Some thoughts or ideas occur to me, and some do not, and that is important in all matters, from cooking at home to writing poetry. I wonder if there is some philosophy or psychology written on what occurs and does not occur to a person. I checked "creativity" in Wikipedia, but the article focus on only a small part of things that may occur to a person. This subject seems interesting to me because it seems that we cannot make a specific idea occur to us (we would already have it if we tried), but, on the other hand, the kind of things that occur to us seems to be an important part of what we are (different ideas occur to different persons in the same situations). Would you give me some guidance?
This is a very interesting
This is a very interesting issue. It seems clear on the one hand, as you say, that the thoughts that occur to us have a lot to do with who we are - many of the sorts of thoughts that occur to me won't occur to you and vice-versa. But on the other hand you're right to point to the involuntary aspect of how thoughts occur to us. So what seems to follow is that there is an involuntary part of the self - or some part of our mind that is out of our control, and that is a scary idea. It used to be said, and is sometimes still maintained, that creative inspiration actually comes from outside us altogether, perhaps from God.
The scary thought can be softened by distinguishing our conscious from our unconscious mentality, and considering the relation between the two. For a start it is plausible that the items that exist in your unconscious mind, e.g. your belief about what you had for breakfast before I just made it conscious by bringing it to your attention, or your memories of your first love, or your...
- Log in to post comments