Creativity: The Pregnant Mind

I do not think that the world needs all or any products of creativity. I asked the question because you had written “before they can in good conscience give birth to any of their idea(l) children.”, and my thought was that a creative person would gain good conscience through the gifts that they give the world. This discussion revolves around predicting the future result of one’s action, wouldn’t you say? Do you not agree that exploring the subject through questions would be a proper route to discovering a methodology for prediction as well as becoming clear about which effects are acceptable and which are not?

I did give the example of Christianity: If wars were fought in the name of Christianity or the inquisition enacted because of it, are you saying that Christ should never have spoken for that reason?

Do you have a problem with that example as well?

Another example would be cars, which cause accidents, have environmental waste, and cause the search for oil. Do you think that these should not have been produced?

There was a point in asking you that question as well as wishing to explore examples. The examples is an attempt to explore the contours of what you mean by ensuring by looking at past existing creations so that precepts can be gained and applied to the future.

I am not sure why you would assume that I am trying to be dishonest by engaging in discussion with you and seeking to understand what you are saying.

In the case of the bread recipe, you are saying it is an unnatural occurence because choking on the bread would be an accident and not an intention of the baker? Is that right or is there something more to it? In particular, is it the intention which counts or something else?

How about the instances of superior engineers designing transport which would be used by the population at large, would it not be better to use superior engineers who would ensure the safety of those who use their product?

Another case would be in law making, wouldn’t it be better to have someone superior in considering scenarios deeply considering consequences than someone who jumps to rash conclusions making laws?

Do you consider all discussions and questions to be sparring or the nature of mine in particular? I am still interested in hearing your answers if you wish to give them.

Then we’re agreed, but the glut of creativity continues, forced upon us to our own detriment. Only the most intelligent creators will look out, away from the creations to see where they will go, what they may become, and this world is sorely lacking thoughtful creators.

Why would a creation, in its very nature, represent only the positive as a gift? This is shortsightedness, blind ambition if you will. Gifts can, as we see in reality, have far reaching consequences once they leave the nest of the creator. When a creator crosses the line from private to public, then they have a responsibility to that public.

Yes. This is done by people all the time, but for some reason, not done with regards to creations so much. It is art so whatever happens, happens, seems to be the mentality. I say that this mentality is wreckless in this day and age and the masses suffer these breaches of accountability on a grand scale, all the time. Methods for sustaining health and welfare should be built into all enterprises of large reach. Public safety always seems to become compromised once a design goes large scale.

Yes, but that is not my area of strength.

Ideas, themselves are powerful, yes, they can inspire/incite but you are trying to push my beef with creation into more of the realm of thought crimes, ideas that cause future harms which is another whole ball of wax, which I don’t think I am intelligent enough to pick apart in all honesty. Thought crimes would be an indirect offense whereas a product would be a direct egregiousness.

In a word, yes. If access to mass transit for everyone within reason were available, the world and peoples would flourish without so much struggle.

Any precepts yet?

You did not answer my question. Is there a difference between a natural occurrence and an unnatural occurrence?

Everything involved in bringing a product to the public counts so intention, resources, functionality, disposal presently…and tomorrow…and the next day…and a year later…ten years later…comprehensively…all of it matters.

The number of your questions overwhelms me, I’m not used to lengthy discussions and thinking hurts my brain, so yeah, it feels like being pushed into a gladiator’s arena. :evilfun: Oh, and laying out my thoughts clearly is another thing I’m working on as we communicate. :smiley: How much sense am I making?

I can understand that. I recently spoke with iambiguous and ended up writing responses around 10 pages in a word processor. I felt like it was too much and my head was foggy for hours afterwards. I just did not know how else to thoroughly communicate my answers. Also, by the end of writing my responses it had become difficult for me to concentrate. If you wish to discuss with me then feel free to take as much time as you need and if I ask something that you feel isn’t relevant you can skip it to save time. I may ask you again, though, and try to explain why I feel it is relevant.

I do not think that creation, in it’s very nature, would necessarily constitute a gift. I meant that a well considered creation would be the gift which brings the creator good conscience. If you recall I asked what the preceding part of that statement meant, which you have now explained, because I did not understand the way it was worded.

I don’t see what I am saying as short sightedness or blind ambition. It is because creations can have far reaching consequences that they have the potential to be gifts. Honestly, I am not thinking of this so much as a responsibility as a result of caring for the world, to wish to see certain results manifest in it.

I think this is important with regards to creation, that is why I joined the discussion.

I might add here that the reason I think that great art, like great philosophy, does not only show people what they are and what they have been but the best of what they can be.

I cannot say with total confidence that it is my strength either, but I think it is a worthy pursuit.

I did not have any conscious intention of hunting down thought criminals. I am interested in the effects of creative ideas because it is the realm in which I work personally. Also, I think that even physical creations start out as ideas and intentions. We are discussing ensuring positive effects and consequences which would have to take place in the realm of ideas (before the creation already exists), as well as considering which ideas have positive and negative consequences and why, or do you think that I am going too far?

I see what you’re saying. It is late at night here and I am a morning person so I am not at the height of my critical faculties. I am inclined to wonder nonetheless if things aren’t as simple as we would like to make it. Of course cars are now a historical phenomena. We see their effects in our era of mass traffic congestion, whereas at one point the automobile would have been the seed of an idea which expanded to inspire public transportation. Also, there might be times when transportation for individuals might be needed to access difficult to reach locations. The reason those might be important considerations is because we are talking about creative individuals considering the future effects of their products. As far as I can see, the future is to a large extent hidden from us and there may be both negative and positive unforseen consequences of our products and actions. If it is to be considered a responsibility to calculate the future, it seems to me wise that we at least try to grasp how one can make such predictions with success.

We are definitely talking about “consequences” — positive outcomes and harm. I am not sure how clearly we understand what is meant by consequences and positive outcomes and harm.

Perhaps also ensuring, what we mean when we say that a creative person should consider and try to ensure positive outcomes.

Sorry for that. I honestly wasn’t sure exactly what you meant by it. That is why I asked you, in relation to creating a recipe for bread, if it was the intention which made the difference or something more.

I think it would help if you explained what natural and unnatural occurences are.

Are you saying that resources play a role in the event of an unnatural occurence, or are just you saying that resources matter when considering the consequences of one’s creation? If it is the former, could you please explain it to me?

I am afraid I can’t answer that. The way I worded “I do not think that the world needs all or any products of creativity.” was pretty bad. It reads as if I was saying the world does not need any creations, which I am not yet ready to assert. I am not sure my opinion would be entirely relevant anyway.

Why can’t you answer that? Of course, your opinion is relevant, it was requested. Everyone online gets caught with their pants down so to speak. I understood what you meant at any rate even if it was worded poorly.

Good. relieved smile

The problem is that they are not being well considered…my very beef.

I was generalizing about creations not being well considered, nothing directed at you.

Why would one not care for the world in which they and others live?

To me, this is a case akin to male romanticism (a different issue that manifests as great beauty and equally great horror).

Again, we’re agreed. Continued existence is a worthy pursuit and I place life over objects in terms of importance.

Care to share how?

Bingo! :smiley: Too far? This has yet to be undertaken.

Yes, how? :-k

We don’t need to talk about positive outcomes if the intention was towards a positive, working product, that would already be afforded in the design.

Natural would be without human intervention/manipulation.

Hmmm, both? :smiley: Money is a resource and it causes all sorts of unnatural occurrences, particularly in scientific research and politics. Ya know, money is the source of all evil? :evilfun:

In our brief conversation, there were some instances when I did not understand what you meant. I asked you and you gave clarifications that I believe I could understand. Thus far I see no reason to think you cannot carry out a reasonable discussion. As for your positions, there are certain general principles we seem to agree on. Exactly how we understand them is less clear to me thus far, by no fault of yours.

Perhaps we can take some steps towards figuring out how to consider them.

I’m sure that some might have reasons, such as despair. I also think that what various individuals consider to be proper caring may differ. What it could consist of is what I hope we will be able to figure out. Which leads to:

Do you wish to discuss it? I think it is relevant to the discussion because I see it as proper caring. You may decide if you think it would take us too off topic or not.

Would you also say that considering how one exists well is a worthy pursuit? In relation to the main subject of this thread, couldn’t a creative gift be considered one that not only maintains existence but improves the conditions of it?

You mean tell in which way I work with creative ideas? If so then it is because I have aspirations to be a writer. I think a lot of the problems we are discussing about the consequences of creative products can be applied to the arts as well as things like engineering. Of course the thing you call male romanticism, if you consider it to be a problem, would be an idea which might show up in artistic expression. I do think the idea of helping (I can’t currently think of a better word) others be the best they can be is relevant to things like engineering because the effects of creative products might be a decline in physical health, for example (take the example of a confectioner).

Recall this train of thought began in connection to the question I asked about Christ. Do you then think it might be relevant to consider the effects of creative ideas as well as physical products?

Well, thus far my suggestion has been to acquire well considered precepts which can then be applied to different contexts and circumstances by individuals seeking to create.

This is my thought: It appears to me that we do need to make clear what is meant by positive outcomes because, when you say that if the intention is positive then the outcome (?) would be afford by the design, this assumes that we are clear about what a positive intention is. An example of where we might have our meanings crossed is when I said that great art seeks to show people the best that they can be and it seemed to me you did not agree. If I then went about creating with the intention of showing people the best that they can be and assuming that my intentions were pure, but it turned out that my intentions were based on fallacious thinking, then the outcome is likely to be equally problematic despite what I thought were good intentions and an attempt to care for the world and the people in it. Do you see what I mean?

I also realized there might be some more viable precepts embedded in your comments:

Also it seems like you feel you might have a lead with the consideration of what you are calling natural and unnatural consequences, in which case there may be more precepts in them. Precepts with which one may consider the effects a creative product might have in the process of designing it, that is.

I can certainly say that I see a difference between consequences which arise from human intervention and those which do not. You originally asked me this in regards to my question about whether choking on bread would be grounds for the creator of a recipe to abstain. So you saying that the reason that a bread maker (or other creators in similar circumstances) would not need to abstain for fear of such consequences is because the consequences did not arise due to human intervention in the process of making use of the product? Was there something more you wished to point out that I am now missing?

In this there might be a precept, which could then be applied by the consideration of the creator. The only difficultly I might see is that, are we to take unnatural occurrences to be necessarily bad? What if a human intervenes in a situation to help another individual. Could such an unnatural occurence then be considered a good thing? If so, then perhaps the idea of unnatural and natural occurences could not be used with such straightforward results and the issue would really be whether the occurences, natural or not, would result in positive outcomes?

In a similar sense to money, we could also look at it as the power of access to needed goods. Such access, as in the case of money, could be put to good ends as well as evil, right? If someone funds in or allocates goods to project which would have a positive outcome.

I have seemed to have lost touch with some of the precepts here except for this idea of what is positive.

My initial thoughts . . .

Responsibility is key and to me that spells out - do you understand your creation? Did you consider its impact before you began, while you were creating and then think how to mitigate any negative circumstance afterward?

Another thing that is being responsible in my eyes is asking others what they think and having the ability to beat down your own selfish pride when others are not liking your ideas. I might be sounding a little harsh here but I was inspired by seven words in the original post:

  • if they are truly of genius quality -

In one way I feel that genius should be redefined - but I will not go there.

If they are truly of genius quality - the creative minds that is - then surely to be a genius, responsibility should be easy for them to deal with.

Either way it seems along with their creations they are creating responsibility for the rest of us and not themselves . . .

Our responsibility is perhaps another topic. We have a responsibility to deny their selfish desires and their frivolity towards our shared reality. But where are the checks and balances in the creative arenas? Yes, people want paper checks (big, fat bank checks) but not to actually check on the nature and implications of other people’s endeavors.

To be honest, I dont like your suggestion that creations of real genius are all of the present.

I never suggested what you don’t like, so there! :evilfun:

WendyDarling

OK . . . I started another thread on responsibility - my style, lol. Yes we do have a responsibility to deny their selfish desires. We do share this reality. I do not believe there are genuine checks and balances in the creative arenas. Fat bank checks - has turned money into an evil concept instead of the convenience it could have been.

I think people want too much freedom - I think people place to much emphasis on being individual - I think people are disgusted by each other . . .

. . . and yet . . . Hmm . . .

People have this most unquenchable need to be applauded, as you say. Applauded by other people - it is a temporary rush - like a drug.

How do we keep the loonies in check?

At this point, I don’t know. :-k Does this whole conundrum return to the essence of a soul?

Perhaps it does . . . I will have a question for you about that soon.

I’m all eyes. :smiley:

I asked in the essence thread.

WendyDarling

In this thread . . . Mother Earth cannot sustain such frivolity of forethought - as stated in the original post . . .

. . . it seems to me we are at this point . . . figuring out how to consider potential creations with forethought.

We could possibly start considering this in the essence thread and go from there.

:-k

What are your thoughts?

Is a person’s modus operandi established by their soul’s essence?

Wendy, I like what you say about creativity. The creations of a genius are loved, dare we say for good reason?

Hopefully, one day we can say loved…for ALL good reasons.

Wendy Darling wrote:

I don’t agree with this, Wendy unless I am misunderstanding you here,.
People, even geniuses, are only human. The human mind and body can only go so far then perhaps it will collapse/breakdown?

Anyway, why would you say that? Someone else could pick up where they left off - that is, if the innovation is something really important and vital to humanity.

That doesn’t make sense to me, Wendy. It almost appears to be saying that one is hugging or being too possessive of one’s achievements, even to the point of ego.
That just might be perhaps how the growth of progress becomes stunted.
Where would science or medicine be if we had thought that way.
It is no failure to be unable to go any further. It is only human but perhaps another could take up the torch or the baton as in a relay race.

Have you ever heard Sir Isaac Newton’s expression: “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

I think that in a way there is no one who hasn’t achieved anything without having first stood on the shoulders of someone

Yes, there is. Think of it as belonging to the world at large, not to the person.

Again, is it possible that I am misunderstanding you?
Where is the gift which hasn’t been shared?

If I am misunderstanding you, please explain. Maybe it is just the language.

Mind is not something strange; it might be treated strangely, and even be mistreated, but these are symptoms of self-estrangement - after all mind is one-self.