The 2007 IdeaFestival™ in Louisville, Kentucky, ended yesterday and thanks to the IF blogging of Wayne Hall, you can read notes about the presentations of many of the fine (and extremely fascinating) thinkers who spoke. Below I have pulled excerpts from some of Hall's blog posts; click on the links to read the full posts. The informative blog post talk summaries include . . .
Ray Bradbury: Love Long and Prosper
He said he always wanted to be a playwright. Instead of going to school, he went to the library. To this day, his favorite place is in the center of a library, surrounded by the great writers in history.
From the age of 12 he's written everyday of his life, he says.
"Be your own person. Don't listen to anyone else. You must love what you do and do what you love." He says that he learned to "get rid of anyone who doubted me."
Also, from the Louisville Courier-Journal "Bradbury sends message of love". And you will be amazed when you look at how Ray Bradbury was able to appear in Louisville while still in Los Angeles—click on "View a short video clip . . ." here.
Jeffrey Schwartz on the Mind and Brain (Schwartz also here)
The relationship between the mind and brain, in the 21st perspective, is changing. A scientifically-informed opinion will show how, in fact, the mind does affect the brain.
. . .By reframing how you understand what is happening, coping mechanisms come into play. . . . Cognitive reframing has a big effect on the brain by lowering negative emotion. One can quite easily train people to reframe . . . .
. . ."The brain puts out the call, the mind decides whether to listen." The brain will respond in an animal-like way, but the human mind has the capacity to focus a very special kind of attention, one that can change or damp down damaging or fearful responses.
. . .This has been a fascinating talk that I'm certain my notes don't capture adequately.
He believes the string theory is particularly satisfying because it has a beginning, as mentioned in Genesis, as well as the timelessness of Buddhism.
Gravity holds you and me together. The electromagnetic force has led to the Internet and unimaginable communications options. He quickly runs through a number of home and portable devices that will intelligently keep us connected.
. . .
He describes the "strings" in the theory, which can instantaneously change and construct something new. All the particles he had to memorize are nothing but musical notes on a "rubber band."
"The Mind of God is cosmic music resonating through 11 dimensional hyperspace."
"The universe is expanding" it's true. "It's expanding into 11 dimensional hyperspace." And like a fish out of water, we spend all of our time in three dimensions.
James McLurkin: Dances with Robots (More about the McLurkin talk here.)
This is how honeybees share food. The may make an effective local decision based on global data.
McLurkin recounts how he became interested in robotics. Cardboard boxes are great for building stuff. Model railroading taught him precision crafting. LEGOs taught him mechanical engineering. Pac-man taught him computer science. A video game is a complex piece of coding. MS Word will never tax your machine, he says. BMX bicycles taught him real mechanical systems. As he got older radio control cars from the hobby store taught him more about mobility and how, he adds, to avoid heavy, ankle-damaging radio control cars.
He details his undergraduate and graduate work quickly and then proceeds to his second robotic demonstration, which he dubs the "Martian band." The group begins to slowly beeping and chiming, syncopated at first, and then later, in time.
The group then reforms to into like groups, much like a symphony. Together they play the Star Wars theme. And with that, he concludes.
Karen Walker's fashion rules (More about the Walker talk here.)
"The test of new work is whether it makes the creator nervous..." "It might be wrong, but it just may be right." She references words she heard from Bono on the moment of creative triumph. He described it as "when God walks into the room."
"Know your style" - For her it's "having the right amount of wrong."
"Know your customer" - It's "people like us." She explained that she will never do market research.
"Surround yourself with people with who will support you" - If she has to explain it for more than two minutes she'll drop the engagement.
"Building a brand is like building coral." It's a slow process, the eye can't see it, but one day you look up and you find it's beautiful.
Laurence Gonzales on "intelligent mistakes"
We create these mental models, or behavioral scripts that often get in the way of important information. Again, why do smart people do stupid things?
. . .Gonzales wants us to think of our world differently so those mental models don't intrude with catastrophic results. However thoughtful we may be our intellectual powers can fail us at the worst times. Describing some training he experienced with survival experts, he recounts how the trainer frustrated him by moving so slowly. But in reality the trainer was moving slowly simply to take into account the environment. He was just paying attention.
He concludes: learning doesn't just add something new, but changes everything that you knew before.
I wish I had been there! Shall I meet you there next year?
Note (added September 16, 2007, 4:15 PM Mountain): I see that lawyer blogger Diana Skaggs did a thorough job of blogging about Idea Festival Day 1, Idea Festival Day 2, and Idea Festival Day 3. I suggested to her that it would be fun to combine next year's IdeaFestival with a convening of the bloggers/blawgers. Many of us who are e-friends and blogosphriends would get to meet. Wouldn't that a few days to remember?
I see from Diana's blog that Ethan Zuckerman is also blogging about the IdeaFestival presentations.
Stephanie, The Idea Festival was fabulous. I hope you do come next year. Any entourage you bring will be warmly welcomed and not disappointed. Sorry not to see you this year. Diana
Posted by: Diana L. Skaggs | September 16, 2007 at 03:18 PM
Stephanie, please do come. I'm glad the notes were helpful!
Wayne
Posted by: Wayne | September 19, 2007 at 05:38 PM