Nothing is impossible to draw

This afternoon, I was sitting in a coffee shop, doodling, when suddenly, i felt this sentence very strongly:

nothing is impossible to draw

Later, while I was walking home, I became more and more interested in the idea and how it caused a lot of different things I am interested in to converge.

One of my main interests is the concept of impossibility - the idea of a limit to something. I think this is interesting as a way to understand infinity and endlessness, which to this day, I cant understand or visualize.

So I think about the notion of impossible things and why they are impossible. What laws make that thing impossible and what laws make those things laws.

Anyhow, in my profound lack of knowledge (seriously), I usually think that the physical laws of the universe, parts of which we understand as gravity, entropy, florescence, time, electrostatic attraction, radioactive decay etc, are what define and limit what can physically happen in the world.

I say this out of a profound profound ignorance, because

a) i dont know or understand all the laws humans already know and
b) i and even most humans donot understand how many different ways these laws can interact and influence each other and
c) there are probably a huge number of laws out there we dont know yet and
d) i dont know their relationships yet either).

Even with all that, the physical laws we do understand have such a wide parameter - such a wide set of limits - that when they interact with each other, a lot - perhaps everything we can can experience - occurs within them.

Still, there is a limit. Yes?

What this limit is, I, and maybe we as a species, don't know - but its trace is visible in the consistent structure and pattern of the world around us. To the extent that we experience the same phenomenon when the same thing happens, therein, somewhere (i wish i knew exactly where) lies the limit to the physical world.

On the other hand, what is the limit of an idea? What is the limit of what can be imagined? Isnt it nothing? Isn't anything possible to imagine? Or is there a limit to imagination - that is also defined by physical laws because our brains are physical objects?

Well, our ideas are not because of our brain cells. It is because of the connections - the relationships - the influence - between them.

Now, while the total number of possible connections between brain cells in a system is very much higher than the total number of brain cells in that system, if the overall number of brain cells is not infinite, then the total number of connections, however greater, cannot be infinite.

To put it another way, no two finite numbers can be multiplied together to give infinity. (Actually, the correct way to say this would be: no finite number of finite numbers can be multiplied together to give infinity).

So the question, and this is where it begins to relate to the topic of my post, is: are the total number of ideas possible in a nervous system greater than the total number of connections?

This is my guess: Yes.

I say: ideas in a brain > the possible connection between brain cells in a brain > the number of brain cells in a brain

I say this because I think ideas are not just generated by a brain but also by relation with the environment it is in - which is constantly changing.

So our brain is this system that has a huge number of possible connections, that keeps on coming across a different environment and therefore with new possible ideas.

I think ideas do not reside in the brain, but instead the brain simply contains processes that create ideas. ideas come from the brain. but they are not in the brain.

I guess, another question is, are the possible number of ideas, infinite?

I think I can disappear into this question too easily and I should stop. Especially since, here is where things get very interesting to me. Its what takes me back to the relationship between the physical laws and possibility and also to my original point:

if you can imagine something, you can draw it.

do you realize how incredible that is?

Is drawing a physical act? it is done with physical objects, on physical objects (and using a physical object like the brain)... yet it is not limited by physical laws.

drawing is done in the physical world but it is not a physical act.

it is the art of expressing an idea.

there is no image one cannot capture. you may not have the skill to capture that image, but you can develop the skill. i guess that is the key to this idea, you can develop it or it can be developed in someone else. the point is, it can be done.

nothing that can be pictured can not be made into a picture.

to me this idea goes to the very heart of the relation between the 'reality' and creativity - between 'life' and 'art'.