Virus as “Cheap and Dirty Trick”

I must remember to include viral infection in my list of nature’s “cheap and dirty tricks” to reverse entropy in the brain,

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2526142/?tool=pubmed

Memory System Stress

The introduction of new information to the brain can be stressful if that new information raises the entropy of the brain past a certain threshold,

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-08-people-biased-creative-ideas.html

This study documents the various ways people react negatively to creative ideas.  Indeed, creative people have had a sense of this throughout history.  Nothing new, really.  This study attempts to quantify what we have already known.

We feel good when we collapse, compress or otherwise irreversibly jettison information in our brain.  The transformation of thought into word is a compression event, which makes us feel good (or at least relieved).  The “Eureka” or “ah-hah” moments are certainly exciting.  It feels good to sleep and let the day’s entropy slowly evaporate away.