When i was in my 20's, i did a little art, painting, on my days off. My jobs were technical, mostly programming, and they required between a fair effort to near complete mental obsession. I learned early on that between quitting time in the technical job to being able to paint required at least 48 hours of down time. I.e., until two days had passed, i was creatively blocked. It was a fact, but why?
Having just finished The Age of Insight, by Eric R. Kandel, i now have something of an answer. In the chapters 'Brain Circuits for Creativity', and 'Talent Creativity and Brain Development', research does conclude that the left and right sides of the brain usually have basically different functions: left side more concerned with logic, deriving solutions from a limited set of options; right side open to a much wider range of problem solutions. Both sides contribute to problem solving where "inhibitory and excitatory mechanisms interact in complex harmony." Importantly, the left side appears to inhibit the right side to some degree (possibly vice versa).
It is noted that injury to the left brain can result in enhanced function of the right brain, sometimes an increase in creativity in the arts. "After an injury [...] one side of the brain may result in the enhancement of specific functions on the other side of the brain." (p478).
The pressures of programming, project deadlines, predictable outcomes, rely on solving problems by putting together combinations of previously exercised patterns. Only occasionally do you need really creative solutions. This suggests pretty strongly to me that, since work demanded dominance of the left side strengths, it exercised inhibitory control a lot of the time. The 'complex harmony' took about 48 hours to reassert some creativity into mental life.
(Thanks, Chris, for coming up with this book. The author is a bit wordy, but it's a readable book that attempts to link art and neuroscience in meaningful ways.)
Bob,
ReplyDeleteHope this doesn't mean you are planning to injure the left side of your brain so that you can be more creative. Maybe there is alcohol that only affects the left side?
Chris
Maggie and I looked at the hive's at Dave's on Monday, 5/6.
ReplyDeleteConclusion: both hives looked healthy and probably will support splits before May 30. Same report for your hive.
Report for both hives is same. Bees were active and bringing in pollen. There were certainly more bees on this visit than there were three weeks ago. Should have counted the landings per minute for this note, but did not. This count might be a useful yardstick in predicting when to split.
Swept the bottom boards with a stick. Only one dead bee found in each hive.
Took off the tops. Took out the spent sugar bottles and removed the supers that contained them. Turned the inner covers over so deep side is down for summer.
There were lots of bees in the top honey supers. Estimated 40% of the total possible bees on the five central supers. The other four frames contained enough bees to cover a half frame solidly. Saw some larvae and capped brood in the honey super on the two frames at the center. It seemed that the queen had used open cells in these frames which were only partially filled with capped honey when added to the super. If we do this kind of insert again, we should probably use queen excluders. The hive on the left facing north has two deeps at the bottom. The hive on the right has two supers at the bottom, but both top supers had brood in them.
There appeared to be plenty of pollen around the brood. Plus there was some new honey and newly uncapped honey on the super frames.
Removed both the homemade and commercial pollen patties from the hive. None was used, but the hives seemed to have plenty of pollen leaving sporadic ants inside.
On the spare hive, ants had chewed through the mesh and entered the hive. We sealed the entrance with a board and taped the joints.
We need to replace the foundations at Dave's. Hives appeared stable for now, but ...
Also, we looked at your bees. We just took a quick look at bee activity. Bees seemed about as active as at Dave's, possibly a little more so.
The ants had not gotten into your spare hive.