Creative capacity is intimately related to the ways in which the brain processes and stores language. Metaphors and their etymologies are footprints of the past, the DNA of our thoughts. Recent findings in neuroscience concerning the way in which the brain works linguistically have shown that people make use of a particular register determined by the supply of metaphors that they have accumulated throughout their lives to guide their imaginative pathways. The idea that concepts are physically rooted contrasts with the idea of rationalism, which holds the statement that concepts are bodiless abstractions, completely separate from the sensory motor system. This new way of regarding language, therefore, gives rise to a new conceptualization of the human body. By putting the findings of science and the artistic dimensions of metaphors together, we take a step toward encouraging poetic seeing and thinking in education.
creativity; language; body; metaphor; mind