Philosophy Discussion Forums

What is creativity and, where does it come from? It appears to be connected to the brain and the senses, and probably the balance between the right and left hemispheres. However, it is something that involves images and ideas which come from the subconscious, and possibly the collective unconscious.


It does occur in a cultural context, in communication between minds. It does appear that it is intersubjective. Aesthetics is bound up with the creative imagination of the cultures in which we live. We are influenced by the values and aesthetics of the various art forms. Music, art and literature tastes are influenced by the education we receive. For example, I believe that our own music tastes are probably based on what we listen to in childhood and the associations we form. I know that certain pieces of music bring back very strong memories of specific experiences. But, I am interested in the relationship between subjectivity and intersubjectiviy in the arts. We are likely to be influenced by movements, including romanticism and postmodernism, and the different genres in specific arts.


I am writing this thread with a view to reflection on the creative processes. Of course, creativity is not the exclusive domain of the arts. However, I am writing this with a view to discussion in the arts. Personally, creative expression in the arts is one which I value as one of central importance. I am interested in discussing imagination and aesthetics for fuller appreciation and development of creative imagination.

I am just adding one other area for discussion, which is the therapeutic value of the arts. This may be bound up with the exploration of the arts as a form of transformation. However, it still often involves the communication of thoughts and feelings with others, although it is possible for it to be a private means of creative expression. So, I am asking about how members of the forum see creativity and the therapeutic value of the various expressive arts.

JackDaydream wrote: ↑September 6th, 2021, 8:41 am creative expression

Without access to the neurological bottom storey, it’s hard to say at our second story level how creativity works; so, then, perhaps the following poem is somewhat word salad:

Creative Unification

(This is my loose idea of how creativity binds from
A unity of the heart, soul, senses, and mind):

The wonders of life bring awe at the heart’s peak,
And cause it to take flight, so to speak,
As all the while the ‘soul’ whispers unimaged things
To the mind through its own language-sings,

Which state is still near unimaginableness,
But is ever in the subconscious; but then, all this,
Streams dually into the inner sense
And into the intellect, bobbing—as a buoy,

Pointing one into a venture quite beyond joy,
As that’s when the heightened imagination
Enlightens the idea’s implementation.

@PoeticUniverse

Many thanks for your reply because I know that you choose to express your ideas in art, video animation and poetry on a regular basis and appreciate the creative processes.

The neuroscientists have a lot to say and it does seem that the 'unity of the heart, soul, senses and mind' referred to in your poem 'Creative Unification' play such an important role. However, the actual process of tapping into the creative source is hard to explain. It does seem that some people are more able to access it more than others. On the other hand, I think that the process can be mystified, which is not particularly helpful. I believe that some people are fearful of experimenting in creative pursuits.


In childhood people are so keen to experiment in painting and drawing, but I have found when I was facilitating some art groups in mental health care that so many people would not consider taking part.. Of course, we all come with interests and I have to admit that I am reluctant to take part in activities. But, I do think that a lot of people shut out the arts in many ways, except for entertainment purposes. Apart from the therapeutic level, I do believe that artist appreciation and imagination are ways of connecting with the numinous.


I do believe that Jung's ideas about the collective unconscious and archetypes are useful, and I do feel that such an understanding is not accepted much within philosophy, because it is seen as outdated. I also believe that the ideas of the mythical dimensions as described by Joseph Campbell and Mircea Eliade are also helpful, and that creative individuals probably step into other dimensions, as shamanic voyagers. Perhaps, it is about access to other dimensions, such as the fourth and fifth dimensions, or the multiverse.


However, I do believe that the sensory aspect of creativity cannot be overlooked and I also believe that techniques from mindfulness meditation can be helpful for sharpening this aspect of experience.

JackDaydream wrote: ↑September 6th, 2021, 8:41 am What is creativity and, where does it come from? It appears to be connected to the brain and the senses, and probably the balance between the right and left hemispheres. However, it is something that involves images and ideas which come from the subconscious, and possibly the collective unconscious.


It does occur in a cultural context, in communication between minds. It does appear that it is intersubjective. Aesthetics is bound up with the creative imagination of the cultures in which we live. We are influenced by the values and aesthetics of the various art forms. Music, art and literature tastes are influenced by the education we receive. For example, I believe that our own music tastes are probably based on what we listen to in childhood and the associations we form. I know that certain pieces of music bring back very strong memories of specific experiences. But, I am interested in the relationship between subjectivity and intersubjectiviy in the arts. We are likely to be influenced by movements, including romanticism and postmodernism, and the different genres in specific arts.


I am writing this thread with a view to reflection on the creative processes. Of course, creativity is not the exclusive domain of the arts. However, I am writing this with a view to discussion in the arts. Personally, creative expression in the arts is one which I value as one of central importance. I am interested in discussing imagination and aesthetics for fuller appreciation and development of creative imagination.

Creativity is drawing connections that no one has thought of before. Thus it helps to be familiar with seemingly unrelated subjects. If you are a pilot, a chemist and work in advertising, you could come up with skywriting.

@LuckyR

I think that is a good point, because making connections that have not been discovered before is involved in the generation of new ideas, vision and perspective. Each person has a unique way of seeing, and translating it into expressed forms, ranging from music, art and this extends to the thinking and writing of philosophy. We could say that philosophy is an art.

I have long been interested in creativity. It is commonly linked, these days, with the dual concepts of convergent and divergent thinking. An interweb search for "convergent divergent thinking creativity" offers some worthwhile hits. Here are a few:

Idea Generation: Divergent vs. Convergent Thinking
How Convergent and Divergent Thinking Foster Creativity
The Creativity Crisis
Creativity and Divergent Thinking

And there is also a concept I recently discovered, called "forward flow". I tracked down the PDFs I have archived in my Evernote store. Here are links to them too:

Naming unrelated words predicts creativity
“Forward Flow”: A New Measure to Quantify Free Thought and Predict Creativity. For some reason, this site's URL tags don't like the web address, but if you paste this - http://www.mpmlab.org/AmPsy--Forward%20Flow.pdf - into your browser, you should get to it.

All of these links are a good start, but they're what other people think. What I think is that creativity is something I have, to a degree, and it makes me proud to say so. I used this creativity to pursue a successful career in software design for nearly 40 years. I can imagine and invent solutions to (design) problems, and turn them into something a team can implement. This is (creativity + engineering), and the process requires both for success.

But, although I proudly call myself "creative", the stuff that Tracey Emin does is quite beyond me, although it is usually called "creative" too. Clearly, there are different types of creativity.

Oh, and a personal moan to finish with: if we search the interweb for "creativity", most (nearly all) of the links we discover concern creativity in the workplace. Why do these people think that creativity belongs (only) in the workplace, and not everywhere?

@Pattern-chaser

Thanks for your reply and your links, which I will look up. I am glad that you are interested in creativity. I would say that I strive to be creative, mainly in art and writing. However, I do struggle with it and often the biggest problems are connected to the most mundane, such as finding a space to do it. I live with many people and often go out to coffee shops to find space to write in peace. But, often I wonder if I am making excuses for myself. I also find that sometimes creativity flows much more freely than at other times.I do agree that there are many different forms of creativity too. Problem solving is definitely a major part of creativity.


I do think that a lot of books focus on creativity at work. It is good that you worked for 40 years in a job where you felt able to be creative. What I find is that most work that is creative is unpaid. I do have a few friends who have tried to earn a living through art and writing but they struggle. I did get a chance to run art groups as part of my work in mental health care in a few jobs which I have done.


One writer who I have found very good is Julia Cameron, who wrote, 'The Artist's Way', and a number of other books on the creative process. One aspect of her writing guidance is the idea of 'morning pages', which is writing 3 pages of thoughts first thing each morning. I did that for about 6 months and I definitely believe that it helped my focus and flow of thoughts. I definitely feel that writing on paper rather than just typing is helpful at times and it almost seems to unlock ideas and images from a different place of mind.

Unlike you, I don't believe that Jung's ideas about the collective unconscious and archetypes are useful at all. It's good old mysticism. Such idealizations don't come into play in the creative process.

I think creativity is, at its base, a general cognitive ability for solving problems, the common everyday problems a sentient being is faced with all the time, mostly related to the transformation of the agent's environment to achieve some practical purpose or goal. The key aspect of this is the openness to experiment with the possibilities and come up with new solutions. Artistic creativity comes along the way as a byproduct. Surely, nature on its own, by means of evolutionary pressures, without the intervention of consciousness and teleological processes, seems to solve a lot of problems in the relation between organisms and their environments. But most solutions come pre-wired, so the spider does not need to learn how to make a web, nor the ant what to do in a colony. As one goes up in the hierarchy of complexity of living beings, the creative, innovative part takes precedence over the pre-wired solutions, allowing the emergence of culture, although one might expect that the innateness involved in the actions of agents never dissolves.

I think, in humans at least, there's often a strong connection between creativity and humour. Humour often relies on the creation of unexpected yet logically self-consistent connections between concepts that haven't been connected in that way previously.

@Count Lucanor

It is difficult to know about the idea of the collective unconscious with certainty, because it is a theory. It is not easy to verify, but the recurrence of symbolic aspects of life does suggest some kind of source of imagination, especially dream imagery. I am not sure that creativity can be seen as a mere 'byproduct' of biological wiring because it is bound up with the entire development of culture. I believe that creative imagination is as central to the specific nature of what it means to be human, alongside rationally. Also, creativity has been essential to both the development of religion and science. As far as wiring is concerned, it appears to me that creativity is the invisible factor emerging from the cognitive structure of consciousness.

Jack

What is creativity and, where does it come from? It appears to be connected to the brain and the senses, and probably the balance between the right and left hemispheres. However, it is something that involves images and ideas which come from the subconscious, and possibly the collective unconscious.


It does occur in a cultural context, in communication between minds. It does appear that it is intersubjective. Aesthetics is bound up with the creative imagination of the cultures in which we live. We are influenced by the values and aesthetics of the various art forms. Music, art and literature tastes are influenced by the education we receive. For example, I believe that our own music tastes are probably based on what we listen to in childhood and the associations we form. I know that certain pieces of music bring back very strong memories of specific experiences. But, I am interested in the relationship between subjectivity and intersubjectiviy in the arts. We are likely to be influenced by movements, including romanticism and postmodernism, and the different genres in specific arts.

I am lousy as a visual artist. However one of my ancestors had few if any peers in his ability to depict the elemental forces which together produce water making it appear "wet" to the viewer. When once asked what the secret is that explains his ability he said that the artist can't copy or imagine the movements of wind or lightning but must remember them. It is the ability to remember the deeper reality and not imagine responsible for his art.

@Steve3007

I definitely believe that sense of humour is one way of opening up creativity. I think that by becoming too concrete and serious it is possible to narrow one's vision. I also think that humour helps in philosophy otherwise it can be become rather dreary at times.

The other aspect related to your point is the whole concepts of comedy and tragedy, which are both visions which can emerge from the focus of the thinker. There is also my own preference, which is for seeing life dramas as tragicomedy.

Nick_A

I think that what you say about copying is interesting because that can be taught much more easily than art or art forms which come from imagination directly. At school, I was taught to do still life and life drawing, although the subjective does come into play, because each person's representation is different or rendered uniquely.Of course, the ability to create a 'wet' effect is related to copying but it goes beyond and can also be the starting point of style. I am sure that aspects of style development also come into play in other ars, like music.

However, in creating art which is not from memory or copying, it is harder. I have experimented in drawing from the imagination and it is so difficult drawing figures without seeing them. It involves relying on the memory of the mind's eye. I would love to draw dream experiences, but capturing the details on the basis of memory is hard. However, some have managed it so well. William Blake drew the devils and angels from his mind, although I believe that some art critics are not impressed by his figures. But, some of the most original artists have managed to draw and paint such unique and original visions, and I am thinking of Salvador Dali. Also, some have included a form of copying but captured it in such an unusual way which makes it so original, like Van Gogh.

JackDaydream wrote: ↑September 7th, 2021, 12:11 pm
It is difficult to know about the idea of the collective unconscious with certainty, because it is a theory. It is not easy to verify, but the recurrence of symbolic aspects of life does suggest some kind of source of imagination, especially dream imagery.

What makes it even more problematic is that not only it is a theory, but it is not a scientific theory. The symbolic aspects of life are explainable with better down-to-earth disciplines that don't rely on philosophical speculation about eternal essences.

JackDaydream wrote: ↑September 7th, 2021, 12:11 pm I am not sure that creativity can be seen as a mere 'byproduct' of biological wiring because it is bound up with the entire development of culture. I believe that creative imagination is as central to the specific nature of what it means to be human, alongside rationally. Also, creativity has been essential to both the development of religion and science. As far as wiring is concerned, it appears to me that creativity is the invisible factor emerging from the cognitive structure of consciousness.

I hope you are not referring to my post, because that's not even close to what I said. I never implied creativity in general as a mere byproduct (which would mean it is not linked to a primary function), but actually a natural development of our beings as complex biological organisms. Necessarily, it must be dependent of our cognitive abilities, which are innate and shaped by evolutionary processes. Our cognitive apparatus is naturally built, however, to accomodate to the flow of experience thanks to brain plasticity, which allows the accumulation of impressions that comprise our learning. So, in the end, the imagination faculties involved in creativity are conditioned by our innate biological structures, but they can only be applied and developed in social life. What I said was that creativity emerged as a faculty in our basic dealings with the material practical affairs of daily life (problem-solving) and then it could evolve and develop towards more complex and secondary symbolic functions.