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It is ironic but true: the one reality science cannot reduce is the only reality we will ever know. This is why we need art. By expressing our actual experience, the artist reminds us that our science is incomplete, that no map of matter will ever explain the immateriality of our consciousness.

Jonah Lehrer

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Jonah Lehrer
Age: 43
Born: 1981
Born: June 25
Author
Journalist
Scientist
LA
California
Ever
Consciousness
Incomplete
Matter
Experience
Reminds
Need
Science
Expressing
Needs
Artist
Ironic
Art
Reduce
True
Maps
Reality
Actual
Cannot
Explain

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...new ideas are merely several old thoughts that occur at the exact same time.
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The vocational approach at NOCCA (New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts) helps build grit in students. It teaches them how to be single-minded in pursuit of a goal, to sacrifice for the sake of a passion. The teachers demand hard work from their kids because they know, from personal experience, that creative success requires nothing less.
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Creativity is not a trait that we inherit in our genes or a blessing bestowed by the angels. It's a skill.
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People assume that they perceive reality as it is, that our senses accurately record the outside world. Yet the science suggests that, in important ways, people experience reality not as it is, but as they expect it to be.
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Harlow would later write, If monkeys have taught us anything, it's that you've got to learn how to love before you learn how to live.
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What you discover when you look at creativity from the perspective of the brain is that it is universal. We're all creative all of the time, we can't help but be creative.
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A lie told well is just as good as the truth.
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If you're trying to be more creative, one of the most important things you can do is increase the volume and diversity of the information to which you are exposed.
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It's a hard thing to describe. It's just this sense that you got something to say.
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The imagination is unleashed by constraints. You break out of the box by stepping into shackles.
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And so we keep on thinking, because the next thought might be the answer.
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Creativity is a catchall term for a variety of distinct thought processes.
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Knowledge can be a subtle curse. When we learn about the world, we also learn all the reasons why the world cannot be changed. We get used to our failures and imperfections. We become numb to the possibilities of something new
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While human nature largely determines how we hear the notes, it is nurture that lets us hear the music.
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I want to give people theories, I want to expose them to scientific stories that force them to re-evaluate the way they use these three pounds of meat inside their head.
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The one reality science cannot reduce is the only reality we will ever know.
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The answer will only arrive after we stop looking for it.
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In fact, the only way to remain creative over time--to not be undone by our expertise--is to experiment with ignorance, to stare at things we don't fully understand.
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Children can't help but create: they need to put their mind on the page, they want to paint, to sculpt, to write short stories.
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Like a work of art, we exceed our materials. Science needs art to frame the mystery, but art needs science so that not everything is a mystery. Neither truth alone is our solution, for our reality exists in plural
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