Kentaro Nagai moved the continents to form the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac. Worldmapper morphed them to represent the proportions of specific phenomena (education, child labor, pollution, export…) in different countries. The Google Maps craze continues: there are those who map UFOs and others who think they’ve found Atlantis (they haven’t). Visuwords connects words in a sort of neural network (write ‘creativity’, then click on the various balls and watch what happens). Essentially anything can be made into a map.
But Gregory Bateson warns that the map is not the terrain and the name is not the thing it names. This principle reminds us that when we think of coconuts or pigs, there are neither coconuts nor pigs in our brain.
There are only maps – or rather, relationships between concepts. If the concepts are correct and the relationships plausible, the brain functions well and can be creative. Otherwise, no. Obviously the number of possible mental maps is equal to the number of brains, of topics. In the Problemsolving section, NeU shows you how to construct your own.
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