Yesterday I went to "Your Brain on the Internet," a discussion that was part of the New Yorker Festival. I got at least one $30 idea out of the deal: The computer scientist Jaron Lanier noted, almost in passing, that the people he knows don't achieve creativity by trying to do something novel. They achieve it by being more themselves. The comment immediately sparked a flurry of thoughts, none of which may have had anything to do with what he meant by the comment, but here they are. In computational terms, one can see each person's brain as a solution to a problem. (It could be called the problem of life.) Some aspects of the problem are common--object recognition, for example--and so everyone shares a similar solution. Your brain identifies a chair using processes similar to the ones mine has developed (and to some degree inherited). But some aspects of the problem are unique to each person's situation--navigating to one's school, relating to one's parents, etc. And so we each have solutions--skill sets--different from everyone else's. Get in touch with that skill set and you'll be tapping into a font of useful originality. MORE HERE
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