This study also confirms the idea that “intrinsic motivation is important for sustained creative activity.”
Some other findings that may be of interest:
…our findings suggest that individuals who are high in reward sensitivity experience the sudden emergence of a solution into awareness as strongly rewarding whereas individuals who are low in reward sensitivity may still experience insight as sudden and attentionally salient but lacking in hedonic content.
As lifelong autodidact, I wonder if others with this marvelous “addiction” can relate to feeling almost not alive unless there is something to wonder about or figure out. I recently read a biography of Ludwig Wittgenstein. One standout was his strong tendency to seek out simple or humble environments that stimulated his mind.
…Individuals high in reward sensitivity are more likely to take drugs, develop substance-abuse disorders or eating disorders, and engage in risky behaviors such as gambling. The fact that some people find insight experiences to be highly pleasurable reinforces the notion that insight can be an intrinsic reward for problem solving and comprehension that makes use of the same reward circuitry in the brain that processes rewards from addictive drugs, sugary foods, or love.
Getting lost in the woods or on a motorcycle ride, for me, is a highly enjoyable feeling. There have to be slight tremors of fear and agitation followed by finding my way again. I suppose others may experience similar feelings in social settings or as live performers.
…These findings shed light on people’s motivations for engaging in challenging, often time-consuming, activities that potentially yield insights, such as solving puzzles or mysteries, creating inventions, or doing research. It also reinforces the notion that intrinsic motivation is important for sustained creative activity. The expectation of intrinsic rewards from comprehending and creating, rather than from an extrinsic source such as payment, is thought to be the most effective type of workplace motivation…
A society with universal basic income in which no one has to work unless they want to might bring about the greatest flourishing of human talent ever. Then again, maybe not. Inspiration does need a stick on the back sometimes and “joy has no children,” meaning happiness produces few inventions.
I hope Musk does well by the world’s people by truly allowing free speech on Twitter. If he means the above, he won’t. Freedom of speech without freedom of reach is not free speech, it is censorship. It’s a word game that conceals a vile intent. ABN
UPDATE TODAY: I first posted the above on November 30, 2022. Some of the actors have changed. Greenblatt has been substituted by Ramaswamy and, not surprisingly, Musk himself. Yet another example of the more things change the more they stay the same. This old truth reveals to us today how much our entire culture is populated with actors, directors we can sometimes see (Musk is playing both roles), and the producers who call all the shots and supply the money to keep the show going. Who are the producers? That is the big mystery of our world today. And in that, too, it has ever been thus. However, maybe today we can see a bit better than in the past that it’s all make-believe designed to pacify, control, entertain, exploit, and ultimately destroy us. ABN
…Let’s talk about Trump as a cultural phenomenon because I think of two things. The McDonald’s drive-through and the garbage truck, both things that broke into the pop culture conversation, even beyond our world. Could any other candidate do that?
Fabrizio: MMA fights. Joe Rogan. We think of them as very specific things, but the symbolism — It says something about him that she couldn’t capture.
Where she’s doing the big speech or having the big debate, the conventional warfare, traditional campaign tactics. Donald Trump goes to the McDonald’s drive-through. But in the year 2024, when we’re all living on our phones, a big speech at the Ellipse vs. Trump at the drive-through, which is going to break through?
LaCivita: Donald Trump is a man who has made a large part of his living in a visual medium: TV. He understands that politics is a visual medium. And so he looks at everything through the prism of that. And your average candidate for public office doesn’t look at the world that way.
He’s also a celebrity.
LaCivita: Defined outside the realm of politics. He has his own persona and definition outside of politics.
And because of that, some of the stuff he says …
LaCivita: He gets away with, he does.
He’s not graded as a politician. He’s graded as a celebrity.
Fabrizio: I know this is going to sound counterintuitive, but when he says stuff that makes people go — (grimaces) — it only reinforces that …
LaCivita: … He’s not a politician, exactly!
…Is there one big thing that you think we’re missing in this campaign that was enormously consequential or at least significant?
LaCivita: You guys have written about the impact of the assassination attempt. But I don’t think people give enough credit to the fact that the world has a visual. It’s an iconic visual. But I don’t think people have given enough credit to that visual.
Him holding up his fist.
LaCivita: And what that visual means. And what the visual conveys. Not only about him, but the country as a whole. Americans get knocked down, but they always fight back. And that visual is as quintessential America as the fucking flag is.
Fabrizio: I am always amazed, I’ve learned not to be amazed, but he has this ability in most cases to put his finger on something. And you say to yourself: “Where did he come up with that?” But he just does. Then you test it and, holy shit, he’s right.
UPDATE: The period this statue dates from and the area in which it was found was Gandhara, which was a major center of Buddhism. A great deal of Buddhism went to China from Gandhara. Chinese Buddhist nuns, to this day, take Sarvastivadan monastic vows which probably came from Gandhara. Buddhist statuary developed in this area under the strong influence of Greek statuary which became prevalent in that region due to the Greek presence brought by Alexander the Great. The earliest attested Buddhist teachings come to us from this area through Pyrrho, the Greek skeptic, who studied with Buddhist monks. Skepticism is clearly based on Buddhist core teachings. See Greek Buddha: Pyrrho’s Encounter with Early Buddhism in Central Asia for more on this topic. I highly recommend that book. ABN
American Buddhist Net 