Fortune Mind Discussions

How to know when a moment of inspiration

is a good idea?

Whenever scientists are asked to make predictions on how long its 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.. Surprisingly enough is the tempo almost always faster than the cautious time limit predicted. Other fields where the public is waiting for conclusive results are aging, Genome research, Neuroscience, Astronomy, Physics, and many more.

The reason a scientist is cautious in his prediction is not his lack of confidence or knowledge.

Some of the great researchers enjoy a quality called:

Serendipity-The lucky tendency to find interesting or valuable things by chance. History tells us that almost all fields of science accelerated after big breakthroughs due to moments of great inspiration by great men such as:

Newton - Law of gravitation.

Darwin - Theory of evolution.

Fleming - Discoverer of penicillin.

Janski - Establishing that Radio Waves are coming from space.

And lately the discovery of Mirror neurons by Giacomo Rizzolati and colleagues Fadiga, Fogassi, and Gallesa in the University of Parma, Italy, 10 years ago.

The last is a good example of inspiration. The researchers

have noticed ‘accidentally’ that the same neurons were active in a monkeys brain when 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 could anybody anticipate that?

A lot of the great discoveries and breakthroughs in mens history were a result of inspiration, but not only, 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 a normal life with this, or the other belief and opinion is also doing his own research

On life, his life, never to be published.

These 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 counsellors, 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 understanding, and improving his life, in any field.

‘Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened’

Sir Winston Churchill

One very important quality of the great men mentioned above was to recognize a moment of inspiration as an important one- 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, dictionary.cambridge.org

1 - Someone or something that gives you ideas for doing something.

2 - A sudden good idea.

3 - An example which people admire- 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.

Still, in the end of the day, careful observation shows most of the brains work is a mechanical one, predicted, but not all of it.

Reason is :

A - No brain is the same, which allows fluctuation

as humans copy and learn from each other, there is room for development and further evolution.

B - The evolution struggle is also taking place in the brain, just like everywhere else - different brain centers are competing with each other (and also joining forces) for importance. And synaptic patterns and neuronal highways are competing as well.

This competition could result in new neuronal pathways and can lead to new ideas and inspiration.

C - The job the new brain, the Neo Cortex does 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 allows for unexpected thinking variations, or mutations to be generated.

D - The brain is very sensitive to all kinds of stress, which can also be responsible for genetic mutation - resulting in constant evolution - of genes or as a parallel, thinking patterns.

The way for most of us to observe this unique situation

is a simple and an abstract one:

Dictionary definition:

1 - Someone or something that gives you ideas for doing something - this is a normal brain activity done by the cortex - observing, analyzing, mirror neurons at work, and coming back after a fraction of a second, with a conclusion that this is something we should commit to memory for further use. Tagged and sealed and on to the next assessment.

2 - A sudden good idea: similar 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), hopefully made of a thick bunch of synapses will recognize the importance of this new idea, and will tag it immediately as VERY important so it would not get lost in between the other thousands of 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 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 knowledge of all its functions. A knowledge that no one is mastering completely 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, recognize the different sensations coming and going in your head, and by that bringing more control and confidence into your life.