The science of creativity is relatively new. Until the Enlightenment, acts of imagination were always equated with higher powers. Being creative meant channeling the muses, giving voice to the gods. (“Inspiration” literally means “breathed upon.”) Even in modern times, scientists have paid little attention to the sources of creativity. But over the past decade, that…
The origins of Stonehenge have long baffled historians – was it intended as a monument for the dead, a celestial observatory, a place or healing?
Over the years of writing and teaching, I have tried to free myself of constraints I felt, limits to the range of exploration I could make, to the kind of intuition I could credit. I realized gradually that my own religion, and religion in general, could and should disrupt these constraints, which amount to a…
The world’s oldest works of art have been found in a cave on Spain’s Costa del Sol, scientists believe. Six paintings of seals are at least 42,000 years old and are the only known artistic images created by Neanderthal man, experts claim. Professor Jose Luis Sanchidrian, from the University of Cordoba, described the discovery as…
A suite of artificial intelligence algorithms may become the ultimate chemistry set. Software can now quickly predict a property of molecules from their theoretical structure. Similar advances should allow chemists to design new molecules on computers instead of by lengthy trial-and-error. Our physical understanding of the macroscopic world is so good that everything from bridges…
Obsessive gamers’ hours at the computer have now topped scientists’ efforts to improve a model enzyme, in what researchers say is the first crowdsourced redesign of a protein. The online game Foldit allows players to fiddle at folding proteins on their home computers in search of the best-scoring (lowest-energy) configurations. Researchers have previously reported successes…
A study from the Netherlands finds allowing ideas to incubate in the back of the mind is, in a narrow sense, overrated. People who let their unconscious minds take a crack at a problem were no more adept at coming up with innovative solutions than those who consciously deliberated over the dilemma. But they did…
We face the field head-on to evaluate what the pundits are saying, what scientists are building, and how close we really are to the edge of the precipice.
Jaron Lanier coined the term virtual reality and now regrets it, he’s a computer genius and a philosophic genius and an experimental musician with a collection of instruments from around the world.
David Cope, the author of more than seventy published compositions and a professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz, invented a form of artificial intelligence that can emulate the great composers. It is called Experiments in Musical Intelligence.