First Law of Mental Motion: Law of Inertia

Recently I have been decorating my Algebraic Geometry notes- and I was surprised to find how “pretty” my “art” turns out. Why was that surprising? Usually if I am assigned to draw a picture, I would get quite stuck, paralyzed by the infinite possibilities. This is often the cause of my procrastination by the way- I always want to wait until I have time to examine all the possibilities to choose the optimum. 

What happened recently was I was short for time, and since the art was of no importance, I just decided to select a starting image at random and then go with my intuition. Once the first image was laid down, my brain immediately sees what else is needed- it picks up a momentum. This reminds me of the story of a sculpting competition. A competitor just stares at the clay without doing anything, then suddenly throws the piece of clay on the floor. Looking at the deformed clay, the competitor explains that he/she now can see what the clay “wants to be”. 

In a sense, my conscious brain has been able to delegate the task to my subconscious/automatic system. It is the same system/process/program that generates my hypnagogic images. I’m always so fascinated by my hypnogogic images. The incredible thing about that process is that seemingly unrelated concepts get linked. Sometimes I even had dreams that anthropomorphised math concepts. Thus at some levels, these “blobs of feelings” can be deconstruct and rearrange to create images, in a Lynchian way.   I want to understand “blob arithmetic”.

We will talk more about blob arithmetic, especially the intersection operation, in other posts. Right now, let’s just focus on one law of blob arithmetic: “inertia/momentum.” Conscious energy is only needed to start/“prime” the process- then momentum makes it continue. In practice, when anticipating energy needed for a task, we often make the mistake of assuming conscious effort is required through the whole process. In reality, effort is only needed in the initiation of the task. We are only the managers- we decide which tasks are to be done, then we delegate the task to the subconscious and get out of the way. Our usual over-estimation of effort leads to problems such as too much unnecessary physical (and psychological) tensions. I know this too well from my chronically painful thighs. 

This is the case with teaching. It’s very hard for me to just think of a lecture. But once the lecture starts (with an audience), my brain just naturally knows what to do next and it is basically effortless. 

This is the idea behind improv, isn’t it? One of the most memorable example in Keith Johnston’s improv book for me is the one where he guides someone to invent a story. He  asks them to close their eyes and then starts asking them questions about what they see. Magically, as if there is a hidden director in their head, images are projected to their conscious. Thus creativity is not so much conjuring up something out of nothing, but rather, to remove the obstruction. This is a bit like Milton Erickson’s philosophy of therapy: use the stream that is already there- simply redirect it. 

So I decided that instead of worrying about getting all my ideas organized before writing them down, I will just start the writing to actually discover the ideas. In other words, I’m giving my subconscious a chance and an outlet to talk to me, as well as a way to organize my thoughts.. 

I remember in 6th and 7th grade, every afternoon, the Literature teacher would make us write a short essay on the spot. The essays must satisfy some conditions, e.g. use certain words and certain sentence structure. I have always found that quite easy. I want to remember, recall and store that feeling to apply to any tasks these days. If I have kept up that habit, I could have written many mini articles and essays now. 

I have always found it mysterious how writing things down seem to create new ideas. I remember my first philosophy essay: nothing I wrote down was new to me. I have thought about those issues for years before. Yet somehow, after I wrote it, I felt like I learned something new. How could that be? Maybe it is the concretization of the ideas? Instead of letting them float out like blobs, I tied them down to words and thus making them easier to be retrieve. I do notice that when talking to people, I could explain some ideas much better if I have written or spoken about it before. Other ideas, even if I understand them well and have thought about them extensively, often fail to materialize into words. It’s not just that: another problem is that the blobs aren’t linked into a structure or a narrative. Why does that matter for communication with others (including with myself?) Why does that matter for thinking? Is it because then their coming and going to the front stage (the conscious) is rather random, instead of systematic? But why would that matter? It seems that this restricts and slows down the process of obtaining gist and depth, but why?

Dancing is another great example. If I tried to imitate the dancers in the video, I get really strained, confused and discouraged. What I have been doing these days is to look at those dancers only “primers/inspirations”. At each instant, their image caused my brain to fire an impulse, and then I just follow and improvise base on that impulse. So again, they only take part in the initiation of the movement. Since my conscious does not try to intervene during the movement, allowing the subconscious to fully express itself, the movement is more fluid.