Ideas and Lost Socks

I think we have all run across the question about where ideas come from. Every so often, something just pops into your head on its own, a fully-formed idea. Since all matter comes from someplace, all matter (per Einstein) is derived from energy and energy like matter cannot really be destroyed but only transferred in form, it follows that concepts and intellectual constructs, formed from energy, are similarly eternal in existence, changing only in form and use. It’s not a big leap, therefore, to conclude that ideas have an essential existence apart from creation in our craniums.

But what else is interesting to me, is the question about where ideas go? We’ve all had ideas just about to finish forming in our head when –poof- they just disappear. This seems to happen the most often during exams and important conference meetings, but we’ve all had it happen; we sense the arrival of a great idea, when … it’s gone.

Whenever they finish that Grand Unified Theory, it won’t be done unless it explains where ideas come from and go to … and what really happens to all those lost socks?