Now this goes off into a different area, but a psychic medium told me that it is only possible to reach spiritual beings when using the creative mind. Say what you will about people claiming to be psychic, but can one find knowledge with the creative mind like presumably the eyes use a more objective mind to determine universally that an object is round and green versus other? Or can the creative mind only invent shit as I imagine could well be the case with a psychic whether or not they realize it?

Innate purposes?

Purposes are given.

SO one might better ask "Can we say for sure that anything exists that could not be given some purpose?"

An important difference.

a psychic medium told me that it is only possible to reach spiritual beings when using the creative mind. — TiredThinker

That's hilarious! Funniest thing today.

An act is not recognised as ‘creative’ until an abstract thinker attributes intentionality - but the act still happens.
— Possibility

Do you mean by “abstract thinker” another person or the person carrying out the act?. — Brett

Either - does it matter? An abstract thinker is necessary to recognise creativity, but not for a creative act to happen.

So unless there is a perceived connection between the creativity and the action then the act is random or meaningless.

Edit: so monkey see and monkey do is not creative. — Brett

Monkey see and monkey do is not generally recognised as creative, no. But I do think it is creative, in its own way. So is a chemical reaction - it depends on the perspective.

I should clarify - to me, an act can be creative regardless of intentionality, but it’s rarely recognised as such. You said yourself that a creative act won’t happen without ‘thinking in abstract’, but I disagree with this - I don’t believe that thinking (in abstract or otherwise) is required for a creative act at all. Creativity is simply a process of relation. But abstract thinking IS required to recognise creativity.

So unless there is a perceived connection between an action and some kind of abstract intentionality or purposiveness, then the act is perceived as random or meaningless, if it is perceived at all. But I think an act is creative to the extent that it increases awareness, connection or collaboration - whether or not intention or purpose is perceived.

An act is not recognised as ‘creative’ until an abstract thinker attributes intentionality - but the act still happens.
— Possibility

Do you mean by “abstract thinker” another person or the person carrying out the act?.
— Brett

Either - does it matter? — Possibility

I think so. How can people other than the one performing the act know it was intentional?

An act is not recognised as ‘creative’ until an abstract thinker attributes intentionality - but the act still happens
— Possibility

Not necessarily, if I am interpreting what you are saying correctly. My own experience in mathematics belies this statement. I have had ideas pop into my head without having primed myself by thinking about a subject; the ideas then have been recognized as creative - but without intentionality. — jgill

Well, all ideas are creative. But when I refer to intentionality, I’m not talking about a self-conscious intention to create a thought. Intentionality is a predictive distribution of effort and attention - it requires consciousness, but one need not be conscious of it. Once you are aware of the thought and own it, however, its intentionality is attributed - you created that thought.

Either - does it matter?
— Possibility

I think so. How can people other than the one performing the act know it was intentional? — Brett

Who says they need to know? Once they attribute intentionality (which is not the same as conscious intent), accurately or not, they recognise it as a creative act.

I understood the intentionality as acting on that abstract thought, not the thought itself. Once a personal understanding is reached about this ability to think in the abstract and form images of realities that are not present then they are able to consciously repeat the process at will. Of course that just leads to repetition which is useful in many circumstances.

Intentionality is a predictive distribution of effort and attention - it requires consciousness, — Possibility

Yes, this becomes a skill in time. We do it all the time without being conscious of it. In a way it’s a craft. Then I would agree that it’s intentionality is attributed. This can be applied to almost any aspect of life.

But I think that people who work in very original creativity, producing original ideas in art or maths for instance, do actually do it in a conscious way, but they also allow their mind to open up to possibilities that others may not put together. Because of this strange or unreal abilities are attributed to them and we begin to hear the word genius for instance.

I can see the first beginnings of controlling fire in that light or making sharp tools from flint.

Once they attribute intentionality (which is not the same as conscious intent), accurately or not, they recognise it as a creative act. — Possibility

I’m not sure about that. Are we talking about intentionality in the same way yet?

Edit: just did a quick read on intentionality. So we are not on the same page yet. I’ll think this over.

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Intentionality needs an object.

But if that object doesn’t yet exist how can there be intentionality?

In remembering I remember a past object, imagining presents an imaginary object. But even then the imaginary object is made up of existing parts assembled as an imaginary object.

How would this apply to creating a cutting tool by striking a flint and creating a sharp edge for the first time, or domesticating fire, or Picasso creating Les Demoiselles Avignon?

Intentionality is a predictive distribution of effort and attention - it requires consciousness, but one need not be conscious of it — Possibility

SEP: "In philosophy, intentionality is the power of minds and mental states to be about, to represent, or to stand for, things, properties and states of affairs" . . . " ‘Intentionality’ is a philosopher’s word: ever since it was introduced into philosophy by Franz Brentano in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, it has been used to refer to the puzzles of representation, all of which lie at the interface between the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of language". . . "Consciousness and intentionality can seem to pervade much or all of mental life—perhaps they somehow account for what it is to have a mind; at any rate they seem to be important, broad aspects of it. But achieving a general understanding of either is an enormous challenge. Part of this lies in figuring out how they are related."

OK. This is technical jargon for philosophers. Not how I might have defined it.

But I think that people who work in very original creativity, producing original ideas in art or maths for instance, do actually do it in a conscious way, but they also allow their mind to open up to possibilities that others may not put together. Because of this strange or unreal abilities are attributed to them and we begin to hear the word genius for instance.

I can see the first beginnings of controlling fire in that light or making sharp tools from flint. — Brett

What they ‘produce’ is done in a conscious way, yes - but that’s not creativity, it’s only a physical manifestation of the ongoing creative process or impetus.

Intentionality needs an object.

But if that object doesn’t yet exist how can there be intentionality?

In remembering I remember a past object, imagining presents an imaginary object. But even then the imaginary object is made up of existing parts assembled as an imaginary object.

How would this apply to creating a cutting tool by striking a flint and creating a sharp edge for the first time, or domesticating fire, or Picasso creating Les Demoiselles Avignon? — Brett

The potential for a sharp edge was always there - it’s in the molecular structure of the stone. The process of creating a cutting tool has to do with perceiving this potential of a sharp edge to cut, in relation to the potential of a qualitatively angled impact between different stones to split the structure in such a way as to form a sharp edge, in relation to the potential to apply an amount of force in such a direction as to effect this angled impact. It is awareness, connection and collaboration with this qualitative relational structure of potentiality that manifests the creation of a cutting tool.

These are not strange or unreal abilities. It’s simply a focus on the underlying relational structures instead of the consolidated forms or objects, that enables one to ‘interact’ within an unformed reality inclusive of the ‘self’. Creativity is an interaction of unconsolidated potentialities, not of objects. Intentionality within the creative process is a property of unconsolidated potentiality or ‘power’ - to be purposive.

Remembering and imagining are not consolidated in the creative process. They are not formed into an imaginary object assembled from formed parts, although they CAN and do form parts as well as an imaginary object. Creative work is never ‘finished’ - I read an interesting article a couple of years ago on creativity (’Potential Originality and Effectiveness: The Dynamic Definition of Creativity’, 2016, Giovanni Emanuele Corazza) that described a differentiation between ‘creative achievement’ and ‘creative inconclusiveness’. This unfinished aspect of the creative process is often overlooked and unappreciated by those who see creativity as simply ‘creating something’.

In remembering, I remember qualitative and quantitative potentialities, and structure them according to integrated conceptual patterns, eliciting the most probable consolidation of a past ‘object’. Imagining, too, is a relational structure of qualitative and quantitative potentialities into possible conceptual patterns, but the selection is based on intentionality - on the capacity of conceptual patterns to consolidate with purpose.

So, in order to perceive striking a flint as a ‘creative act’, we must perceive it within the context of a relation between potentialities capable of being consolidated into a purposive act. Within this context, however, both consolidation and purpose are undetermined. Fire can be ‘created’ by the potentiality of dry tinder, of sparks, of an impact between metals, by the potential of a creature to strike a flint, of a conscious subject to associate striking a flint with fire, or the potentiality of a self-conscious subject to be aware of, connected and collaborating with this cascade of interrelated potentiality. It is how we attribute intentionality that defines a ‘creative act’.

The creative process does not consolidate - it enables new capacity to consolidate by interrelating potentiality. Attributing intentionality is a faculty of consolidation - it isn’t necessary to creativity as such, only to consolidating a ‘creative act’.

Remembering and imagining are not consolidated in the creative process. They are not formed into an imaginary object assembled from formed parts, — Possibility

Can you elaborate on this further, that imagining presents an imaginary object in the mind is not true?

There is a common confusion between intention and intentionality, just as there is between potential and potentiality. The former has content, the latter is indeterminate: better understood as a faculty rather than a capacity.

For me, this is a dimensional distinction, but language structures don’t lend themselves easily to discussing potentiality and possibility as different dimensional levels. Most discussions I have in this area disintegrate because my language, as a conceptual structure, struggles to navigate both within time and beyond it in relation to another conceptual structure (i.e your language).

My own experience in mathematics belies this statement. I have had ideas pop into my head without having primed myself by thinking about a subject; the ideas then have been recognized as creative - but without intentionality. — jgill

Mathematics is relational structure at the level of potentiality - intentionality isn’t relevant to mathematics or to creativity until it needs to be applied. Neither is time. These mathematical ideas that ‘pop into your head’ are possible conceptual structures whose unconsolidated potentiality interacts with other unconsolidated potentialities in your mind, in a way that manifests a perception of mathematical potential.

Can you elaborate on this further, that imagining presents an imaginary object in the mind is not true? — Brett

I didn’t say it wasn’t true - only that, in the creative process, it’s not about formed or consolidated objects, but about the relational structures that form them, or enable them to be consolidated. It’s a matter of perspective: when you focus on consolidated objects, you can’t see the creative process at work.

↪jgill
There is a common confusion between intention and intentionality, just as there is between potential and potentiality. The former has content, the latter is indeterminate: better understood as a faculty rather than a capacity. — Possibility

OK. Thanks for the explanation. Makes sense. :smile:

in the creative process, it’s not about formed or consolidated objects, but about the relational structures that form them, or enable them to be consolidated. — Possibility

If I understand you you’re saying the consolidated object is the creative action, it’s what’s made.

Yes - but this is where it gets confusing, because the process itself of consolidating potentiality is not bound by time, only what is manifest (‘made’ implies completion). Dancing is as much a creative consolidation of interrelating potentiality as a sculpture - the difference, as I see it, is dimensional. One is rendered/rendering in four dimensions (an event), the other in three dimensions (a material object).

But the sculpture can also be consolidated/consolidating in four dimensions, as a ‘creative action’ by attributing intentionality to a sculptor. And both can be perceived in five dimensions, as a purposive creative process, regardless of a definitive purpose, action, subject or object. In a way, this reflects Kant’s aesthetics (the third moment). A dancer need not have a specific purpose in order to create, he/she need only be purposeful - structuring meaning (qualitative relations) through intentionality.

A creative idea - as @jgill proposes in mathematics - is a process of interrelating unconsolidated potentialities. Any formulation of this idea is one possible manifestation of perceived potentiality: a cross-section of the creative process. I mentioned in another thread that a creative idea can be original, popular, accurate or comprehensible, but is rarely all four at once, if at all. This combination is, however, the holy grail of creativity. The extent to which we ‘create something’, is a consolidation of our process in relation to this.

A creative idea - as jgill proposes in mathematics - is a process of interrelating unconsolidated potentialities. — Possibility

Wouldn’t you say that the process comes before the creative idea? The idea is the consolidated potentiality, like the dancing. In the dancing the idea and form happen at once, the event, unless it’s choreographed. But there has to be something that comes before that, something that allows, directs or opens up the potential for consolidation.

A creative idea - as jgill proposes in mathematics - is a process of interrelating unconsolidated potentialities.
— Possibility

Wouldn’t you say that the process comes before the creative idea? The idea is the consolidated potentiality, like the dancing. In the dancing the idea and form happen at once, the event, unless it’s choreographed. But there has to be something that comes before that, something that allows, directs or opens up the potential for consolidation. — Brett

An idea is not necessarily consolidated - as it ‘pops’ into your head, it needn’t have any semblance of form at all. I think any consolidation of an idea is an amorphous process, indeterminate. To say that ‘the idea and form happen at once’ is an observation of dancing as a consolidated event, which is bound by time, rather than an apperception of potentiality, which is not. It doesn’t even make sense to structure potentiality in a temporal sequence. Yet our structures of language and logic call for it. When we say an idea ‘pops into our head’, any assumption that it arrives fully formed as a sequential ‘thought’ is based on logic, not reality. As we then describe this idea or even think about it, we are consolidating a potential form according to language or logic, but the idea itself - the process of interrelating unconsolidated potentialities - is formless.

Have you ever listened to music you would normally dance to, in a situation where you couldn’t? What you would experience is a relation of unconsolidated potentiality.

You might express this by tapping or nodding to the rhythm, consolidating potentiality into an event - but this is a reduction of the idea to form, according to spacetime conditions.

You might think/feel that you want to dance or that the music is trying to move you. This is consolidation by attributing intentionality, but it’s still a reduction of the idea to the form of subjective experience, according to our own perception of potentiality.

Or you might imagine dancing to the music - this is a more complete consolidation, but the relation is internal and entirely subjective. How you express this idea to others is by rendering it in a construct of familiar or relatable concepts/thoughts/feelings they can experience in potentiality, through different language structures.

Even my description of it here - ‘imagine dancing to the music’ - is a potentially consolidated expression for the purpose of being understood in relation to experience, but doesn’t do justice to the formless relational structure of the idea itself, or the possibilities in its consolidated expression, if I’m being honest.

In my view, it is awareness, connection and collaboration with relational structure that allows, directs or opens up the potentiality of (not just potential for) consolidation at any dimensional level. Kant referred to this in his Aesthetics as the faculty of judgement (often mistaken as simply judgement). By ‘faculty’, he’s referring to unconsolidated potentiality - recognising that it is in the option we also have to NOT judge (consolidate) that we dare to relate beyond the possibilities of our existence.

What initiates a creative thought or stream of thinking? It is my understanding that creativity decreases with age so I assume it is an emotional function that depletes when neurotransmitter levels decline?

It is my understanding that creativity decreases with age — TiredThinker

Yes I think it does decrease with age. But I don’t think it has anything to do with emotion. Especially as people create things for different reasons.

There’s a difference here between the dancer, the painter and the mathematician. So let’s say that moment, for the dancer, is a series of rapid decisions based on a deep understanding and knowledge of movement. They are, as you say, amorphous. For the observer the idea and form happen spontaneously in front of them.
But for the painter and, I suspect, the mathematician it’s different. That moment where the idea and form come together is internally. For them you might say the idea “pops” into their head, which I only use to show the difference between the dancer and painter.
So the moment before the idea “pops” into the artist’s head that idea is formless, amorphous as you say.
That’s the moment, the formless moment, that I meant by “process”, which of course is not a good enough description.
So the idea is consolidated in the artist’s consciousness just before it goes on the canvas, in the same way the idea is consolidated in the dancers consciousness immediately before every minute action,

It’s that amorphous process that I’d like to nail down. It doesn’t mean the following step is totally consolidated, because it’s a continuous process after all, except in the form of the dancer where we actually see the consolidation process take place.

There’s a difference here between the dancer, the painter and the mathematician. So let’s say that moment, for the dancer, is a series of rapid decisions based on a deep understanding and knowledge of movement. They are, as you say, amorphous. For the observer the idea and form happen spontaneously in front of them.
But for the painter and, I suspect, the mathematician it’s different. That moment where the idea and form come together is internally. For them you might say the idea “pops” into their head, which I only use to show the difference between the dancer and painter.
So the moment before the idea “pops” into the artist’s head that idea is formless, amorphous as you say.
That’s the moment, the formless moment, that I meant by “process”, which of course is not a good enough description.
So the idea is consolidated in the artist’s consciousness just before it goes on the canvas, in the same way the idea is consolidated in the dancers consciousness immediately before every minute action,

It’s that amorphous process that I’d like to nail down. It doesn’t mean the following step is totally consolidated, because it’s a continuous process after all, except in the form of the dancer where we actually see the consolidation process take place. — Brett

My perspective is a little different.

If you attend a professional dance performance, you can be sure that the dancer has choreographed and rehearsed their actions to the last detail. The creative process took place long before this, and the ‘idea’ behind the dance would have long been an amorphous process of adjusted and re-ordered movements until he/she had consolidated the choreography, and could mentally rehearse the entire performance.

If you look at a painting in a gallery, you can be sure that behind this finished product are not only many brushstrokes that were covered over, but also many versions of this same ‘idea’ in different forms and different stages of completion.

When you watch a dancer or painter ‘at work’, in the creative process, you can see each movement or brushstroke and have no clue whether that particular action was a consolidation from years of repetition, or an attempt at consolidating part of a crazy idea that only just came to them, or part of a larger, tortuous process that they’ve spent months trying to perfect. For the dancer or painter, all are valid aspects of the creative process, even though they may end up on the scrap heap at the end of the day.

The difference between the dancer and painter is that the dancer’s actions consolidate a potential event in his/her mind, whereas the painter’s actions consolidate on the canvas.

If you attend a professional dance performance, you can be sure that the dancer has choreographed and rehearsed their actions to the last detail. — Possibility

When I am talking about the dance and dancer I’m not talking about a choreographed dance. I’m talking about a dance that is created as the dancer dances, all their experience, all their knowledge of dance, the physical aspects, the appearance of the body in action, it’s history, it’s tradition, everything the dancer is aware of about dance is laid out in that act, but each movement is grasped as they dance.. It’s someone throwing themselves through space and moment by moment creating the dance, like Jazz musicians jamming “a relatively informal musical event, process, or activity where musicians, typically instrumentalists, play improvised solos and vamp on tunes, songs and chord progressions.” Wikipedia.

It’s something that happens very quickly. And it is as you say an event in time. Painting is not like this. A painting, as you say, is a material object. The painting may take place over time, but the creative idea that you see in the dance on the stage, performed in time, moment by moment, for the painter take place in the painters consciousness. You don’t see it. But if you imagine a creative idea as the dancer moving through space, going this way and that, a gesture here or there, a leap, a shrug of the shoulders, a hand held out, all those moments fluid and connected, then you can imagine the processing of the creative idea in the painter’s mind. In fact I’m saying that it’s the reverse of this:

The difference between the dancer and painter is that the dancer’s actions consolidate a potential event in his/her mind, whereas the painter’s actions consolidate on the canvas. — Possibility

However, before the painter begins to consolidate this idea in their head, and before the dancer consolidates the dance in time on the stage there is the amorphous phase beforehand, the formless idea still not yet born but approaching consolidation. The whole thing, from the formless to the consolidation to the action is one process. It’s the amorphous stage that interests me.

When I am talking about the dance and dancer I’m not talking about a choreographed dance. I’m talking about a dance that is created as the dancer dances, all their experience, all their knowledge of dance, the physical aspects, the appearance of the body in action, it’s history, it’s tradition, everything the dancer is aware of about dance is laid out in that act, but each movement is grasped as they dance.. It’s someone throwing themselves through space and moment by moment creating the dance, like Jazz musicians jamming “a relatively informal musical event, process, or activity where musicians, typically instrumentalists, play improvised solos and vamp on tunes, songs and chord progressions.” Wikipedia. — Brett

That’s not how it works. A dance is always a collaboration between the dancer and the music - it isn’t simply the dancer expressing what they know. Jazz musicians, too, are interrelating unconsolidated potentialities - the improvised solo is a collaboration with unconsolidated potentialities in the instrument and the music.

It’s something that happens very quickly. And it is as you say an event in time. Painting is not like this. A painting, as you say, is a material object. The painting may take place over time, but the creative idea that you see in the dance on the stage, performed in time, moment by moment, for the painter take place in the painters consciousness. You don’t see it. But if you imagine a creative idea as the dancer moving through space, going this way and that, a gesture here or there, a leap, a shrug of the shoulders, a hand held out, all those moments fluid and connected, then you can imagine the processing of the creative idea in the painter’s mind. — Brett

But you don’t see the creative idea on stage - you only see one possible expression of it, just like with the painting. What you see is a creative act. It is your capacity to relate to its unconsolidated potentiality that enables you to perceive the underlying creative idea.

However, before the painter begins to consolidate this idea in their head, and before the dancer consolidates the dance in time on the stage there is the amorphous phase beforehand, the formless idea still not yet born but approaching consolidation. The whole thing, from the formless to the consolidation to the action is one process. It’s the amorphous stage that interests me. — Brett

You’re still seeing the creative process as a temporal duration, and looking for something before it - like those looking for something before the creation of the world, before the Big Bang, before the beginning of time. But formlessness is not a temporal stage, and action IS a consolidation. To understand the creative process, you need to grasp existence and interaction beyond time. It’s a dimensional shift.

That’s not how it works. A dance is always a collaboration between the dancer and the music - it isn’t simply the dancer expressing what they know. — Possibility

A dancer doesn’t need music to dance. In that case it absolutely is the dancer expressing what they know (and I’m not completely happy with the word “know”). But even if there is music and the dancer is collaborating with the music (and once again I’m not happy with the word “collaborating”) then they are still expressing what they know, laying it over the music. The music can’t respond to the dancer.

Jazz musicians, too, are interrelating unconsolidated potentialities - — Possibility

This is true and that’s what the dancer is doing; interrelating unconsolidated potentialities with every movement. It’s not until the dancer stops that the dance is consolidated and then of course it’s gone.

But you don’t see the creative idea on stage - you only see one possible expression of it, just like with the painting. — Possibility

What you see is the creative idea unfolding in front of you. And yes it is only one expression of it and you won’t see it again, unless it’s filmed. Nor is it like the painting.

What you see is a creative act. — Possibility

What you see is the creative idea enacted out in front of you. The idea and the act happen simultaneously. There’s no time for anything else, it’s too fast. I don’t think you see that in a painting.

You’re still seeing the creative process as a temporal duration, and looking for something before it. — Possibility

No I don’t think I am. I’m looking at the act as a temporal duration but not everything before that. The idea of the dancer creating in front of you might suggest that. But as I said, the dance is not consolidated, or made temporal, until it’s finished. Up until that point it’s the creative idea in action, being born. It can go in any direction. For the painter that part of it is hidden from you, taking place in their consciousness instead of on stage.

Just going back to the amorphous stage, which we haven’t agreed on, my interest is whether at that stage the conscious mind dips into the unconscious, like picking apples from a tree, or the unconscious floods the conscious mind?

Edit: actually painting might be like the dance, but only some painting.

I say creativity must have an emotional aspect because when we try to think logically and feel mental exhaustion from using same conformed parts of brain all the time we react to the pain of fatigue and simply use the next available part of brain, like exercise requires we sometimes use under utilized leg muscles when a breaking point is met. It may not be grand inspiration, but a product of limited resources?