Comment by LL on Lawful Creativity · 2008-11-09T08:33:15.000Z · LW · GW

It's important to state that we do not see so much as recognize. Before data from the eyes is processed it is synthesized with memories, and so as much as 80% of what we 'see' is simply an exercise in matching visual data with memory data. This goes some way to explaining why being a tourist can be mentally exhausting; work cannot be outsourced to memory, but rather the mind works double-time to both take in full-bandwidth visual data and to store new information. Quite apart from this, basic values -- normally guarded closely by confirmation bias -- are being challenged. Travel broadens the mind in the same way that flooding broadens a river.

This tendency, to recognize rapidly, works against creative thought in everyday life. Creativity is bedeviled by routine, even routines that once successfully generated fresh concepts, and eventually elements of chaos are required to shake off the recognize-and-dismiss pattern that comes to us so easily.