Musings and Amusings

The Tao of Pooh suggests that ideas float around the universe and pop into the nearest head on a random basis – the latest findings in neuroscience validates this theory.

It appears that our brains operate on the edge of chaos. Most of the time our brains operate in an orderly fashion, according to the New Scientist article, “Disorderly Genius: How chaos drives the brain, but every now and then lurches into a blizzard of noise.” The technical term for systems on the edge of chaos is “self organised criticality”. A growing sand pile demonstrates this perfectly. Imagine sand pouring from a large container into a pile – it grows uniformly and predictably until it hits a critical point and collapses forming a new temporarily stable state.

The brain has much in common with this behaviour. Networks of brain cells alternate between periods of calm and periods of instability. It might seem a bit precarious to have a brain that plunges into periods of instability but the article suggests that this disorder is actually essential to the brains ability to transmit information and solve problems.

So the next time you feel confused, muddled and disordered you could simply be an avalanche away from your next best idea!