The Cognitive Disinhibition of The Beatles
A Lesson in Creativity
Human creativity is one of science’s enigmas. On top of its mysterious origin, it is also distributed unevenly among the population. Most individuals go through their lives without a notable creative contribution to society; whereas a minority of outliers come up with revolutionary ideas, inventions and works of art. But even those outliers are not creative all the time. They have “miracle years”, “golden decades” and “creative climaxes”. Some create their magnum opuses in their twenties, some in their thirties and some even in their sixties.
In the past century, four such individuals rose to international superstardom and became the greatest band in the world. Their entire output happened in less than 10 years, yet it changed the world forever. Despite their creative genius, the Fab Four weren’t equally creative all the time. I would argue their art grew along with their cognitive disinhibition.
Cognitive Disinhibition
Between our ears sits an information processing machine. Despite its unprecedented power in the animal kingdom, the human brain processes a tiny fraction of all the data rushing towards it from the senses. Filters within the brain select the most important information for our survival and broadcast it into our conscious…
