Matthew Lovett

ID# 20566522

Lines of Inquiry Reflections

 Where do you think good and bad ideas come from?

I think it entirely depends on the mental state of a person, combined with other outside factors.
Personally, I have experienced my best ideas in times of stress and frustration or, like in the talk by
Steve Johnson, they “fade into vision” gradually. Good Ideas, specifically, I believe come when you lest
expect, its something that can’t be forced but it rather presents itself to you slowly and not in one
moment. Mentally you must be open to whatever comes to you, I remember when I was coming up
with an idea for a story I was writing. I had the basic concept but that by itself wasn’t interesting and
I remember stressing out about how I couldn’t add on to it. But with every day, when I wasn’t focused
on my story, I would watch a video or read an article or walk around my neighborhood and I would
get inspiration from whatever I had just experienced. So good ideas basically come from the least
likely of places and you have to flesh out that idea gradually for it to be considered “good”. One should
also be open to possibilities on how you can improve your idea. But that’s not to say you can’t have a
“spur of the moment” idea, I found myself in that situation many times when I worked on school
projects. I would always have a deadline in the back of my mind when working on school work and
the stress and pressure resulted in me thinking more methodically and producing great ideas on the
spot that benefited me but I think that depends greatly on the type of person. Which is more evident
when you realize how bad ideas are formed. Bad Ideas are made when a person doesn’t improve on
their first concept or “draft” if you will. It comes from a mentality of cockiness, when you believe since
you’ve had always these previous ideas before hand that were successful that you can’t possibly fail.
So, it’s that lack of effort and improvement that’s a major factor it is determining the outcome of an
idea, when theirs no pressure or stress and no real drive to improve upon. Change is can be either
good or bad, and the same goes for ideas, but what distinguishes the good from the bad is the
willingness to accept, adapt and improve

 What would you say is the connection between questions and ideas?
I’d say a lot of ideas start as questions, rhetorical and philosophical questions specifically. I’ll use the
example of Darwin and his theory of evolution and natural selection; he must’ve asked himself how
certain species of animals developed traits differently from other groups of the same species
depending on their location. Then he could’ve wondered if that idea could explain how certain traits
of humans developed over time. If the myth is to be believed, when that apple fell upon Sir Isaac
Newton’s head he must’ve thought, is it possible that there’s a force which allows all objects to fall
and remain on earth? What’s stopping this apple from just floating up into the sky and towards the
heavens? So, a question can lead to an idea, but it could always be the other way around. An idea can
spark more questions revolving around that idea. For example, in Steve Johnson’s demonstration, he
spoke of when Sputnik laughed in 1957, U.S. researches thought to themselves, “this satellite could
possibly broadcasting a signal, we could be able to hear it if we tuned in”. Once they did, another
researcher suggested, “could we calculate the speed of how fast Sputnik is orbiting Earth by how
frequent it’s signal is transmitting?”. These ideas and questions eventually lead to the creation of GPS
which we use a lot in our daily lives. So the relationship between questions and ideas is very essential
because those questions allow us to build off of ideas and create new ones and then those ideas lead
to more questions and it’s this constant cycle of call-and-respond that has allowed us to advance as a
species and thrive.
 Matthew Lovett
ID# 20566522

 Describe the last time you were really curious about something? What motivated
that curiosity? What did you do about it?
Recently, I’ve been interested in VHS tapes and VHS as a video format. It started because my dad has
this shelf full of VHS tapes he recorded off the TV, and he wrote the titles of the movies on the side. A
bunch of them I was curious about just based on the title, and I really wanted to find out the contents
of that particular tape to view that particular movie/show. And we had a VCR which was just
collecting dust, and I wondered, “could I get it working again.” So that lead me down this path to do
whatever possible to get it working, and I acquired this knowledge I never thought I’d know.
Eventually, I did get it to work again and at that moment I realized I really am interested about this
subject and I want to learn more. I delved deeper about the subject of VHS and how the work and the
history behind it. Which eventually lead to me collecting various VHS tapes and dissecting them, and
I began to view it as an artform almost. I recorded my own films on VHS, made my own designs for
the containers to hold them and I even spray painted the shell of the VHS tape so it would be more
unique. All because I was curious about what was my dad’s old VHS tapes and I honestly would’ve
never thought I’d be so interested in an old media format as much as I am today.