About that shinyperfection...

Last week I made up A Science, literally as I wrote the words: “[T]hat shinyperfect idea in our head is not really shinyperfect. Our brains don’t work like that. Your brain comes up with a few shinyperfect bits and then does what our brains do: It fills in the gaps with mysterium, triggers a release of some dopamine, and then its work is done.”

Sounds good, but is it true?

Brain: “LOOK I MADE YOU A CIRCLE ISN’T IT PERFECT OH GOD YES YES YESSSSS!” Pretty sure that’s what’s happening.

To recap for those just joining us, I posited that the reason the shinyperfect ideas in our head always look grotesque when we try to make them real is that the brain is not in the business of making perfectly finished ideas. The brain has the idea of an idea, and then the brain gets a shot of dopamine — like a good boy dog getting a pet on the head — and then it’s done. It’s finished. It needs a cigarette.

You can see how this is true when you have to make your brain work to stay on task to complete any amount of planning for anything, like a vacation or a business meeting. Every cycle through the process, every GESTALT, every SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATION, the brain says, “Oh yeah, I forgot that bit. Fix it.” If the brain were capable of creating complete ideas, we’d live in a much more efficient world.

There does not appear to be any research on my hypothesis, at least none I can understand. There is research on the brain’s ability to fill in the gaps, to make us think we’re seeing a complete picture when we’re not, and there is research indicating that we do get a squirt of dopamine with an A-ha! moment.

But actual research on dopamine and creativity from the National Institutes of Health is tantalizingly wide of the beam. To be fair, NIH’s research is going to be more focused on disease and brain structures than on Lichtenbergianism, but it would be nice if at least some of the research backed up my shinyperfect hypothesis rather than implying that creativity is just this more tolerable version of schizophrenia.

Therefore, I challenge all our neuroscientists to hop right on this idea and prove my hypothesis that Lichtenbergianism’s ABORTIVE ATTEMPTS > GESTALT > SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATION cycle is neurologically based, possibly as an evolutionary energy-saver. There’s a Nobel Prize in Creativitronics out there with your name on it!