Productive chaos
August 19th 2009 05:23
People often say of God that he/she/it is a filler explanation. God is a case of putting a label on and personifying your ignorance. You don't know why there's thunder and lightning? Well, "Thor is responsible".
Creationist accounts that speak of inexplicable jumps in the fossil record are similarly saying that such matters are mysterious, and will always be mysterious, and there's no point investigating.
They dictate limits to inquiry.
I feel the same way about "creative genius" and "works of genius". These descriptions are gesturings at the supernatural. We see something apparently new, and we're at a loss for explanation, so we write it off as inexplicable.
Personally, I like to scratch itches. Aristotle says somewhere that philosophy begins in wonder. Well, even if this is true, the philosopher's second, obsessive, instinct is to try to explain away the wonder, whereas a different personality type would be content to leave the world enchanted.
It may be that whenever you scratch the surface of an inexplicable masterpiece, you will always find humanity. You will always find process, method, systematicity, or a context that allows you to understand the creation.
When I say "understand", I'm partly talking about your own sense of your own ability to have created that masterpiece -- if you were put in the same position as its author. Presumably this is a big part of the standard by which we judge genius.
On examining many creative works, you will likely find such features as:
-- definite methods or processes;
-- education and training;
-- a lot of trial and error -- amounting, in some cases, to a sort of evolutionary process. A lot of possible solutions are generated for any one problem. This trial and error could play itself out in terms of revision on revision, or in terms of solutions generated in a person's head;
-- a context of previous work; the writer, artist, musician was already working in a particular area, experimenting with certain effects;
-- a social context -- for instance, a culture of sculpture, where there were many fine sculptors and schools;
-- a context of influence -- borrowings from other works;
-- a biography filled with experiences that could have inspired: -- what looks invented from thin air was in fact taken from life.
Notes
-- Check out this image of Daliesque rocks.
Creationist accounts that speak of inexplicable jumps in the fossil record are similarly saying that such matters are mysterious, and will always be mysterious, and there's no point investigating.
They dictate limits to inquiry.
***
I feel the same way about "creative genius" and "works of genius". These descriptions are gesturings at the supernatural. We see something apparently new, and we're at a loss for explanation, so we write it off as inexplicable.
Personally, I like to scratch itches. Aristotle says somewhere that philosophy begins in wonder. Well, even if this is true, the philosopher's second, obsessive, instinct is to try to explain away the wonder, whereas a different personality type would be content to leave the world enchanted.
***
It may be that whenever you scratch the surface of an inexplicable masterpiece, you will always find humanity. You will always find process, method, systematicity, or a context that allows you to understand the creation.
When I say "understand", I'm partly talking about your own sense of your own ability to have created that masterpiece -- if you were put in the same position as its author. Presumably this is a big part of the standard by which we judge genius.
***
On examining many creative works, you will likely find such features as:
-- definite methods or processes;
-- education and training;
-- a lot of trial and error -- amounting, in some cases, to a sort of evolutionary process. A lot of possible solutions are generated for any one problem. This trial and error could play itself out in terms of revision on revision, or in terms of solutions generated in a person's head;
-- a context of previous work; the writer, artist, musician was already working in a particular area, experimenting with certain effects;
-- a social context -- for instance, a culture of sculpture, where there were many fine sculptors and schools;
-- a context of influence -- borrowings from other works;
-- a biography filled with experiences that could have inspired: -- what looks invented from thin air was in fact taken from life.
***
Notes
-- Check out this image of Daliesque rocks.
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