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This chapter focuses on developing an experimental technique for inducing flow and creating instances of effortless action in the laboratory. The effort to experimentally induce flow involves two conditions which are correlated with the flow state: The firstis the idea that the challenges of a given task are well within one’s capabilities; the other involves perceived goals and immediate feedback from the given task. The chapter explores these factors along with other contextual factors, including autonomy and distractions, to experimentally induce flow and demonstrate instances of effortless action in the laboratory. One of the most extensively used approaches for experimental induction of flow in the laboratory involves exploring difficulty levels of video games.

This chapter examines the relationships between effortless attention, reduced mental ability, and perfectionism. It examines the findings of earlier neuroscientific studies in this regard to understand neurocognitive mechanisms driving the autotelic experience or the flow state. This is required to understand the fact that two distinct information-processing systems operate in the brain, viz. the explicit system and the implicit system, where the flexibility-efficiency feature is applied to find a solution for the computational problem related to skilled motor performance. The chapter also describes the hypofrontality theory or the theory of reduced mental ability in the frontal cortex region and reveals that this deficiency results in the inability to differentiate between different emotions and control and the motor reflexes required for performing and controlling different tasks. Individuals suffering from this deficiency are unable to differentiate between awareness and action, with the added inability of sensing the significance of time.

This chapter introduces the concepts behind the flow of water in soil and the forces that retard water flow. Steady-state water flow in saturated soils is presented and saturated hydraulic conductivity is described. Poiseuille’s law is derived and the theory behind water transport in soil is developed. The theoretical basis of the capillary bundle concept and porosity is described. Equations are presented to derive saturated hydraulic conductivity from soil texture data. The unsaturated hydraulic conductivity is derived from knowledge of the soil water retention curve and numerical code is presented to allow the reader to experiment with the features, and limitations, of the different parametric models available.

This chapter describes the diffusion of gases in soil and introduces numerical solutions of transport equations. The reader learns how to transform a differential equation into a matrix system. The discretization procedure for numerical differential equations is studied and an algebraic method to solve the matrix system is then described to allow for a clear understanding of methods used throughout the rest of the book. Fundamental properties of gases and of the soil gas phase are provided. The numerical code is provided for a one-dimensional numerical solution of steady-state gas flow in a soil profile. The concept of boundary conditions and their importance for the solution of the equations are explained.

This chapter investigates how combat sport establishes itself as play, rather than violence, through its relationship to designated spaces. Opening with competing definitions of magic in martial arts versus in game theory, this section moves on to explore the importance of spaces of practice—boxing rings, cages, dojos, and academies—to martial arts and combat sport training. Spaces are transformed through practices that in turn rely on alterations of movement, time perception, and self-awareness. The chapter concludes with an exploration of edge play, acknowledging both that games often simulate situations that we would otherwise avoid and that the line between game and reality can, in the case of combat sport, be a thin one.

Richard Powers gives an exclusive interview about his creative process in novel-writing, drawn from the experience of writing twelve novels to date. Powers brings neuroscience and technology into his fiction writing for the twenty-first century. This is especially seen in his novel The Echo Maker, which shows how fiction can represent different aspects of human consciousness. Power’s artistic process is capsulated in a metaphor of “lock and key.” The “triggering stimulus” is the key to the endless possibility of insight. That trigger is less important than the techniques to keep the creative process unfolding—in the case of the novel, chapter by chapter, sentence by sentence, word to word. Along with the initial idea of inspiration, there is the repeated course of corrections along the way, which are “micro” inspirations. A flow state is needed that retains looseness in the progress of creativity. Thoughts and emotions are woven together, as Antonio Damasio has explained, in creativity, and this applies, says Powers, to creative writing. Memory is used in a creative way, reactivated, as shown in novels like Three Farmers, Plowing the Dark, and Galatea 2.2. This interview shows how the overlap between science and art can be demonstrated in the creative process.