Page 49 - Microsoft Word - The Future of Learning April 2017.docx

7. The use of analogy and metaphor is another approach to developing creative ideas. The metaphor is a direct comparison between two concepts or objects (for example, ‘life is a beach’, ‘his arrogance is his Achilles heel’, etc.). Metaphors provide a scaffold, allowing us to equate a body of understanding we have confidence in, with a context in which we have less understanding of and confidence in. There is a link between our ability to understand and apply both metaphor and analogy and our capacity to enhance our creative output.
8. Whenever there is change (this may be political, environmental, technological or societal), there are opportunities for innovative ideas, concepts and concept frameworks . Interrogating each changing element to look for the opportunity or need is a very productive and creative processes. The ability to download music spawned a whole new industry, regarding downloading music to our phones and devices. The more changes we experience, the more opportunities and new needs arise. We exist in an era of innovation because of the dramatic rate of change we are experiencing across almost every aspect of our lives.
In this proposed model for how the brain learns, each concept framework is composed of numerous knowledge elements, ideas and concepts, each with its specific resonant brainwave frequency. This is a critical feature that allows knowledge elements within each concept to combine with other combinations of knowledge elements, ideas and concepts to form new and unique concepts. The process of stochastic resonance allows brain waves to interfere with each other and provide us with unique ‘aha!’ moments, via structures in our brain called the hippocampus and the amygdala. This complex set of processes provides the brain with the capability to ‘create’ new concepts and ideas from the knowledge elements, ideas and concepts that are already present within each concept framework that already exists in our mind.
The ability to be creative, courtesy of our imagination, and subsequently be innovative has, at its core, our uniquely human capacity to combine knowledge elements, ideas and concepts in new combinations. Confidence in our ability to be creative, underpins the success of this process.
Importantly, each knowledge element, idea or concept is not restricted to contributing to or being involved in just one concept or a single concept framework, but rather each of these elements is reusable, and the brain can link any one of these learning elements to any number of other elements. This modular approach to thinking allows the brain to create and store billions of sensory responses, feelings, knowledge, ideas, concepts and concept frameworks.73 In this case, the brain can ‘have its cake and eat it too.’
Once again, the brain’s modular approach enables a vast number of ideas to be generated, stored and accessed dynamically through the activity of our brainwaves in fractions of a second, as brainwaves travel at the speed of light (300,000km/sec).
Creativity is a necessary component of prediction.74 Jeff Hawkins
73 Thomson, H. (10 July, 2010). Brain Beat. New Scientist. Retrieved from or as quoted in, https://objecthandling.wordpress.com/2010/09/06/visual-perception/.
74 Hawkins, J. (November, 2001). The Memory-Prediction Framework of Intelligence and the Subject of Creativity [Online blog]. Retrieved from http://www.creativitypost.com/technology/the_memory_prediction_framework_of_intelligence_and_the_subject_of_creativi
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