Do software-generated "connections" really generate inspiration?

Posted by Stephen R. Diamond
Oct 25, 2007 at 06:05 PM

I think maybe the question of whether connections generate inspiration can be subsumed under Manfred’s claim that certain contemporary software can amplify intelligence. I’m not sure ‘inspiration’ is clear enough in meaning, although I will answer Cassius’s question directly that I have never had a eureka experience arising directly from software connections, not where this experience has actually deepened by understand of the material. I have had such experiences in terms of how best to organize material in a given document. I won’t give an example, unless someone wants one, because I think everyone has experienced this, and it is fairly trivial.

Maybe to ask whether software amplifies intelligence it could help first to locate what technology or invention during our species’ existence undoubtedly have accomplished such amplification. In my mind without question the key development was the development of writing as such. (I leave out the advent of language generally, because it is so shrouded in mystery.) Writing is thinking on paper (there’s a book by that title), and thinking on paper has amplified our ability to think by allowing the thinker to follow a train of thought further and more consistently than he could without it.

I think—there’s certainly a lot of room for disagreement here, as well as consideration of the effect of different cognitive styles—that thinking occurs when one is writing and reading writings, not when organizing diagrams. The centrality of writing for thinking has some counter-intuitive implications that I embrace. My keyboard is more important for my thinking than any software. I perform typing exercises several times a week, and if my typing speed falls below 80 words per minute, I worry about it. If writing is thinking on paper, you would want your typing to keep up with your internal operations. Fast typing amplfies my intelligence.

Making software connections—in my opinion and experience—amplfies memory, not thinking. Is that a distinction worth making? I think obviously so, although exactly what the implications are may not be immediately obvious.If like me you are fond of analogies, the difference between the effect of enhancing thinking (intelligence) vs. memory is sort of like the difference between a faster computer processor on the one hand and more RAM and a larger hard disk on the other (assuming of course the hard disk space is actually used).

While the implications are not necessarily transparent, my value judgments are straightforward. I am more concerned with maximizing my processor speed than my RAM and more concerned with my RAM than my hard disk size. To me this means that any method that distracts or diverts from the process of writing as such is to be avoided. A corollary is that textual rather than graphical outliners are the instrument of choice during the brainstorming phase.