Complex Numbers

We're All Mad Here

I don't know how I found this article from 2013, but it's unlikely that the age of it makes a difference.

What Neuroscience Says About The Link Between Creativity And Madness  
New research sheds more light on the strong ties between an original mind and a troubled one.

Creativity is a thing that eludes me. Madness? Well. I wouldn't know, would I?

The idea that very creative people are also a little crazy has been around since humanity’s earliest days.

Maybe the article was written before we were supposed to stop using "crazy," which is retarded.

In ancient Greece, Plato noted the eccentricities of poets and playwrights, and Aristotle saw that some creative types were also depressives. In modern times, that connection has persisted, from Robert Schumann hearing voices guide his music to Sylvia Plath sticking her head in an oven to Van Gogh cutting off his ear to Michael Jackson … being Michael Jackson.

And there you have it, folks: Michael Jackson in the same paragraph as Plato.

Today the link between creativity and mental illness is firmly embedded in the public conscience. Unlike some supposed cultural wisdoms, however, there’s a good bit of scientific evidence behind this one.

First you'd have to define "crazy." I mean, sure, there are modern psychological definitions of all kinds of mental disorders, but it seems to me that by the common definition of "crazy," in order to be creative, one has to be crazy. Because the word describes someone whose thoughts and actions are outside the "normal" (whatever that is). So all creative people are crazy, but that doesn't mean (sorry, crazy people) that all crazy people are creative.

The article, though, mentions particular recognized mental disorders, and I won't copy all of the examples here.

The new work enhances a theory by Shelley Carson, a Harvard psychologist and author of the book Your Creative Brain, which says that creativity and mental illness share a process called “cognitive disinhibition.” The term is a mouthful, but essentially cognitive disinhibition describes a failure to keep useless data, images, or ideas out of conscious awareness.

There is no such thing as useless data. There is only data to be stored away for later use.

“[Y]ou have more information in conscious awareness that could be combined and recombined in novel and original ways to come up with creative ideas,” Carson tells Co.Design.

Which kind of touches on how I view creativity: it is, at least in part, the ability to make connections that others might miss. I think of it as living a metaphor.

That’s why not all creative people are a bit crazy and why not every mentally ill person is especially creative. “It’s not a one-on-one correspondence,” says Carson. In fact, she says, most creative people don’t exhibit severe mental problems at all; rather, the notable examples stick in our minds.

Sure, if you use the DSM to diagnose "crazy." My point above still stands in opposition to this assertion: that creative people are crazy by definition.

Which brings us back to our list of eccentric artists through the ages. Perhaps genes contributing to mental problems have persisted across humanity in part because they also contribute to superior creativity.

That is not how evolution works. Genes persist if the people possessing them live long enough to reproduce, and then reproduce. Having "crazy genes" (the existence of which I doubt in the first place) doesn't necessarily keep someone from finding a mate and making little crazy people. I mean, look around if you need evidence for that.

“Even though we know mental illness in and of itself is not conducive to survival of the individual, there may be aspects of mental illness that promote survival in the overall species,” Carson says.

Sure, profound mental illness may preclude passing on one's genes, but it doesn't have to be profound to exist. Also, at least some mental illnesses are environmentally-driven.

Anyway, my point in sharing this isn't to rag on their view of evolution, but because a few craz- er, I mean, creative people read this blog, and you should feel better about being just a little bit whacked.