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To: Blind Eye Jones
I guess you don't believe that the sublimation of the animal instincts, the sex drive, for example, can result in creativity. Artists, not only of the Nietzschean ilk, believe this to be true -- as well, boxers and athletes also attest to how this drive can be channeled toward different ends.

It's a conscious decision to do the channeling. Rage, love, passion sex drive, etc. may be employed as a fuel. Emotions are not in themselves creative.

What do you think of the surrealists who see and draw upon the connection between the unconscious and their art? The language of dreams totally pervades their art.

A key phrase here: the language of dreams. Language denotes communication and dreams are an universal human condition. A surrealist like Magritte is bringing that universal dream language into his dialog with his audience, but his constructs are the work of his conscious mind.

As well, if creativity is a necessary component of free will, why can't we turn it on at will, like a light switch

You can, as any human not in a vegetative state can. When you decide what words you use to reply to me, you are creating. That does not mean you can force it into unaccustomed pathways at will. That takes the all too familiar creative struggle. I think "writer's block" occurs when a previously productive pathway plays itself out or the emotional fuel is exhausted. Maybe that's what happened to Rothko. His pathway became repetitive and his solution was to pour ever increasing amounts of rage into the path, with ever diminishing return.

142 posted on 05/12/2006 5:39:33 PM PDT by LexBaird (Tyrannosaurus Lex, unapologetic carnivore)
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To: LexBaird
"Emotions are not in themselves creative."

While emotions may not be creative, their repression has led to creative expression -- what comes up through the floor boards to consciousness. The conscious mind has no part in determining the imagery. It usually is quite surprised and shocked by it all. The conscious mind may decide to do the channeling of rage, love, etc., but it doesn't determine how these emotion will be modified or creatively expressed.

"A surrealist like Magritte is bringing that universal dream language into his dialog with his audience, but his constructs are the work of his conscious mind."

I'm not sure about that. I would think that the constructs (imagery) are given to him by the dream. I think that on some unconscious level there is judgment involved in choosing the image for the dream, though the dreamer is not consciously aware of this.

"When you decide what words you use to reply to me, you are creating."

I agree but this would have to be a lower order of creativity. It doesn't take emotional fuel to write this stuff. On an everyday level we use free will to create the most mundane things. It is still creative in the sense that the outcome of our choices may be something new, but not terribly profound.
143 posted on 05/13/2006 10:15:14 AM PDT by Blind Eye Jones
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