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Human Generative Capacity

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Bluelighter
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Aug 14, 2011
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I'd like to introduce the topic of the ability of the human mind to generate original thought and apply this in creation.

How does this phenomenon function?

Do you have any exercises to develop this skill?

What are your thoughts regarding the limits of the ability?


Personally, I try to spontaneously generate original music in my mind; mostly symphonic or post-/math-rock.
I also vividly explore three-dimensional objects in my mind.

I also believe that this capacity has unlimited potential.
 
Well, Noam Chomsky the famous linguist does not believe that our complexity of sentences can possibly be derived from rote memorization and experience with the sentences that we have heard spoken, This underlies an innate ability to produce unique ideas by stringing concepts together that are otherwise unique at the very least to our own experience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gU-B0-DCKI
 
When I'm high I can improvise music and write longer texts. I don't know why but it slowly begins working also without weed. ;)
 
Linguistics is one of my favorite parts. (:
It's what I consider the most expressive and individual aspect of cognitive science.
I am a writer.

Also, I believe now that the human mind does in fact have unlimited generative capabilities.
 
Chomskys application of an innate grammar is very interesting, I love watching his lectures on just about every topic. So, having heard a concept applied to one object, by interchanging the object we get the foundation to describe that activity for all possible subjects. Its like a universal formula. He found that grammar is fundamentally the same throughout all languages, and that rather than being derived from a singular primal language, it must be an inherent predisposition.

For creativity, all you need to do is add a subject not normally associated with an activity as in personification. I'm thinking along the lines of a Hookah smoking caterpillar. Or how about a caterpillar smoking hookah.

Something that shocks me always is how advanced language was during early history when science was thousands of years away. Platos Republic for instance. Pythagoras in his time working on geometry is amazing. The rift between the most advanced animal communication and our own seems to be quite wide.
 
Awesome, I highly suggest it. They are amazing, there are quite a few on google video, full length like 45 minutes or more.
 
Einstein's thought experiments leading to special relativity, the concept of curved spacetime, etc. It really is amazing the stuff that a human mind can conjure up. I remember having a professor that fed us just enough background information about physics and then encouraged us to try out the thought experiments that Einstein came up with, and try to figure out the solutions that he came to. Lots of the students in the class were able to come up with answers that were similar to those Einstein came up with. That's amazing to me, thinking back on that class now, it was just a simple "physics for non-science majors" undergraduate class, but given just the right amount of nudging, we were able to figure out lots of things just by running through thought-experiments in our heads. That just goes to show that the human mind is highly capable of amazing amounts of creativity.

Also Nikola Tesla was able to run complex mechanical configurations in his mind, and he'd analyze the inner-workings of his inventions before he'd ever assembled a prototype (apparently he even got down to the details of things like wear and tear on the moving parts and joints of the machines, all purely by visualization techniques.)

Practicing using your mind to generate things is the key to unlocking your potential.
 
gakattack:

Even though generativity is obviously a cool concept and so on, let's just make it clear that Chomsky never actually looked at the world's languages (or listened to people in relevant fields, i.e. cognitive sciences). This is what language typologists do (look up Joseph Greenberg on wiki for instance). Rather, he has postulated a number of highly debatable distinctions, such as the one that supposedly divides language into competency (which is what he finds interesting - the mathematical properties of language) and performance (actual usage of a language).
While it appears very reasonable to claim that language is to some extent "innate", this is, IMO, not the whole story. People with speech production deficiencies do exist, as do feral children whose "language module" was never activated. (The "module" thing is pretty questionable as well: the rest of the brain doesn't appear to be organised into clearly delineated modules; for example, young children who suffer damage to the language-related parts of the brain are sometimes able to "reroute" the language learning to other neurons because these are very plastic in the early part of life, less so when you're adult).
I find it, however, to be pretty improbable that evolution should have stumbled upon something as elegant as a bit of mathematical notation.

Because it is very hard for me to see how Chomsky is attempting to describe human language, I find it much more interesting to ask: Why was language a good idea from an evolutionary point of view? It must have been an advantage to enough people. What did and do we use language for? Trading, exchange of information beyond simply imitating another's actions (i.e., the start of culture), social acts (threatening, promising, endorsing, lying etc.).

Regarding the advancedness or complexity of languages: do you think that English is a more advanced language than, say, Piraha which can be whistled, hummed, or encoded in music? I try to keep concepts and language somewhat separate even though language is our most prominent carrier of concepts.
 
I have dreams about solving simple algebraic calculations and get freaked out when I wake up, check myself and discover I was correct.

He found that grammar is fundamentally the same throughout all languages, and that rather than being derived from a singular primal language, it must be an inherent predisposition.

Well, this is already a given. Races aren't that different we're all still deeply human, and there has to be some sort of mechanical feature common in all of us that spits out sounds.

The rift between the most advanced animal communication and our own seems to be quite wide.

This is just from a human perspective. Language is found throughout species a variety of forms. I mean all we're doing is making sounds, posturing and moving facial muscles. I'm not saying spiders and elephants can discuss general relativity, but their forms of language is still complex and astounding.
 
I find it much more interesting to ask: Why was language a good idea from an evolutionary point of view? It must have been an advantage to enough people. What did and do we use language for? Trading, exchange of information beyond simply imitating another's actions (i.e., the start of culture), social acts (threatening, promising, endorsing, lying etc.).

Regarding the advancedness or complexity of languages: do you think that English is a more advanced language than, say, Piraha which can be whistled, hummed, or encoded in music? I try to keep concepts and language somewhat separate even though language is our most prominent carrier of concepts.

First off, linguistics is a field I have very little hours clocked studying. But I did stay in a holiday inn last night.

Second, I think language as an evolutionary tool is more than communication it is experience transmission, it is a memory passed from person to person. How is this? Beyond oral histories in the common view that they are inaccurate tales of mythos, events that have taken place can be made known to individuals who did not directly observe it. Such as where a fruiting tree is, where I saw a heard of animals. Who killed this tribesman, where to strike an animal to kill it etc. Knowledge beyond experience makes for an individual who can draw on others experiences as well as his own.

as far as english being superior to another language I have no real opinion on this matter. I would like to see this piraha in written form, as it sounds like that would be a drawback.

As english is a lingua franca, and has evolved using many concepts from other languages. I think it is good that a language can draw on as much human experience as possible and have so many words to define or express a multitude of distinct concepts.
 
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