Psychology
(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org, please feel free to visit the school website)
While the physical
sciences struggle to understand the machine, psychology is busy dealing
with the software. As it is accepted that creativity, ideas and even simple
non-reflexive physical actions require, first, a thought before the action
can be rendered, so has creativity come under the scrutiny of psychology.
Even here, the big questions elude pat answers. However, psychology has
furnished us with some interesting clues that help us in being able to unlock
our own creativity, even if we can’t presume to understand exactly
what it is or how it works within a perfect psychological model.
Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, wrote a book in 1900 entitled
the Interpretation Of Dreams, a book that ripped back the curtain
on the conscious mind and began the first true exploration of the unconscious.
He ended up asserting that the unconscious mind is the basis of “psychical
life.” This psychical life is the realm of all things mental: thought,
thinking, dreaming, etc… The “conscious mind” is, according
to Freud, nothing but an organ for the perception of “psycichal qualities.”
In other words, Freud is saying that everything in our conscious thought
is nothing more than an impression or idea formed in our subconscious. Say
what you want about Freud and all those Victorian notions and eccentricities
that colors the modern readings of his work. He throws materialism on its
ear with this statement and pretty much outdoes many of the modern spiritually
based disciplines in this statement.
To look at Freud’s statement deeply is to infer that everything we
see, hear, smell, taste or touch is nothing but a product of our subconscious.
Though often overlooked and rarely acknowledged nowadays, Freud’s
notion here has more in common with today’s exploration of the psyche
and self than it does with modern psychology. Granted, Freud is still looking
at the brain as a modifier in the process and thus not moving purely into
a metaphysical basis. In fact, he, like most others in science to this day,
seems uncomfortable trying to determine exactly what this well of “subconscious”
is, much less determine from where it comes. However, the huge significance
of his statement must not be overlooked. Freud opened the door and encouraged
us all to begin to explore what lies behind our actions and our beliefs
and attempt to tap into that realm of non-linear thinking and free association
that the subconscious is akin to.
In The Psychology Of Imagination (1948), Jean-Peal Sartre makes
a distinction between thought and perception. “You cannot perceive
a thought, nor think a perception. The two phenomena are radically distinct;
the one is knowledge which is conscious of itself and which places itself
at once at the center of the object; the other is a synthetic unity of a
multiplicity of appearances, which slowly serve as apprenticeship.”
This philosopher and man of letters devotes several hundred pages to exploring
the subtle and fine-edged subject. The headiness of the language and ideas
may strike many as obtuse, yet even in this, an important point is made.
First, talking about the “intangible realms” of thought can
lead down a muddy road. As easy as one can describe an object, such as an
umbrella or an elephant, it is also almost equally impossible to describe
or discuss an immaterial experience. Think, for a moment, how you would
describe the color yellow, or the emotion of joy. We can talk around the
subject, use examples and such to try to frame our subject, but our best
effort is likely only to circumscribe what we actually think and feel.
The second bit of usefulness found in Sartre’s musings is to separate
thought and perception, a distinctness that is quite useful in training
our own thinking to be creative. Sartre points out that, “…an
image—from whence the word imagination comes from—is an object
perceived in thought, and limited by the consciousness one gives to it.
You may pretend that you are turning it over and seeing its sides, you may
add color or change size, but it has nothing not given by your own conscious
effort.” In effect, there is no “free will” to our thoughts.
They are organized, shaped, colored, and manipulated by our own perceptions
and misperceptions, perception being the emotional and experiential charges
that are associated with the thought symbols themselves. The more conscious
we become about our thinking, the better we are at not being ignorantly
subject to subliminal or subconscious emotional content, we are also more
adept at consciously employing thought to gain perception (in this case,
to gain control of our creativity as a type of knowledge or insight).
Abraham Maslow created his hierarchy of needs to explain how one reaches
levels of self actualization through the meeting of basic needs (food, shelter)
first, then moves on progressively, graduating to higher levels of desire.
Ultimately, in this model, one reaches the level of “self-actualization,”
a state of conscious existence from which one can create, philanthropize
and exist at all levels of creativity and compassion because one has eliminated
obstacles to this state. Unfortunately, “…Maslow’s decidedly
logical theory cannot explain the spontaneous joy of creativity in Appalachian
Folk Music, birthed in hills of abject poverty. Nor can it explain how Olivier
Messiaen was able to compose Quartet For The End Of Time while
in a Nazi concentration camp. Nor does it explain the creative yearnings
that produce art, music and dance from every culture—no matter its
struggle for daily survival—such as hip-hop from poverty stricken
inner-city neighborhoods, exquisite carvings from drought besieged African
nations and multiple other ingenuities created from the seeming depths of
despair and blighted social mediocrity.” (Fritz, 1991)
Today it is the cognitive psychologists who have emerged as the ruling class
in present day psychology, and have the lock on studying and defining “creativity”
in psychological terms. Certainly a degree of cognition (or self-awareness)
is important in unlocking our own creativity.
Perhaps our strongest encouragement from Science comes if we generally reference
from the lot of data and research to conclude that 1) even the most “limited”
brain or intelligence is capable of infinite information storage and processing,
2) there is no way to describe, ascribe, limit or delineate the source of
inspiration, ideas or imagination beyond that of “subconscious”
or “unconscious” thought, and 3) Inevitably the unconscious
or sub conscious is considered an integral component. Some effort must be
made to accept that our thinking, and specifically the “Aha”
moments, are coming from somewhere. Whether they are a touch of God, ancestral
memory, universal Mind or whatever, somewhere ideas are being formed and
perceived, and those who can reach it are the recipients of something called
“creativity.”
Sigmund Freud Interpretation of Dream theory, Lucian Freud’s Invention of Dream Fire History Thought, a conversation through 1800 bit router. Now hear their thoughts on the conversations between Sebastian smee, and their work.