Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem:
Hey Sriram,
Allow me to paraphrase the conversation about point b) so far - let me know if it's accurate.
You said that when variables are seen as constants, this forms a rigid structure, preventing new possibilities/connections from being made. You then said that naivete will aggravate this - that more variables will be seen as constants, leading to less possibilities and connections, and thus to less creativity.
So far so good,
Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem:
If that is accurate - I agree with you on the first point, but disagree with you on the second point. Naivete is, essentially, not believing anything. Not presupposing anything to be the case, whatsoever. If I am being totally naive (and attentive), then, for example, I look at a paper bag, and I have no idea what the other side of the paper bag will look like. So, I rotate the object, and then the backside comes into focus. However, now I have no idea what the 'original' side of the bag looked like. I don't presuppose that it will look the same as it did five seconds ago, even though that makes logical sense. I just have no way to know what it looks like until I rotate it again.
That's right. You were not able to see the variables. You were not seeing variables as some constants, you were not seeing the variables at all. Rmemeber, Zero is a constant, but you probably didn't know even that when you were Naivete.
When the inputs are coming from senses, all you are see are the constants of that experience. When you flip the paper bag, whatever constants you had experienced had to be retained in a variable space, as there are new constants (from the current senses) coming in. There is no way to retain the constants from previous experience in the current experience without variables, because of the unitary nature of any conscious experience.
Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem:
How would not presupposing/believing anything prevent novel connections from being made? It seems like it would make it a lot easier. Instead of treading well-worn mental paths, assuming this and that, you assume nothing, so you look at everything as if for the first time.
You can make new connections, but where is the data to make those connections?
Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem:
To summarize: it seems that both attentiveness and naivete would help with making novel connections (what we're defining as creativity), and that 100% attentiveness and 100% naivete (in the sense of not believing/assuming, not the feeling) would not hurt that capacity at all.
Did my explanation convince you Beoman? Or there is still something missing?
Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem:
Sriram Ad:
Imagination is imagination. What is this affective/feeling imagination? Is that a fact? It is directed away from the senses. But to be sure that affect is involved - how do you know that?
Whenever I have a mental image formed, no matter how clear it and information-laden it
seems to be, if I activate attentiveness and sensuousness, it fades away, and sensual and mental clarity increases. Then it becomes obvious that the mental image was a result of not paying attention, that it was giving me no new information, that it was just a blind re-hashing and composting together of whatever visual fragments were floating around.
For example, I was doing a jigsaw puzzle a while back. At first, I tried to figure out how the pieces go together by straining, mentally rotating them, trying to see where they would fit, etc. Then I tried just not straining in that way, holding back, picking up pieces and looking at them without any imagination effort involved, but activating attentiveness to sensuousness... and connections just started being made, in a surprising fashion. Like - oh, that works!
The brain is better at making connections than 'I' ever could be. 'Me' imagining something only prevents that innate ability of the brain from working at maximum efficiency.
Because of the unity of consciousness, if you activate sensousness (all sense data enter the consciousness) and attentiveness (every data, construct in the consciousness is analyzed using a habitual/factual/methodical process), no external image can come and sit on top of your experience.That doesn't mean that affect is involved in the process of imagination. (Absence of evidence doesn't mean evidence of absence)
Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem:
Sriram Ad:
Imagination is useful for creativity - I don't have a concrete example with me at the moment, but imagination can be used to map a spatial understanding into a visual space. Then you can play around with that picture, much faster and more efficient than done on a paper or software.
How about an experiment? Try looking for a concrete example. Try doing a task that you think requires imagination to be performed to its best ability. Then, do the task using visualization/imagination. Then, do the task while being as attentive to sensuousness as possible. And, see what happens. In which case did you perform better? One trial might not be enough, so you might have to repeat it a few times to get a good idea of what's really the case. And, you might simply be used to using imagination, so you perform better with it, whereas potentially the maximum effectiveness might be found by re-training to not use imagination, so you might have to fiddle with it. Let us know what you find.
I have done these experiments many times (not just one trial out of curiosity, I wanted as I always have to solve the problem at hand). The results were same. Whenever I was thinking about a problem far removed from your current sense inputs (read the room I'm in, air circulation coming from the fan in the room, light coming out of the window), Sensuosness happened to be of no use, Imagination/visualization gave me the results.
Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem:
There's not much point debating if one doesn't test these things out experientially.
In Mathematics, there is an interesting theory. It is a theory that is built on top of everything that can be understood in mathematics, and it applies to everything in Mathematics that is of sufficient complexity. So, in a way, it is similar to the fundamental characteristics of human experience.
Its called
Godel's incompleteness theory. It states that any system of sufficient complexity will be either incomplete (Some statements that are true in the system are not provable within the system) or inconsistent (Some statements that are false in the system can be proven to be true). There is no system which can escape this limitation.
Now, what is this sufficient complexity argument? It means that it doesn't apply to some simple, limited systems. And what kind of complexity we are talking about here? The complexity that is required to express natural numbers. Thats right, the numbers 1, 2, 3 and so on and so forth. All our language systems can sufficiently represent these numbers well, our minds can represent them quite easily. So the complexity required is not that complex at all, for it only states the systems that we use everyday, day in and day out.
Then, the Godel's theorem states that our languages and our mental states can not be complete and consistent at the same time. Godel's theory is not some hypothesis for some hypothetical situations, it is so encompassing that it includes our everyday state of existence. It is a proven theory, and the ways these proofs were formulated have been used in many later theorems, including the theory of Undecidability (Incomputability), by Alan Turing.
In my understanding, the property of incompleteness translates to the fundamental characteristic of impermanence. For if things are complete while being consistent, that can be expressed/experienced in a permanent way. Inconsistency translates to no-self or anatta, for if things are consistent in a complete system, that can be attributed to a self or an essence. The fundamental characteristic of suffering doesn't arise in a mathematical system, for that results from desire, which is an action to achieve something within the system. This might be something fundamental in any feedback control system (we don't know it for sure yet, I mean with proofs).*
What this means is that if you go through the stages of awakening and eliminate suffering, you are only limited by the universal limitations, you have a power of expression that is as powerful as any mathemetical system of sufficient complexity.*** You can be as perfect as possible within the limitations of a powerful system, while still retaining sufficient complexity (the ability to express natural numbers, at the minimum)
The Corollary is, if a system is proven to be complete (all true/factual statements are seen to be true/factual) and consistent(All false/non-factual statements are seen to be false/non-factual), it doesn't have sufficient complexity.
The Godel's theorem is the most difficult theorem to understand correctly. You can ask any mathematician or anyone with sufficient experience in mathematics that which was the most difficult one to understand in their experience, they will refer to this theory, without blinking an eye. So if you don't understand it, don't worry, you are not alone in that regard.**
Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem:
Sriram Ad:
(Another edit: You got to agree with me that there are no creative works of actualists in the public media - If one is more creative than before, why not even one creative work has been made to avail of? )
People are free to do as they choose. There's hardly a large sample size of actually free people, yet. Besides, I hear that Richard is working on a novel of fiction, so perhaps we will see that come out at some point.
One in twenty years is a good start, I should say. May be we will see the magical prodigies dancing around when that glorious work of fiction comes out

May we have more love and understanding,
Sriram.
*The buddhist/religious implications(of the correspondences I have indicated - impermanence to incompleteness) are that if there are gods and angels, they will all also have impermanence and not-self as their characteristics of experience, assuming they have no desire which will perpetuate suffering (since they are gods or angels), if they retain their (sufficient) complexity.
More food for thought in the
wiki**but please do investigate
***And the limitations of the brain of course.. I mean it has only 10 billion neurons.. We don't know how they work, but it must be (sufficiently) complex : )
Edit: some typos