Better isn't always, um, better

I read a fascinating interview with Developmental Psychologist Gary Marcus, about his work on the mind as kluge. A kluge is a clumsy or inelegant solution to a problem - something cobbled together with the materials at hand (and frankly, that's how evolution works; it doesn't get to start from scratch. It can only select from available forms/mutations).

Anyway, one of Marcus's examples of the kluge-like nature of the mind is memory. Unlike a computer, which stores memory in logical and easily accessible places, our memories are stored all over the place. This makes memory recall wildly unreliable. "We pull things out of our memory using context, or clues, that hint at what we're looking for." When the interviewer suggested this form of memory may be key to creativity, Marcus replied that "a lot of what we think of as creative comes from the free association between our memories, and it's not clear that we would enjoy that if we didn't have the kind of memory that we have."

I find this concept absolutely fascinating. The associative, webbed, multivalent character of our memories could be said to underpin human creativity. So to extrapolate, it is thanks to the very inefficiency of our minds that we write - and enjoy - poetry.

There's a kind of poetry to that, isn't there? That we can be sublime in our imperfection.