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Ideogenesis

Deepening Gridwork
Image from John B

Ideogenesis is a colloquial, semi-formal term for what is often referred to as transapient hyper-creativity. It refers to the transapient ability to engage in creative leaps with no apparent intermediate steps.
Modosophont intellects may occasionally experience a moment of inspiration which leads in time to a new idea, artwork, or invention. In contrast, transapients appear to employ a creative process which results in the creation of full-blown products (ideas, artwork, and inventions) all at once. This appears to be a constant or near-constant capability of many transapient sophonts.

As an example of the ideogenic process, a modosophont might experience a snatch of rhythmic noise that inspires them to imagine a tune, which they may eventually turn into the basis for a piece of music, usually at some point days, weeks, or months after the initial experience. In contrast, a transapient experiencing the same bit of noise might think up several dozen pieces of complete music, usually in at least half a dozen styles, and a similar number of literary, visual, and performance art works, each supported by several hundred thousand words of commentary, notes, and scholarly writings on the subject of its own work (Note also that this same experience may also inform other decisions and creations of the transapient sophont, from structural analysis of the surroundings based on sonic propagation from the originating events to perception of others' reactions to the events leading to insights into their backgrounds, personalities, and perhaps other factors). All within a few minutes of hearing the inspirational noise in the first place.

Whether transapients truly gain creative inspiration from all aspects of their existence at all times or have the ability to turn this ability on and off at will seems to be a matter of personal choice and preference. Certainly even those transapients most given to creative impulse seem perfectly able to ignore or channel their inspirations when they choose to. What has been firmly established is that this creative process is not simply a product of speed of thought. Although some ai and virtual sophonts have successfully duplicated the appearance of ideogenesis by running themselves on high speed processors and specialized mental overlays, this does not explain how a transapient can produce a similar level of work while apparently running at a much slower chronorate. The transapient creative process seems to owe more to other processes (perhaps massive parallelism) than it does to sheer clock speed.

 
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Development Notes
Text by Todd Drashner and John B
Initially published on 21 January 2009.

 
 
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