Creativity
Thinking and intelligence
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Innovative three-year-olds expose the limits of AI chatbots
New experiments show that very young children are better at solving creative puzzles than ChatGPT and other AI models
by Shayla Love
Play
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All you need to know to start skipping stones like a pro
With the right attitude, stone skipping is a rebellious act that will leave you feeling like you have glitter in your veins
by Julie Benda
Creativity
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A life of splendid uselessness is a life well lived
Like the fertile soil of a well-kept garden, a life of splendid, utter uselessness yields abundance beyond our immediate aims
by Joseph M Keegin
Memoir
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Learn the art of journaling and archive your life
Journaling is an art and a daily practice that allows you to write your life and find your way, one sentence at a time
by Sarah Boon
Beauty and aesthetics
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Beauty is not an ornament to the good life, it is at its heart
Why does the hand want to draw what the eye sees as beautiful? Why do we respond to beauty by creating the beautiful?
by Nick Riggle
Music
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They’re playing our song! The philosophical puzzle of cover songs
Can a song be both the original and a copy? Patsy Cline, Willie Nelson, and the ‘crazy’ philosophical puzzle of song covers
by P D Magnus
Stories and literature
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Are successful authors creative geniuses or literary labourers?
Some writers are explorers, like Edgar Allan Poe. Others are exploiters, like Jules Verne. Which type is better off?
by Oleg Sobchuk
Artists and art history
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The art of Ice Age children offers a tactile sense of the past
Small hands in dark caves: Ice Age art reveals the role of artistic expression and child’s play in ancient societies
by Izzy Wisher
Poetry
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Emily Dickinson and the creative ‘solitude of space’
For the poet Emily Dickinson, sequester was a feminist act of independence: it gave her mental and literal space to write
by Magdalena Ostas
Creativity
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How a solitary prisoner decoded Chinese for the QWERTY keyboard
China’s personal computing revolution was born not in a suburban garage but a prison cell, and fine-tuned on a teacup
by Thomas S Mullaney
Neurodiversity
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When the mind is dark, making art is a thrilling way to see
For aphantasic artists with no mind’s eye, creating paintings is a way to experience the mental pictures they can’t see
by Adam Zeman
Altered states
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Only by taking leave of our senses can we plunge into reverie
By letting meaning loose, allowing it to graze, we can revel in reverie, free of the tether that commonsense keeps tight
by Rachel Genn