Kamata: Let me refer to Tonari no Totoro to talk about adaptation to uncertainty. A four year old girl called May first meets Totoro, and then she meets him again when Totoro comes along while she is waiting for a bus with her elder sister Satsuki. They let their father know their impression of Totoro by bombarding the emotions 'scary, fantastic, scary, fantastic'. I think this is related to the first penguin which dives headlong into a risky situation, since some are genetically suited to adaptation to uncertainty while some are not. Some have the tendency to search for something new, and are interested in frightening and new things which makes their dopamine flow. Children have very ambivalent emotions such as 'scary, fantastic, scary, fantastic', and have not developed a dichotomy between what is scary and what is fantastic. Since children do not clearly distinguish the world into two, they are vague about what is risky. In total, I think they have a mixed world view in which everything is risky and everything is mythical. If we investigate such qualities, I think we will find an interesting character.

Mogi: Americans generally like to take risks. Therefore, researches such as behavioral economics are advanced. The Japanese generally do not like taking risks. If you go to a company and ask about 600 people, 'Are you enjoying the uncertainty you are faced with right now, or are you anxious?' 90 per cent would say that they feel anxious. I think it would be the opposite in America. Enjoying uncertainty is very much related to the root of an organization, and I think if the Japanese as a whole were predestined to do so, it would be a bit of a problem.

Funabiki: Rather than the fact that everything is remembered from pre-existing knowledge, I would like to focus on how individuality comes into play under conditions of uncertainty. This may be too much a common view, but for example Nobunaga took a lot of risks, enjoyed them and in the end was killed by taking risks. For him this was an enjoyable life. It was very difficult for Hideyoshi to take the first risk, and he feared risk very much until his last years. Ieyasu spent his entire life without taking risks. Each succeeded in his own way, and we find these three styles of success converging in the short span of twenty to thirty years. I think these three ways can be found anywhere in the world. From the point of view of historical context, these are fairly easy to think about. So I think it is a matter of who displays individuality on stage where history, race, culture and a particular coincidental factor all come together.

Kamata: The medieval period in Japan begins around the Hogen War (1156) and Heiji War (1159) and ends around the time of Nobunaga. It was a turbulent and uncertain period, and interesting from the point of view of religion and aesthetics. When the name of the era 'Heisei' was decided, I thought with my animal instincts that it would be a turbulent age like the medieval times, and indeed earthquakes, thunder, abnormal phenomena, man-made disasters, and violent abnormal crimes are occurring frequently. I feel that the situation of Heiji and that of Heisei are increasingly overlapping. These two are the only names of Japanese eras that begin with 'hei (peace)'. I really think that we should question the responsibility of the person who chose the name of the era (laughter). Nakamura Hajime, for instance, does not know about history. However, a turbulent period can put human nerve cells in enormous risk but at the same time activate them, so in the medieval times when uncertainty was very high, all kinds of artists and interesting religious paintings appeared. When we think about the creativity of these people, since human adaptability is tested in times of increasing uncertainty, I think this period was a very attractive one as first penguins, mentioned above, appeared one after another, and though some died in battle, some survived and reached a summit in art. In this sense, I think Heisei will be a very interesting era, in the same way as the turbulent period of the medieval times. In 1996, a photographer called Hoshino Michio died having been eaten by a brown bear. He was an ecologist and as he chased after the bear's mode of life, in a way he had a feeling that he would be eaten by a bear and die the more he went closer to it. He did not just avoid the danger of dying by being eaten, but thought about how far he should go and whether it was his destiny to go that far. I think human beings have such an aspect.

Kiyotani: I think that is correct. I have been going to South Africa for fifteen years, and on my first visit on the first night, I was caught by a group of three robbers and strangled. A policeman just happened to pass by and I was saved, but I still continue to go there. To put it in an exaggerated way, I feel a destined sense of fun. I go because it is fun to go where the Japanese do not go, where there are world class players in arms export―in actual fact, a part of nuclear weapons made in South Africa is exported to Iraq―and when I go there, there is a lot of risk. For instance, some unknown person knocks at the door at night, and I'm told not to carry a cell phone or passport. It's that kind of a world.

Aihara: An archive of memory liaises and leads to creativity. The brain develops to overcome uncertainty. Emotion is an adaptation to uncertainty, and creativity is a by-product of this process. I think that this is how you explained it, but do not the archives of memory and uncertainty have antithetical aspects in one sense? What is the process by which creativity is born when there is adaptation to uncertainty? What kind of creativity is this? Could you tell us more about this?

Mogi: There is an alarm center in the brain called ACC which sends out signals when it perceives an abnormality. Not much is yet known about this, but we know that ACC is activated when we feel pain or an accident occurs. At the same time, this seems to play a role in picking up ideas and inspirations the occurrence of which cannot be estimated. To put it simply, the system that deals with uncertainty and the system that deals with creativity are the same. When this sends a signal, it gives all kinds of top down orders and sorts things out so that the brain can use the sudden inspirations that come properly. I cannot express it very well, but it is known that a system that responds to uncertainty, which, for instance, is ready for a situation in which a lion may appear at any moment, is also used to deal with inspiration that suddenly comes, and functions as a common system. This process, however, has still not been very well analyzed.

Makino: If creativity is a result of editing of memory inside the brain, that is to say, an archive of the past, what does it mean to praise a wonderful piece of creative work? Does it mean that a particular editor added a wonderful editing to something that was vaguely inside the head and made it into a piece of work? When we create a piece of work, be it painting, form, language or music, we have what we call inspiration. Is inspiration a work of editing of past archives? If creativity is not an act of bringing about something from nothing but a result of editing of past archives, for what purpose is this editing performed? Is it because the brain needs to add form to something that is floating vaguely inside? From what you have said, I am not too sure, or I have not understood. A painter paints and then says that this is not what he/she is aiming at and again repaints. As he/she is doing so desperately, he/she comes across something that he/she is looking for, even though it may differ from the plan and idea he/she had before. This creative process, as I understand, is in fact a re-editing of past archives. However, the final decisive factor is not something absolute that is there from the beginning, but born from that age, the person's sensibility, mutual agreement with others and mutual influence, and it is like the pleasant feeling one gets in an instant when something stuck in one's throat is removed. This is what I thought when I was listening to your talk.

Mogi: I think that frustration does indeed exist. Just as one cannot remember something momentarily, there is frustration while creating something, and when a piece of work is created, one is released from it. I think these are probably very much related in terms of brain functions.

Kiyotani: Regarding the emergence of new creativity as remembering the archive of knowledge, I think there can also be creativity when there is a denial of existing knowledge and establishment of an antithesis. Nobunaga created the standing army of Owari as an antithesis to the knowledge that the Takeda army was powerful. Takeda soldier was powerful, and it was said that one Takeda soldier was equal to three Owari soldiers. However, since Takeda used peasants, they could only fight during the agricultural off season. As opposed to this, in the case of Owari, the soldiers were weak but there was money to employ a standing army that could fight all year round. As an antithesis to this kind of knowledge, Owari created a standing army and logistics and won in the end. In other words, I think opposition to or attempts to break down knowledge coming from the brain leads to creativity in one sense.

Mogi: I think you are right. Even if one went completely avant garde or denied the past, one would still be pulling something out from the archive, though the direction of this pulling would be different. It is natural that the ways of pulling out from the archive differ completely in each case.