December 04th, 2022

"Changing our minds I have argued that the human mind is not a static, compartmentalised system but a highly adaptable medium that is subject to environmental stimuli and its own economy of energy. Within this medium lie various paths, attractors, or ‘fields of potentiality’ that represent the probable routes a thought might take if it is to be activated. It was proposed that these routes are not fixed and finite but open to reconfiguration.  But while the medium remains adaptable it also maintains a great deal of constancy, since without either quality it would be virtually useless in dealing with the coincident volatility and stability of the environment. Accordingly, aesthetic experience can be understood as the innervating mental response to stimuli that induce both semantic or perceptual discontinuity and conceptual coherence, simultaneously. In a similar way, creative acts synthesise coherent ideas or objects from disparate probabilities. Furthermore, I have argued that any creative act is an act of transformation, and to some extent it does not matter that the transformation might occur in the cognitive medium of a human mind or in a piece of material. There are many instances when we try deliberately to transform the ‘layout’ or structure of our mind — we are learning, trying to think of a new idea, or trying to remember something — and in each case we are attempting to transform the links between ideas and memories, just as we modify the structure of substances around us. Whether we are trying to think up an excuse for missing work or attempting to comprehend the ultimate nature of the universe, we are doing essentially the same thing; that is, we are engaging in a purposeful attempt to modify the actual and potential structure of our mind. One could even conclude that in changing our minds we also physically change the world, insofar as our minds are part of the physical world." (Pepperell, R. (2003). The Posthuman condition: Consciousness beyond the brain. Intellect Books. p.116)