Excellent with the caveat that these dudes don't seem to know their audience. Performance matters.

I thought the discussion about encouraging creativity at the end of the dialogue was a bit funny. There can't be another culture in the world that honors "creativity" in the abstract as much as we in the US do. And yet I highly doubt that, in the end, Americans are any more creative than people from other cultures. Is it really all that useful to think of fostering creativity as an end in itself?

Quoting kezboard: I thought the discussion about encouraging creativity at the end of the dialogue was a bit funny. There can't be another culture in the world that honors "creativity" in the abstract as much as we in the US do. And yet I highly doubt that, in the end, Americans are any more creative than people from other cultures. Is it really all that useful to think of fostering creativity as an end in itself?

I know what you mean. And think of the stereotype of Japan, conformist, rigid, group-oriented, while at the same time they have plenty of innovative companies and completely insane artists, musicians, cartoonists, graphic designers, video games, fashion, etc.

Quoting kezboard: I thought the discussion about encouraging creativity at the end of the dialogue was a bit funny. There can't be another culture in the world that honors "creativity" in the abstract as much as we in the US do. And yet I highly doubt that, in the end, Americans are any more creative than people from other cultures. Is it really all that useful to think of fostering creativity as an end in itself?

Yes, I had the same reaction. Perhaps creativity is internally driven and the most that others can do is to provide an environment that will allow its free expression. It certainly can't be forced.

Quoting claymisher: I know what you mean. And think of the stereotype of Japan, conformist, rigid, group-oriented, while at the same time they have plenty of innovative companies and completely insane artists, musicians, cartoonists, graphic designers, video games, fashion, etc.

Not to mention novelists; Japan produced an astounding crop through the 20the century. Really outsize to the population of the country. (How many masterpieces came out of, say, Nigeria, in the same period of time?) A personal favorite . . .

Quoting nikkibong: Not to mention novelists; Japan produced an astounding crop through the 20the century. Really outsize to the population of the country. (How many masterpieces came out of, say, Nigeria, in the same period of time?)

A personal favorite . . .

Really? I know nothing about Japanese novels. Would you like to share the names of a few favorites?

Quoting AemJeff: Really? I know nothing about Japanese novels. Would you like to share the names of a few favorites?

Sure, always happy to shirk work. Here are a few I really love: Confessions of a Mask, by Yukio Mishima. (gay in conservative Japan. Also very moving and powerful descripitions of life in wartime Japan.) Scandal, by Shasaku Endo. A metaphysical mystery - a bit reminiscent of Paul Auster's New York Trilogy. Kangaroo Notebook, by Kobo Abe. I think you will like this one the most, Jeff: quite sci-fi-ish.

How many masterpieces came out of, say, Nigeria, in the same period of time?

Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart" is a great masterpiece of 20th century lit. It's been translated into 50 languages.

Quoting nikkibong: (How many masterpieces came out of, say, Nigeria, in the same period of time?)

Yeah...you probably should have picked some other black African country. Or did you pick Nigeria, a well-known literary powerhouse, as some sort of attempt at irony?

Quoting Ray: Or did you pick Nigeria, a well-known literary powerhouse, as some sort of attempt at irony?

I stand corrected. Sorry. On the other hand . . . If I stopped bloviating about things I don't know much about, about 90% of my bhtv commenting would be scrubbed . . .

Quoting nikkibong: Sure, always happy to shirk work.

Here are a few I really love:

Confessions of a Mask, by Yukio Mishima. (gay in conservative Japan. Also very moving and powerful descripitions of life in wartime Japan.)

Scandal, by Shasaku Endo. A metaphysical mystery - a bit reminiscent of Paul Auster's New York Trilogy.

Kangaroo Notebook, by Kobo Abe. I think you will like this one the most, Jeff: quite sci-fi-ish.

Dude, thanks!

Quoting Wonderment: Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart" is a great masterpiece of 20th century lit. It's been translated into 50 languages.

I love that book. It's one of the few novels I've read twice. As for Japan, you gotta have Haruki Murakami ("The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle") on your list. I really like Japanese detective novels too.

Quoting nikkibong: I stand corrected. Sorry.

On the other hand . . . If I stopped bloviating about things I don't know much about, about 90% of my bhtv commenting would be scrubbed . . .

Well; if I didn't respond to everything like a dick, I'd have nothing to say.

Quoting claymisher: As for Japan, you gotta have Haruki Murakami ("The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle") on your list. I really like Japanese detective novels too.

The Other Murakami (Ryu) is also a must. Coin-Locker Babies is bugfuck.

Out of curiosity, why do you all think most people are uneasy about augmenting the mental abilities of human beings? You saw a bit of the uneasiness when it came up in this log. I happen to want these abilities to be mapped and cataloged and studied so that one day their distribution can be a bit more even than a roll of the genetic dice, but maybe this is an example of my relative lack of wisdom (shocking, I know).
Assuming we took away the access issues, assuming it would be done as soon as it could be done, I suspect most people who have qualms with it now, would still have qualms with it even without those flags.

Honestly, I think that if you really wanted to foster creativity in children, you would give them some free time, for God's sake, without the pressure of having to do something "creative" or something that would be judged by a bunch of psychologists, or teachers, or parents, or whatever.

Kezboard: > I thought the discussion about encouraging creativity at the end of the
> dialogue was a bit funny. There can't be another culture in the world that
> honors "creativity" in the abstract as much as we in the US do. And yet I
> highly doubt that, in the end, Americans are any more creative than
> people from other cultures. Is it really all that useful to think of fostering
> creativity as an end in itself? I wish they'd been more clear here - I'm pretty sure that the "are we encouraging creativity?" question they're getting at isn't really about the arts or other areas where creativity of a kind is popularly celebrated. It's about encouraging creativity in our mechanical engineering majors and future municipal government officials and everyone else. That is, creative problem-solving, "novel but useful" solutions in general. And that quickly gets to heavy and thorny questions such as "what should school be like?" It's tough and I think they're rightfully concerned.

I wish they'd been more clear here - I'm pretty sure that the "are we encouraging creativity?" question they're getting at isn't really about the arts or other areas where creativity of a kind is popularly celebrated. It's about encouraging creativity in our mechanical engineering majors and future municipal government officials and everyone else. That is, creative problem-solving, "novel but useful" solutions in general.

Well, if the institutions and the jobs they produce are intrinsically stultifying and anti-creative by design or default, it's unlikely that the educational facilities that underpin such institutions will train creative people. On the contrary, the creative people within those institutions will be stifled or their creativity will be fragmented (go play in your jazz band on the weekends, but don't bring that crazy shit to work). How creative does the military, the DMV or the health insurance company want you to be? There's a reason highly creative people are often deeply alienated. Think of Kafka working for the Czech government. Perhaps if they established a no dress code on Fridays policy, Franz would have been happier at the Worker's Accident Insurance Institute of the Kingdom of Bohemia.

Quoting Wonderment: Well, if the institutions and the jobs they produce are intrinsically stultifying and anti-creative by design or default, it's unlikely that the educational facilities that underpin such institutions will train creative people.

On the contrary, the creative people within those institutions will be stifled or their creativity will be fragmented (go play in your jazz band on the weekends, but don't bring that crazy shit to work).

How creative does the military, the DMV or the health insurance company want you to be?

There's a reason highly creative people are often deeply alienated. Think of Kafka working for the Czech government. Perhaps if they established a no dress code on Fridays policy, Franz would have been happier at the Worker's Accident Insurance Institute of the Kingdom of Bohemia.

And how. Back in the 1970s two of my favorite economists, Bowles and Gintis, wrote a book saying exactly what you're saying (which makes you one of my favorite economists too!). Here's them revisiting their book in 2001:

Concerning human development, we showed that while cognitive skills are important in the economy and in predicting individual economic success, the contribution of schooling

http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/212...2:05&out=32:24

Back in the 1970s two of my favorite economists, Bowles and Gintis, wrote a book saying exactly what you're saying (which makes you one of my favorite economists too!)

I've been called a lot of names in my life, Claymisher, including onanist, communist and obamacist, but you are the first to accuse me of being an economist. I will take my cue from Barack.

Think of Kafka working for the Czech government. Perhaps if they established a no dress code on Fridays policy, Franz would have been happier at the Worker's Accident Insurance Institute of the Kingdom of Bohemia.

That's too funny! On a related note: http://www.theonion.com/content/news...loyee_uprising

Quoting Wonderment: I've been called a lot of names in my life, Claymisher, including onanist, communist and obamacist, but you are the first to accuse me of being an economist. I will take my cue from Barack.

There is no adequate means of expressing laughter here, but that was pretty funny, man.

Nice! But a really creative solution to the crisis is the ultra-sexy retro-slash-post-modern movement I call Freedum . Marketing slogan: Slavery! Just do it. Logo: E-man(cipation/nation)

Quoting AemJeff: There is no adequate means of expressing laughter here, but that was pretty funny, man.

Yup. And one of my favorite clips from the campaign.

A)Rex, when you are having college students rank their peers creativity, wouldn't it be better to have them use a ranking system then some A to B point scale system? I would imagine this would help eliminate various variables, such as it being a rainy day outside that puts people in a bad mood, and then makes people look at their peers with a more critical eye. B)Rex/Robert, how do you quantify creativity? From you two's descriptions, it seems like the tests are subjective. C)You say that creativity is orthogonal to g, does this mean you have not found a correlation between creativity and social mobility? D)Have their been any longitudinal studies on creativity? Does this quantity change in time?

A)If I say 4 million 323 thousand and eighty eight, and then say 4,323,088, are both actions activating the same neural circuitry? B)If I am dealing with some procedure that follows the law of diminishing returns, and I graph the relation of this procedure and its output in my head, and then I later just see the equation y=x^(1/2), and graph it in my head, are both actions activating the same neural circuitry? C)Is there any relation between the parts of the brain that are more active when manipulating some equation, lets say y=x+1, and then later graphing said equation? D)If I try to manipulate a rubik's cube in my head, and then physically manipulate a real rubix's cube, are both actions activating the same circuitry? E)Why is it that things come easier to me when I am pacing? Why is it things come easier to me when I mutter, even if the muttering is unintelligible? F)Have their been any cases where someone has had brain damage, and is able to follow well defined algorithms, but utterly lacks (like completely) creativity.

Quoting Starwatcher162536: F)Have their been any cases where someone has had brain damage, and is able to follow well defined algorithms, but utterly lacks (like completely) creativity.

I know there's a kind of brain injury to a part of the brain that governs emotions that also caused people to be unable to make decisions.

ooh! i like these quizzes. i've read many neuroscience books but i only have guesses for a couple of them: -for the brain imaging questions there's a lot of research being done on "grandmother neurons":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandmother_cell which are neurons that exist specifically for the recogintion of a specific stimuli. this reminds me of the many studies that use fMRI to watch the brains of monkeys and human subjects light up in the areas they use to perform an action themselves when they watch someone else do that same action. it's connected to the whole mirror neuron deal the blew up in the news a few years ago. -for the muttering question i think i remember reading in Christof Koch's book that he believes that "thought" is not actually conscious behavior but is unconscious and that's why it's so easy to forget a fleeting thought unless you "kick it up" from unconscious to conscious by saying it out loud. i think a lot of researchers are starting to think all behaviour is controlled unconsciously and our higher brain simply observes what's happened and

"I think a lot of researchers are starting to think all behaviour is controlled unconsciously and our higher brain simply observes what's happened and makes up a story about the reasons behind it." That's the subject of the book by Daniel Wegner, The Illusion of Conscious Will The book is basically a compilation of tons of studies which cause him to conclude
"the feeling of conscious will is created by the mind and the brain". Then there's Dennett's explanation of consciousness as the function of the hyperactive agent detection device. I'd love to hear Wegner discuss his findings on this forum. He's controversial enough to be very interesting.

Wow, that sounds pretty interesting. I'll have to check out that book. I still have Consciousness Explained on my "someday" list, as well. Thanks for the heads up, BHH.

Quoting uncle ebeneezer: Wow, that sounds pretty interesting. I'll have to check out that book. I still have Consciousness Explained on my "someday" list, as well. Thanks for the heads up, BHH.

Wegner should be paying me a commission. Here's his website. http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~wegner/ He's not without his detractors (in that he goes too far). If you want some links to those, I'll be happy to oblige. The topic of consciousness is just so damned interesting and now everyone is in on it...from philosophers to neuroscientists.

I think a crucial element in creativity is the ability to delude yourself that you're onto something even when you aren't... yet. This is why creativity and failure are so closely intertwined. Creative people are the ones who are willing to risk failure again and again, and usually they DO fail again and again, and then if they're seriously creative they get up and convince themselves, "Next time, I'll have a really good idea!" I thought this little video about writers and artists said it all. But definitely: this sensibility is more appropriate in certain fields than others. I'm glad that Francis Ford Coppola makes movies but I wouldn't ever want him flying my airplane!

My top pick: Kenzaburo Oe. I think Murakami's overrated. Based on, admittedly, a stay of only a couple of months in Tokyo, I developed the impression that the 'total insanity' of a lot of Japanese visual art/film etc. was a direct correlative of the society's conformism. Basic repression bubbling over into a kind of desperate hysteria. Plus, a lot of it, the manga stuff in particular, is pretty conformist in itself. Most interesting thing I saw there were some Japanese underground comics from the sixties a woman I met showed me. I was expecting more manga and thought I might at least gain some insight into it, but she wasn't interested in Manga at all. The stuff she showed me was by artists who each had a distinct visual style of their own and none of them were constrained by the mainstream's drive to sensationalism.

Quoting digit: I think Murakami's overrated.

I totally agree. Hence his exclusion from my list of recommendations for Jeff. Kazuo Ishiguro is also incredibly overrated. (Though he's lived in England so long that, for all intents and purposes, he's British, not Japanese.) Never Let You Go may be the worst novel of the (admittedly young) 21st century.

Quoting nikkibong: I totally agree. Hence his exclusion from my list of recommendations for Jeff.

I knew I'd get that. It's true, he's massively rated, so the overrating is inevitable. And all of his books are the same (sad jazz buff, ex-wife, cats). But I really, really loved "The Wind-up Bird Chronicle."

wisdom? ask any chiricahua apache indian and read bassos' wisdom sits in places. and also read the 290 pages mammoothian wisdom by baltes

I'm sorry, but you cannot capture 'wisdom' (defined as the ability to manifest intellectual/physical systems with limit case integrity) with intelligence anymore than you can capture intelligence (defined as the ability to move from problem to solution in a given time frame) with talent (defined as the ability to create 'forms'--as minimum human intellectual/physical artifacts in a given time frame). In general, the superset of human intellect encompasses form, motion and structure. Form is manifested as Talent, Motion as Intelligence and Structure as Wisdom. Unfortunately, you cannot manifest great structure (which in some respects you are trying to do here by attempting to effectively define wisdom) without having great intellectual structure. Attempting to define great wisdom without having great wisdom is--generally speaking and with all due respect--an errand founded in ignorance. (In some sense, this inability can be likened to 'testing failure' when it comes to the testing of individuals with limit-case intelligence. Generally speaking, there is a fundamental lack of requisite perspective; in one case, a perspective of intelligence, another a perspective of vision.) Of course, it's possible to have wisdom AND intelligence. But if you don't have wisdom (or perhaps more accurately, if you

Intelligence is learned through acquisition of knowledge while wisdom is an accumulated learning that is profoundly connected with the Universe. Intelligence is what we acquire from our inquiry of what is in the Universe and Wisdom when we put into action these Intelligence that gives life to the Universe I know that one plus one equals two, but what does that equation means to Life and the Universe? one first should solve the problem correctly to gain intelligence and applying the solution in the world's problem appropriately is Wisdom.

I cannot stop myself to note, what I remember from our weekly bible meetings... Bible says: "The fear of Jehovah is the beginning of wisdom." (Psalm 111:10) that says it all.

One should never mistake knowledge or intelligence for wisdom. Wisdom is beyond what you guys talk here, read here http://vjai.com/post/148041967/what-is-wisdom-or-jnana

or - it says nothing, depending on your assumptions.

Why does sound that is constituted of mostly harmonics of the fundamental come together and make music, while sound that is primarily not made up of frequency's that are integer multiples of the fundamental just make noise. P.S.
Perhaps I am a functional illiterate, but I have no idea if that is suppose to be a question mark or period at the end of that sentence.

Quoting Wonderment: Nice!

But a really creative solution to the crisis is the ultra-sexy retro-slash-post-modern movement I call Freedum .

Marketing slogan: Slavery! Just do it.

Logo: E-man(cipation/nation)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKs6y9_d2ps

Quoting Wonderment: Nice!

But a really creative solution to the crisis is the ultra-sexy retro-slash-post-modern movement I call Freedum .

Marketing slogan: Slavery! Just do it.

Logo: E-man(cipation/nation)

Thanks for the link to that story. In response I give you your Logo in it's entirety ( assuming you wanted it out there in all it's glory )

Quoting badhatharry: "I think a lot of researchers are starting to think all behaviour is controlled unconsciously and our higher brain simply observes what's happened and makes up a story about the reasons behind it."

That's the subject of the book by Daniel Wegner, The Illusion of Conscious Will The book is basically a compilation of tons of studies which cause him to conclude
"the feeling of conscious will is created by the mind and the brain".

Then there's Dennett's explanation of consciousness as the function of the hyperactive agent detection device.

I'd love to hear Wegner discuss his findings on this forum. He's controversial enough to be very interesting.

Free Will as a convenient fiction not unlike Bob Wright's "god" or "moral axis". We might not have conscious will just as we might not have a real "god" but if we can "fake it till we make it" then humanity might just get someplace valuable in the aggregate.

Thanks for the link to that story. In response I give you your Logo in it's entirety ( assuming you wanted it out there in all it's glory )

You're welcome. And God bless Amerika.