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Do software-generated "connections" really generate inspiration?
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Posted by Daly de Gagne
Oct 25, 2007 at 06:46 PM
I don’t think I have ever had real inspiration as a result of following links—and here I mean on the www, because I don’t use wikis, in large part b/c I get my back up at having to use code to do stuff that should be done with a mouse click—wikipad, I think it is, has eliminated some of the code though.
As well, I do not find enough need for links to get into wiki mode. I tend to use links in a program that may not allow cloning.
I do find inspiration from the links that get triggered in my own mind when I hear, read, or write something that sparks an association with something else, or when a whole bunch of ideas suddenly come together.
In the final analysis the most important data base is the sum of our own learnings and experiences as maintained and retained in our brain. I fear the ease with which some of the younger folk today are becoming too reliant on software databases, and taking the attitude of I don’t need to know this because I can just search for it when I need it.
Knowing something is sometimes a pre-requisite for being able to think about and know something else.
Daly
Stephen R. Diamond wrote:
>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.
>
Posted by Cassius
Oct 25, 2007 at 06:56 PM
Steve Diamond’s comments about thought processes are provoking. He is certainly correct about writing.
Did the invention of writing and reading increase the effective intelligence of people who practiced it? It appears to have diminished the ability to retain information in memory. Would we think better without the written word, if it meant that our brains would store more information?
It certainly appears that the written word has enhanced the development of civilization in some ways, if for no other reason that it has enabled the communication of ideas and information over distance and among many people.
From personal experience, I believe that there are several “avenues” involved in thought processing and memory.
While teaching, I had a student who could verbally answer an advanced calculus question, but could not do so on paper.
My son, when younger, could not memorize even addition tables. Yet, he could look at a movie poster, come home, and reproduce it almost perfectly.
I suspect that all of the senses contribute to the thought process, with some being more “active/dominant” in some people than in others.
-c
Posted by Manfred
Oct 25, 2007 at 08:54 PM
Steve wrote: “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).”
We are obviously getting into some deep and controversial issues here. Philosophers and cognitive scientists hold various views on these matters. But without getting deeply into any of these, I would say the following.
Yes, the distinction between memory and thinking is worth making. However, and this is important, this does not mean that memory and thinking are independent of one another in the same way that one piece of hardware is independent of one another. They depend on another. One might also say that there are interconnections between the two at various levels. To vary a theme of one of my favorite philosophers: “thinking without memory is empty, while memory without thinking is blind.”
I would go further and say that with regard to any given problem, even the most brilliant thinker needs to know (or remember) the relevant facts. Indeed, to determine what are the relevant facts is often a first step to a solution of the problem. Though there are also instances where a solution shows that certain facts that one already knew are relevant, etc. etc.
Secondly, there are some philosophers and many cognitive scientists (called “connectionists”) who would argue that thinking is nothing but connecting. This goes back to philosophers like Hume, who thought that thinking is just a process of of association, and thinking about thinking meant identifying the principles of association. Some thinkers in this tradition have gone so far as to say that the human brain should be modeled as a neural net, and that you could program a computer to mirror a human brain by establishing associations between different bits of information. There is an interesting novel by Richard Powers, called Galatea 2.2 that explores this issue.
I have some sympathy for this kind of view—and that’s why ConnectedText appeals to me—-while I also think that connectionism is very problematic. Still, I would hold that making connections is a kind of thinking, and therefore I respectfully disagree with Steve on this issue.
Manfred
Posted by Cassius
Oct 25, 2007 at 10:31 PM
My guess is that the physical process of thinking involves activity of brain cells, their connectors (dendrites), brain and other body chemicals, and the interactions of all of these.
-c
Posted by Manfred
Oct 25, 2007 at 10:45 PM
of course ...
But when when we speak of “thinking” in the context of “experience”—remember your original question? [“Certainly we all have had the experience of reading something or hearing something which, along with our previous thoughts, resulted in an inspiration.”]—then talk about dendrites is irrelevant. We don’t DIRECTLY experience “activity of brain cells, their connectors (dendrites), brain and other body chemicals, and the interactions of all of these”
If you wanted an answer in those terms, you should have asked a neuro-scientist. It seemed to me that you were asking a “phenomenological” question.