars in the Milky Way." From the article. Not sure if either statement is accurate. However, all biological brains are phenomenally complex neurologically, and have great capacity for intelligence, information, memory, recall, sensory perception, orientation within physical reality, etc , and "creative" thinking demonstrative of emulation, innovation, complex problem solving, imagination, dreaming, so on and so forth. We human beings are not so unique and superior of awareness as we may think. Do not some whales compose unique symphonic works, and occasionally commit suicide?
I disagree with this overreaching premise of the writer "mental illness is a secret of creative minds" Paraphrasing.
Much of that which we define as human "mental illness" is an inevitable fact of our naturally aging diminishing biological existence, and in some cases, an insane reaction to the reality of an insanely vain and temporal life does occur. Extremely sad and terribly tragic when such occurs among the young - more frightening as such occurrences become more frequent, and more frequently reported.
Normally, individually, our human health of mind, and body, and soul, ebbs and flows through out life - and ultimately ends.
So goes our creativity, artistically and otherwise, sometimes radically, even insanely - sometimes not.
The secrets of creative minds are most likely as numerous as the secrets (those imperceptible things) of cosmic reality - more or less.
Enjoyed the reading, and the thinking, here in this thread.
SWH

[Janice D. Soderling]

Although some creative people have a history of mental disturbance, it does not follow that all mentally disturbed people are creative.

That said, the study is an interesting one. Divergent thinking is a necessary bulwark against totalitarianism.

[Mary McLean]

Rick,if creativity is not a cerebral function, can scientists be creative? I certainly think some of them make pretty impressive imaginative leaps. Creativity isn't just having an idea, it's having the knowledge to see its potential and putting in the hard work to develop it.