The creative act is instinctual (for want of a better word), but in my opinion it runs deeper than survival, — Possibility

What would run deeper than survival?

For those of us who are creative, — Possibility

Your hubris is showing here. By this you seems to be saying that myself and others, as opposed to ‘us’, you, are not creative, otherwise we would understand your point

First of all you have no idea who I am, and secondly someone is only creative according to your terms, otherwise you would not exclude me from being creative.

Personally, I don’t see creativity as restricted to the arts at all. It’s a large part of theoretical physics, for instance - but they don’t call it creativity. The work of theoretical physicists is valued not for the actual product, but for the demands of the creative process - as much for their failures and ‘nearly there’ moments as their potential for success. — Possibility

To say that the work of a theoretical theorist is not valued for the actual product, i.e. a result, is ridiculous. Neither he nor his employer would believe that.

↪Brett Using evolution theory to describe things like creativity poses a deficiency problem for me. That is by what do we measure it? To say something exists for this or that reason is as much as to say how something exists and doesnt really tell us much about it besides the conditions that it is currently under. How does something come to be an effect of natural selection? There must be some agency, because it’s not impossible it could have been some other way.

I can’t say the explanation that it is that skill whereby animals came to use their brains to find new ways to survive is not incorrect but doesnt encompass it totally, this includes virtually any behaviour that favours selection. Then craftiness, betrayal, even murder are all creativity. What isn’t creativity then? — kudos

I’m not using evolution theory to describe creativity. I’m suggesting it’s an evolutionary mechanism.

“How does something come to be an effect of natural selection?” By the process of natural selection.

“ ... this includes virtually any behaviour that favours selection”. Behaviour doesn’t favour selection, selection favours behaviour. This maybe an error in your sentence or it may mean a misunderstanding of evolution. If it’s a misunderstanding then, naturally, you won’t understand what I’m getting at.

It would be nice if it was only the fools money, but non-believing tax payers have to make up the billion dollar short fall that religious tax exemptions create.

Believer or not, you are paying for lying clergy to continue lying. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

I don’t see what this has to do with individuals believing in something other than the material world.

:up:

This is the creative process, and it cannot be an instinct for survival because it often runs counter to survival. It’s hard to be truly creative when we’re focused on survival or productivity. — Possibility

Focusing on survival or productivity is being creative, it’s not counter to it. You seem to be intent in seeing survival and productivity as some evil aspect of capitalism and not basic to human nature.

A child playing with blocks is still being creative - — Possibility

A child playing with blocks is developing creativity.

So by this you are saying that small time YouTubers are in a sense setting out in the lottery of being discovered among 1.8 billion users, in order to turn this into a survival mechanism. Or it has some survival purpose beyond social use, such as helping them think more creatively when picking up women, and increase their chances of sexual selection. What would be some examples of the survival purpose of this? — kudos

There’s no survival purpose in this at all. I fact there’s no reason for doing it at all.

These forms are now causing some friction against the traditional creative structures. By working against monetization, I mean that the majority of the individuals participating, at the same time as competing with industry pros, they are also setting out with not even the slightest intention of making money, or appealing to others for their appetites, but rather has greater emphasis on the appetites of the creator, and the pleasure it brings them to take on a social identity, feel wanted, etc. — kudos

“Some friction”. What is that, how effective, what change is evident? You’re either competing against industry pros in their territory or you’re just playing at competing. What are they actually achieving, serving their own appetites? You’re placing them in the same area as ‘artists’ and talking about ideas of feeling wanted, etc.

If I read you right then the answer to your question: “ ... what constitutes the creative animal, as it were, of todays modern age”, is nothing.

Value is a personal thing. Something widely accepted as valuable is merely valued by a large number of persons. How can a wholly-subjective thing like value go beyond the personal? Are you touting objective value here? :chin: — Pattern-chaser

You’re correct there. I’ve been holding on to the term ‘value-use’ kudos used in the op. What I mean is a tangible benefit that enables a group, tribe, culture to move successfully forward in its development and to create the grounds for the next step. In the Darwinian sense only successful, beneficial creative acts survive because of what they offer to those who created it.

Somehow the arts have taken ownership of the word ‘creative’. My thoughts are that the creative act is a human instinct for survival. Whether it’s an instinct I’m not sure. But today these instincts (if that’s the right word) are really a watered down version of their origins and appear as acts of modification, like your car design. (It’s possible that this watered down version, like a fiddling at the edges, is responsible for the stagnation in our growth). They still have tangible benefits in that they contribute to our welfare and survival.

The ‘arts’ do not exist like this at all. They offer no tangible benefits. It can be argued that they contribute to something we need, but there’s never any hard evidence apart from some idea of “increased awareness, increased interconnectedness or increased overall achievement/capacity“.

I’m meaning a value that goes beyond personal. I think it’s a huge part of mankind’s evolution. Just as a Chimpanzee using a stick to get to ants is evolution, movement forward. The creation of tools is pretty big.

What I’m trying to say (i think) is that the only true creative act today is one that has ‘value-use’, because creating is an instinct for survival. It has to have a purpose that benefits survival or movement forward, otherwise it’s indulgence.

Agreed. There's very little subjectivity here ... but there is creativity (and actual creation). — Pattern-chaser

Yes, absolutely. And it has, or is, ‘value-use’. So the creative act, and the creative animal today, works with ‘value-use’, as the creative act always has, otherwise it dies in a vacuum.

I'd argue that it being new and different is a property of originality rather than creativity. — kudos

“New and different”. I don’t think different can be part of originality. If it’s different then it suggests something already existing to compare it to. New must be a property of creativity.

Subjectivity drives the creative process in both. — Possibility

This is not true. The creative process in advertising, marketing etc., is driven by a) a brief, b) budget, c) market research, d) a deadline, e) the medium. None of this is subjective on your part. You don’t decide what the client needs, the client does.

Fine arts, it’s true, you can do whatever you feel like.

Who is today’s creative animal? Not the ‘artists’.

'd like to take the opportunity here to discuss the philosophy of creativity . . . what constitutes the creative animal, as it were, of todays modern age. — kudos

This is partly what I’m trying to address, today’s creative animal. And this:

We have opened the door to new forms of creativity, creating works without use-value. The creativity of today is both against monetization, — kudos

This statement seems untrue to me. My point is that creativity is about ‘use-value’ and always has been. If it’s not then it’s something that exists in a rarefied, artificial atmosphere.

Picasso’s creative act was in painting, or sculpture, he was playing with ideas about painting and sculpture, looking at how far he could push it. The idea of painting, its actual creation, had already happened on the walls of Lascaux (perhaps).

Pattern-Chaser: “We can say that all cars are assembled from similar parts, but each new design is ... new; novel. If it's just a rearrangement, the creativity is minimised, surely? If it's just a rearrangement, why are we bothering? What we end up with won't (can't!) be significantly different from what we already have. Sometimes, with cars, a simple facelift seems to be what is required. A new look to a product that remains substantially unchanged. But this is almost the trivial case of design, whose most significant and useful purpose is to create something genuinely new, at least in some respects.”

But in the end it’s still a car, already invented. The designer is just pushing the idea of a car, modifying it.

Once man learned to create fire it was always fire, after that it was for different ‘value-use’.

But these ‘sub categories’ of creation still work to serve us or to benefit us. Over time style is added to them, styles which come and go every year, which just confirms their pointless existence and confirms how non ‘value-use’ creativity dies by its own hand.
This ‘non-value’ use is what ‘art’ is today: a contrived, artificial environment, kept alive by oxygen fed through superficial desires and elitism.

So yes, the creative act today is monetised, and it’s value is concrete, but it’s always been concrete, it’s always served a purpose. It’s success in the world contributes to its creator’s chances of survival, and those associated with the creator. Once it was the person who could make fire, now it’s a corporation that can own a market.

The creative act is amoral, and pure only in its intent.

. The creativity of today is both against monetization, — kudos

I’m not sure what you’re referring to here, what are the new forms of creativity that work against monetisation?

I’ve personally worked in a range of creative industries, from fine arts to website design, from advertising and marketing to playwriting and directing. — Possibility

The position I’m developing in relation to this op is that the creative act, in its pure form, is (ironically) objective driven towards ‘use-value’.

The fields you worked in have different objectives. Website design, advertising, marketing, they’re driven by pure ‘use-value’, a monetary value and measures of success. There’s very little subjectivity here, it’s all market driven, measured against costs and returns. Fine arts, theatre, they reside in pure subjectivity, there’s no real value to a painting or a play except that attributed to it by those who like it.

My feeling, which is a surprise to me, is that creativity exists today only in a ‘value- use’ environment, because it contributes to our development as people, as it always has, as its purpose always was. Creativity was and is a tool of some sort.

I’m beginning to think that what you and others are talking about is not creativity itself but is instead just playing with creativity, like a child playing with blocks.

So your answer is a fool and his money are easily parted.

Sure, but a different perspective of the universe?

but my own (former) vocation was very much involved in production, as an end result. It's easy to miss the creativity in firmware design, or car/bridge/etc design. — Pattern-chaser

I was trying to think of how what you’ve said relates to my own thoughts so far, because it threw me for a bit, that is the creative act in a business orientated environment, and it seems to me that that’s the only place creativity can take place today because there is purpose, a demand, and result, as has always been required in the creative act (according to my thoughts).

Man is a creative animal, all acts have a purpose or objective. Even if there existed frivolous acts they would die stillborn, their purpose would rise and fall sealing off the act itself in its own death, just as the physical evolutionary aberration that disadvantages a species causes the death of that species.

Modern man romanticises these pointless acts as having some mystical meaning, trying to breathe some purpose into them. They exist because modern society no longer needs purpose to its acts, life and death are no longer attached to these acts, they’re frivolous, they survive because they’re supported by vested interests, otherwise they would die through lack of oxygen.

Man must constantly reinvent himself. The creative act does this, but art does not. It’s an illusion to think that art can do this for man. Feeling good about yourself, or others, creates nothing but another frivolous act, which in the end is not even an action.

Just as remnants of man’s survival instincts sometimes manifest themselves today, so too do these original creative acts manifest themselves as contemporary art.

It’s this purposeless of art that makes it so difficult to define good from bad, and makes it so subjective and difficult to define.

Is belief in the supernatural an intelligent person’s game?
— Gnostic Christian Bishop
No. — tim wood

Why do you say so?

but the creative process can also arise from an inherent drive to increase awareness, interconnectedness and overall capacity/achievement. — Possibility

I’d be interested to see some proof of that statement.

All value systems are subjectively imposed except for the potentially infinite diversity of the unfolding universe - and it is here that the creative process operates. That your work demonstrates a different perspective of any aspect of the universe is creative, and therefore has value in that it forms part of the creative process - li — Possibility

This is the same subjectivity that the post on art and elitism got bogged down in.
‘... a different perspective of any aspect of the universe.’ What exactly does that mean in terms of being creative?

What you’re saying is that a different perspective of the universe forms part of the creative process because what you’re doing is creative. That doesn’t explain anything. It’s an endless loop.

Putting creative (uniquely personal) work into something for the benefit of others is precisely what drives creativity in the first place. It is a selfless act at its core. — Possibility

I disagree with this. You would need to read my posts to see where I’m coming from, but creativity is a totally selfish act.

Would you expect chimp 1 to give away his stick that he worked for, simply for love of creating sticks? — kudos

He wouldn’t have to consider giving it away. The.creative act itself inspires others: they imitate it. One day another Chimp might be inspired to take it a step further. My feeling is that all creative acts have ‘use-value’. In a world of survival no ‘use-value’ means death.

The creative act of people today stems from this. The cave paintings in Lascaux are far removed from artwork today but they’re connected. But today we are far removed from many of our origins. Art today, in relation to its roots is just ‘baubles’. So the use-value’ in art today is largely dependent on style, or trends. Which is not to say that the instinct to create is dead and that people will create purely for the pleasure of it,though that may not be the best word to use.

I’m glad you brought up the creative impulse or instinct. In my world these are two separate entities. The second is more difficult to account for, because we can’t really prove right now that creativity is instinctual. Other animals don’t seem to do it so much in the form we see it in humans. If it were true, what would be the benefit to them to do so? We must be talking about apes, chimpanzees, and other primates. — kudos

I’m not convinced that the two are separate entities, though there may be someone out there who could clear it up in a paragraph. The act of starting fire by rubbing sticks or using flints: is that instinct or a creative act? How did it begin? A Chimpanzee using sticks to get at ants for eating, what’s that?

Is it right for us to arbitrarily call one thing ‘instinct’ and another ‘creative’? When a bird uses a rock to break open an egg, what’s that? If it’s instinct then starting a fire is instinct. But the concept of starting a fire has to come from somewhere So creativity is a tool. Therefore Chimpanzees are creative.

But about starting a metaphor? Is that instinct?

Creative work takes great time and effort to produce for the most part. — kudos

I had thought this post was not about ‘art’ but about the ‘creative animal’. Not about producing art but of acting out the creative impulse which is so instinctual to mankind and makes us who we are. Just the idea, the actual thought, of freedom is a creative act, as is equality and so on.

Freedom is choosing to grow unimpeded by others, that does not mean not being influenced by others.
— Brett

But what of the subconscious? Even subtle gestures can influence how you live your life without you even knowing. — TogetherTurtle

I’m not sure if my post was clear to you. I meant I accept the idea of the influence of the world at large upon me.

Just as the word "jackass" can mean both a donkey and a fool... and I don't have to insist that it only has one meaning. — luckswallowsall

I wasn’t actually asking you to come up with one meaning. My post might have been a bit clumsy. What I was thinking of was how so many of us, when asked such a question, suddenly address it as some sort of application to mankind as a whole, some idea that will make the world a better place, instead of turning inward and addressing their own very small and very personal life and what freedom means to them right now, on a daily basis, as something real and not theoretical, which we’re all very good at, and seems to me a like hiding from ourselves a little.

what constitutes the creative animal, as it were, of todays modern age. What are it's qualities? We have opened the door to new forms of creativity, creating works without use-value. — kudos

I think the creative animal of today is no different than he/she has ever been. I see a sort of Darwinian strain to creativity in the ‘creative animal’ or human, where, like evolution, the creative act throws us forward into the future. So many creative acts fall away, less still create a new paradigm.

I’m a bit unsure of your post. It seems to me that all creative acts have ‘use-value’. Otherwise it’s the act of a particular age or culture that can afford such ‘non-value’ activities.

? Is it a form of slavery to put creative work into something to the benefit of someone else? — kudos

It’s not slavery, it’s the driver of our success, it benefits millions, now and in the future.

There are many kinds of freedom. — luckswallowsall

Yes, but the question was what does it mean to ‘you’?

So you think more about what you don't have to do, as opposed to what you now can do. That's interesting. I'd like to hear what you have to say after you think about it more. — TogetherTurtle

It’s not so much about things I don’t have to do.

It’s the freedom of being left alone, of living my life unimpeded, free from interference, which can come from so many quarters: government, schools, employers, people in general.

I’ve reached a stage where I don’t answer to employers, the government generally leaves me alone, the law has no interest in me, no one comes knocking at the door.
I live in a reasonably civilised democratic country. Except for taxes, voting, the census, jury service and local government charges they pretty much leave me alone.

The things I want to do, or like to do, have very little impact on others. I don’t ask anything from others. I know my life is a compromise between what I want and the world at large.

Freedom is choosing to grow unimpeded by others, that does not mean not being influenced by others.

But there is a message there, not experience. To me (again), the experience was an air raid; the painting is a comment (i.e. a message) on the actual event, which I don't think Picasso experienced. :chin: — Pattern-chaser

I don’t think one has to necessarily be at the event to experience it. Picasso’s experience of the bombing could be what was impressed on him by the nature of the bombing. It’s about his response to the horror. It’s a personal message to the world. Who understands it is another matter.

These days the idea of freedom seems to lean towards being able to do what you chose. Free speech means being able to say what you think, freedom of movement: go where you want. It seems to me to be about gaining, getting something that will make life better for everyone. But one mans gain is another man’s pain. So there are problems with that.

I tend to think of freedom as being free of something, just what that is I’ll have to think about a bit more.

Which one of the two provides more experience, a sense, a feeling, of "war is wrong"? — Henri

I don’t think the intention was necessarily ‘War is wrong’. Does that mean all war is wrong? I think it’s more that war is a horror. The first one is Picasso working out his own symbols and techniques about how he feels. The second one is just ‘Transformers’, almost comical in its strident efforts, and drowning in clumsy cliche.

Ingmar Bergman writing about the theatre:

“Nothing is; everything represents. The moment the curtain is raised , an agreement between stage and audience manifests itself. And now, together, we’ll create!”

I think this applies to all art, it has to have an audience engage otherwise nothing happens: without agreement there’s no moment of creation. Like I said, all art has its own audience that’s prepared or ready to engage and reject what it doesn’t like as ‘poor art’. These are all unique relationships.

Whatever you might think, this is as elitist as those Shakespearean supporters who insist Shakespeare is a genius. I imagine that each audience would prefer to see ‘their’ art taught in schools, too.

Obviously presenting something to others that they won’t engage with (Shakespeare in school) is not going to create this relationship. To get students to engage with Shakespeare you might have to do a lot of work before hand about art and theatre and the years around the end of the 16th century to get them interested enough to engage.
“Transformers” would take a lot less time than that, though there may still be other films doing just as much without all the action, which is really male orientated and probably leaves the girls cold.

:up:

I feel reasonably confident in saying that art mocks philosophy.