Whenever scientists are asked to make predictions on how long it’s going to take for an important research to be completed and applied so the general public can enjoy the fruits of years of their intensive work the answer is almost never a definitive one. Medical questions such as ‘when are we going to find the cure for cancer, aids, or diabetics?’ are answered with ‘we know a lot, we came a long way, within 10-20 years’ etc.. Suprisingly enough is the tempo almost always faster than the cautious time limit predicted. The reason a scientist is cautious in his prediction, is not his lack of confidence or knowledge. Newton - law of gravitation, The last is a good example of inspiration - the researchers have noticed ‘accidentally’ that the same neurons were active in a monkey’s brain when he was reaching for a peanut and when he watched a researcher reaching for a peanut (the accident). This unexpected discovery has brought a new dimension into neuroscience research, aiding in understanding our ability to learn language, a better view of autism, contributing to theory of the mind, and in general helping us to comprehend the great evolution the brain-mind has gone through the last 250,000 years. And all because a researcher was tempted to grab a peanut! how can anybody anticipate that? A lot of the great discoveries and breakthroughs in men’s history were a result of inspiration but not only that - needless to say, normally it was just the spark that ignited many years of hard work. The average man and woman, the ‘ordinary’ one that lives in suburbia or anywhere else for that matter, goes to work 5 days a week and comes back to his home and family (or not) leading This ordinary men and women are working hard at their areas of interest, trying to improve their own life in any way they can by watching TV, reading this article, surfing the internet, reading newspapers, talking to counselors and ministers and so on. Each one of those people will have quite a bit of good ideas in his term, he would experience moments of inspiration, and also inspirational moments, but would he be able to tell inspirational from inspiration? recognizing a good idea when it came along? the one that perhaps could have helped him in understandig and improving his life - in any field. One very important quality of the great men mentioned above was to recognise a moment of inspiration as an important one, as a good idea, and not letting it go by unnoticed. It is not so easy to tell a good idea from a passing thought and it takes practice to know whether it is an inspiration or inspirational. There are three definitions for inspiration to be found in the Cambridge Dictionaries online: 1) Someone or something that gives you ideas for doing something. - Inspirational: making you feel hopeful or encouraged. The human brain - mind is arguably the most sophisticated product of evolution on the planet earth. The amount of intelligence produced by the organism is mind-blowing. Reason is - a) no brain is the same which allows fluctuation and as humans copy and learn from each other, there is room for developement and further evolution. b) the evolution struggle is taking place in the brain itself just like everywhere else - different brain centers are competing with each other (but also joining forces) for importance, and synaptic patterns and neuro highways are competing as well. c) the job the ‘new’ brain (neocortex and other parts) does the most and best is to absorb all incoming information with the help of the senses, evaluate and make decisions and predictions on further possible actions, All of that results in many millions of actions and reactions per day which again allows for unexpected thinking variations or mutations to be generated. d) the brain is very sensitive to all kinds of stress which is also responsible for genetic mutation - resulting in constant evolution - of genes or as a parallel - thinking mutations. The way for most of us to observe this unique situation is a simple and an abstract one - 1): Someone or something that gives you ideas for doing something - this is a normal brain activity in the cortex - observing, analysing, mirror neurons at work, coming back after a fraction of a second with a conclusion that this is something we should commit to memory for further use, 2) a sudden good idea: similiar to (1) but not quite, something unique has happened - the evolution war between the synaptic highways resulted in a new cross-wiring and suddenly evolved a new idea, a new possible thinking pattern, but would it get enough attention or importance to sustain it and make it permanent? practice (obviously an already existing pattern ) and hopefully made of a thick bunch of synapses will recognise the importance of this new idea and will tag it immediately as VERY important so it would not get lost in between the other thousand messages that keep coming. Here you see that practice creates new patterns which later help us to distinct new ideas from normal routine. 3) an example which people admire: much like (1), being tagged and sent to memory and made available for future use - but is also referred to another area of the brain busy with emotionally charged messages. The inspirational moment - making you feel hopeful or encouraged : a bit different than all of the above because it also involves one of the centers of the ‘old’ brain - contributing small amounts of certain reward neurotransmitters resulting in a float like feeling which probably will not stay for very long and will not be committed to memory. With sufficient amount of training and observation of how our brain work, even without the deep knowledege of all it’s functions - a knowledge that no one is mastering completly anyway, looking and thinking about your brain functions in a simple abstract way will allow you to catch those precious sudden good ideas, make good use of them, recognise the different sensations coming and going in your head, and by that bringing more control and confidence into your life. Welcome to my bio. Tags: brain, inspiration, mirror neurons, neuroscience, the mind Related PostsPost a comment
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