I listened to one of your podcasts with Dr. John Knight Lundwall, in its entirety. BTW you have a great speaking voice. I enjoyed how deep the conversation went, and how easy you were letting him speak. It was interesting that several observations were mirroring, in a cross disciplinary way, my understanding of visual art and art history. I wrote a book, Evolution Through Art, discussing how art from 35,000 + was the breakthrough of modern humans, and we have the original artworks to analyze versus speculation. The book ends on what innovative figurative artists are now leading the way to the next human evolution.
Amy, thanks for your very thoughtful comments. I’m a bit surprised that sharing an introspective dialogue would open up a conversation so thoroughly. Also notice it with Ralph’s comments as well. (Below.) I’m taking note of that.
Yes, Michael, from my experience I would say that the inner voice accompanies most goal-directed human action -- perhaps all, if you permit the pre-verbal neural (synaptic) rearrangements that precede verbalization to count as an inner voice in some respect. To take an example that will be familiar to you, when sending the tennis ball to an opponent and seeing how he is approaching it, one may pre-verbally form a judgment about the most probable return paths etc. Since sports are played in the now, such pre-verbal thoughts can't reach the level of speech unless the play is interrupted, when one might say, "Drop shot, dammit." or the like, especially if the drop shot looked like a low probability.
Where one has time for a degree of contemplation, as in many creative activities, the pre-verbal expectations one has of his media and pre-verbal expectations one has of the results his next choice may readily turn into inner speech, but not necessarily grammatically complete sentences. One may consciously verbalize a few concepts like "cliché" or "redundant", and move on to new candidate expressions, or "ah ha!" (i.e., "success"), and move on to the next step. I find that when the going gets tough, full sentences are very helpful, perhaps even full paragraphs written down in ones working journal. Especially helpful is the writing down of explicit questions, such as, "Exactly what am I trying to do here?" since it's hard to find the answer if you're unclear about the question.
I would love to hear more of your perspective on the psychology of creativity -- you are very insightful on this.
Incidentally, the exact origin and attribution of "art is the technology of the soul" will not surprise you -- The Objectivist Newsletter. November, 1963; "The Goal of My Writing" by Ayn Rand":
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Growing from a common root, which is philosophy, man's knowledge branches out in two directions. One branch studies the physical world or the phenomena pertaining to man's physical existence; the other studies man or the phenomena pertaining to his consciousness. The first leads to abstract science, which leads to applied science or engineering, which leads to technology—to the actual production of material values. The second leads to art.
Art is the technology of the soul.
Art is the product of three philosophical disciplines: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics. Metaphysics and epistemology are the abstract base of ethics. Ethics is the applied science that defines a code of values to guide man's choices and actions—the choices and actions which determine the course of his life; ethics is the engineering that provides the principles and blue-prints. Art creates the final product. It builds the model.
Wonderful comments Ralph! And fascinating pick up on automatized functions with tennis. Though both in tennis and art, you can “practice” with explicit consciousness away from the main event. I wasn’t sure that Rand was the primary source of “Art is the technology of the soul.” I mentioned above to Amy, that I was surprised that my introspective dialog would garner detailed replies, that is fascinating. So I will do as you suggest, in sharing more of my psychological process.
I am going to steal "innerverse!"
Send me a link. 😀
I listened to one of your podcasts with Dr. John Knight Lundwall, in its entirety. BTW you have a great speaking voice. I enjoyed how deep the conversation went, and how easy you were letting him speak. It was interesting that several observations were mirroring, in a cross disciplinary way, my understanding of visual art and art history. I wrote a book, Evolution Through Art, discussing how art from 35,000 + was the breakthrough of modern humans, and we have the original artworks to analyze versus speculation. The book ends on what innovative figurative artists are now leading the way to the next human evolution.
Amy, thanks for your very thoughtful comments. I’m a bit surprised that sharing an introspective dialogue would open up a conversation so thoroughly. Also notice it with Ralph’s comments as well. (Below.) I’m taking note of that.
Love it! Thank you! Authenticity rules!
Yes, Michael, from my experience I would say that the inner voice accompanies most goal-directed human action -- perhaps all, if you permit the pre-verbal neural (synaptic) rearrangements that precede verbalization to count as an inner voice in some respect. To take an example that will be familiar to you, when sending the tennis ball to an opponent and seeing how he is approaching it, one may pre-verbally form a judgment about the most probable return paths etc. Since sports are played in the now, such pre-verbal thoughts can't reach the level of speech unless the play is interrupted, when one might say, "Drop shot, dammit." or the like, especially if the drop shot looked like a low probability.
Where one has time for a degree of contemplation, as in many creative activities, the pre-verbal expectations one has of his media and pre-verbal expectations one has of the results his next choice may readily turn into inner speech, but not necessarily grammatically complete sentences. One may consciously verbalize a few concepts like "cliché" or "redundant", and move on to new candidate expressions, or "ah ha!" (i.e., "success"), and move on to the next step. I find that when the going gets tough, full sentences are very helpful, perhaps even full paragraphs written down in ones working journal. Especially helpful is the writing down of explicit questions, such as, "Exactly what am I trying to do here?" since it's hard to find the answer if you're unclear about the question.
I would love to hear more of your perspective on the psychology of creativity -- you are very insightful on this.
Incidentally, the exact origin and attribution of "art is the technology of the soul" will not surprise you -- The Objectivist Newsletter. November, 1963; "The Goal of My Writing" by Ayn Rand":
-------------------------------
Growing from a common root, which is philosophy, man's knowledge branches out in two directions. One branch studies the physical world or the phenomena pertaining to man's physical existence; the other studies man or the phenomena pertaining to his consciousness. The first leads to abstract science, which leads to applied science or engineering, which leads to technology—to the actual production of material values. The second leads to art.
Art is the technology of the soul.
Art is the product of three philosophical disciplines: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics. Metaphysics and epistemology are the abstract base of ethics. Ethics is the applied science that defines a code of values to guide man's choices and actions—the choices and actions which determine the course of his life; ethics is the engineering that provides the principles and blue-prints. Art creates the final product. It builds the model.
Wonderful comments Ralph! And fascinating pick up on automatized functions with tennis. Though both in tennis and art, you can “practice” with explicit consciousness away from the main event. I wasn’t sure that Rand was the primary source of “Art is the technology of the soul.” I mentioned above to Amy, that I was surprised that my introspective dialog would garner detailed replies, that is fascinating. So I will do as you suggest, in sharing more of my psychological process.