Jonah Lehrer on the Picasso quote “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up”: “From the perspective of the brain, Picasso is on to something, as the frontal lobes (and the DPLFC in particular) are the last brain areas to fully develop. And so the super-ego settles in, and we become too self-conscious to create. Obviously, we need the frontal lobes to function – just look at the tragic life of SB – but every talent comes with a tradeoff. When we repress our urge to confabulate we also repress the urge to create. To quote Picasso once again: ‘Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.’ But it’s still a lie.” Related: Ken Robinson’s TED talk on how education is restraining the creativity of children.
“For Popper, all discovery is really just criticism. Although we think of scientific truth as being somehow more stable than literary or cultural truth – literary fashions come and go, but gravity remains – the opposite is actually true. Scientific truth is true precisely because it is open to change, willing to reverse itself and admit its errors. Les Demoiselles d’Avignon will always be a magnificent painting, but a scientific idea that is no longer true…well, what good is that?” – The Frontal Cortex
Picasso graffiti in Williamsburg. And impressive 3-D looking wheatpaste poster in Berlin.
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