Creating creative brains - Baroness Greenfield public lecture

The creative process encompasses factors that must be common to diverse activities, ranging from painting, music and literature, through to scientific insights. At the same time this all encompassing phenomenon must be distinguished from ‘ordinary’ thinking!

In this talk, we shall explore how neuroscience might help identify the basic creative process in the physical brain. We shall see that it is misleading to speak of a gene 'for' a complex mental trait, - least of all creativity. Instead we shall discuss examples of how nature and nurture are inextricably interconnected such that the environment, almost literally, leaves its mark on each individual brain. It is therefore at the level of brain cell connections that we need to look for the personalisation of the brain and the possibility of creativity, which could arise as a three step process involving the (1) deconstruction and (2) reconstruction of connections in a way that is (3) meaningful.

In the future a changing world with cyber, nano, and information technologies are set to modify brain connections as never before. We shall explore what these changes mean to concepts of identity and see how a creative mind-set could be the apotheosis of the individual in the 21st Century.

Baroness Greenfield is Director of the Royal Institution of Great Britain (the first woman to hold that position) and Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Oxford, where she leads a multi-disciplinary team investigating neurodegenerative disorders. In addition she is Director of the Oxford Centre for the Science of the Mind, exploring the physical basis of consciousness.

This event is part of the Creating Value: Between Commerce and Commons international conference presented by CCI.
This conference features papers from academic, business, creative or public policy specialists on many aspects of value-creation in the context of creative industries and innovation. For more information about the conference go to: http://www.cci.edu.au/events/creating-value-between-commerce-and-commons