Author: Jiacheng Xia

The reading is interesting and it provides the author’s insights on how the mind recognizes patterns and processes them. It reminded me of something that I have came across in my life. In China there is a website which is very similar to Reddit. It has a section full of questions that sound ridiculous and people find amusing. For example, “The prision is full of criminals, why don’t the cops go there to capture them?””Why does meteorites always fall in meteorite pits?” After reading this chapter, I think the reason I find these questions ridiculous is because I am thinking with a preset pattern, and these questions violates some pieces of the pattern. But on the other hand, the people who came up with these questions managed to hop out of these patterns and rearrange them, making them kind of make sense but absurd if you really think about it. Even though the people.in the community call themselves “The mentally retarded”, I believe the questions are kind of genius in terms of creativity.

Reinterpreting the combined creation yesterday:

1. MAYBE: the guy who threw a bomb to Earth was not there to destroy but to help humans evolve. Their civilization was very similar to the Earth’s civilization, but someday their sun sent out a blast and blew their “Earth” to pieces, and their civilization evolved to live in space. The guy was just trying to replicate the process on humans to help them evolve. Therefore the guy fulfilled his mission.
2. MAYBE: the couple spent all their savings on the car, and they just bought a Mercedes Benz. On their way back home right after they got the car, they had a car crash and they were so grievous that they both went into a coma. This happened in their heads so that they didn’t feel so bad again. And when Earth exploded they both died of grief.
3. MAYBE: superpowers were not awakened but were there all the time. The impact of that bomb made them suddenly know how to control them and use them. It is what all people have to go through before getting to know their inner strength people have: life or death situation with total despair and anger(maybe also a smashed Mercedes Benz.)
4. MAYBE: Amy’s superpower was not to move as fast as lightning but to be able to fission into smaller “Amy”s. Amy was actually on the alien’s side and the one fighting alongside Bob was just a clone. The real Amy was cloning herself into separate smaller pieces and eating away the inner structure of Earth. That is why it was so fragile that it broke only because of people fighting in it.
5. MAYBE: this was what was recorded in historical artifacts. However, this was not the reality back then. The fight was not that simple, and there were also mysteries to the sudden claim of the powers. The alien’s befall was not unwarned, and human beings were not unprepared. The truth of the event lies hidden under the veil of time, long forgotten.

Choosing idea 5, what could be created:

1. Comic series: There could be a comic series with a lot of twists and turns, like the Avengers ones.
2. RPG Game: The player will be a time traveler, and after coming across a relic of the era, decides to find out about the truth.
3. Music: If the story could be filled, the events and the plot could be modified to music.
4. Drawing: A drawing could be built with this story, having space for all that has happened and connecting together to create a full story so that others could behold it.
5. Novel: Could be a trilogy. One about the threat and the preparation of the alien; another about the actual coming of the alien, and the last about the postwar threats and rebuilds.

Drawing: (My drawing is horrible I know)

Top is people fighting the alien, and the guy in the center is the laughing alien, and on the left is the cracked mountain.

At first, I wanted to share my idea-gathering way and ask him whether musicians do the same or have some other ways of gathering ideas and putting them together. But it was answered and I found some sort of resonance towards my own creating process. I also can see his passion when he was talking about his works, and I hope I can be like that too in the future. I would rather die than do something I don’t like for a living.

Additionally to what the chapter wrote, I still have a few questions about lateral thinking. There are many aspects to it. From a Utilitarianism way of thinking, lateral thinking is not at all productive unless there is a small chance it might work. For it to have a slight chance of working, it must adhere to some logic. Then in other words, isn’t this “lateral thinking” just the result of vertical thinking based on the preexisting logic? For example, in the picture shown to us in class which was about someone moving a sofa, we made these guesses based on some fundamental logical constraints such as gravity, cause and effect relationships, human motives, and many others. Does this blur the line between lateral thinking and vertical thinking? It might not be evident in this case, because the things acting as constraints are so common that sometimes we don’t see them there. But in some other cases, let’s say where there is a fixed storyline the job is to create something that furthers this storyline, the constraints get more obvious. Therefore, if I am thinking in multiple directions about how the story will keep going, is this lateral thinking or vertical thinking? therefore I believe that the line between vertical thinking and lateral thinking is quite blurred if the thinking result is bound to at least have a chance of being useful.

Because the things we drew were very abstract, we have a lot to work with here. Within these abstract lines, I visioned a superhero comic sort thing. Below is the story:

In the Milky Way;

Our solar system;

On Earth (lines reminded me of latitude and longitude);

Some extraterrestrial being↓;

Opened up a wormhole;

On 3:20 PM;

Targeted Earth;

And threw a bomb;

Which caused Earth’s molecular composition to change;

And the earth itself to crack;

10 MINS BEFORE;

Amy and Bob hanging out under the sun;

Their Mercedes Benz was directly hit by the bomb;

They were very frustrated so they awakened superpowers;

Amy can travel at the speed of lightning;

Bob has laser eyes (light’s reflection and refraction);

THEY FOUGHT WITH THE ALIEN AND THE FIGHT WAS VERY INTENSE;

The three fell to a mountain;

The fight split the mountain;

They fought through the Earth’s crust;

So Earth blew up;

THE END.

After listening to the TED talk, I have some views about it. Though I believe overall it is a good and reasonable talk, there are aspects I don’t agree.

One is about “The beginners mind”. Apart from the part where I am skeptical that the word “初心” was wrongly translated, I don’t think that having a beginners mind and being able to see many possibilities necessarily contributes to the creative process. These are separate issues when talking about different realms. If the realm is relatively new and you are one of the “pioneers” in the field, sure, be creative! Think about things that no one has thought about before! Because whatever you come up with, you are one of the first people who does that. The act of you participating in this realm is creating experience, and everything you do is a result of creativity. But if the realm is already relatively mature and there are generations before you that have worked on this issue, having a beginners mind, especially when it comes to methodology and approach, will very unlikely be rewarding. In fact, it might greatly hinder your progress and frustrate people working with you.

For example, if you think you came up with an approach to do something, there are generations before you, and guess why they didn’t adopt that approach? Or, how could you be sure that the idea is unprecedented? Take the game development as an example. It is absolutely okay to innovate and be creative about game genres or design elements in games, since on these topics there are still space to work with, and games should all have new elements so that players don’t get tired. Having a beginners mind on these topics I believe is totally fine. But when it comes to the part of coding and implementing the ideas, there is a certain structure you must stick to. Though there might be variations due to specific needs, the overall structure and patterns should be adhered to. Because before you there are countless precedents in this realm, and they already found the best generally applicable ways (and by “best” here it means quantified using rigorous means) to build software. Not sticking to these rules and methods will only cause you time and energy doing something that is greatly unlikely to be rewarding.