Insight and Presence: the pivot points of self-organizing and Emergent Creative Systems
- 1. Science and Non-Duality Conference, 2017 San Jose, CA Insight and Presence: the pivot points of self-organizing and Emergent Creative Systems By Suzy Adra, Ph.D.
- 2. Thesis: “This dissertation seeks to understand the possibility of presence as a necessary precursor of the moment of insight in the creative process. Insight and presence become the pivot points of self-organizing creative systems.”
- 3. Why Presence and Insight?
- 4. Because of my experience with yoga, meditation, and painting….
- 5. 1- speed of execution 2- felt perception of an energetic force guiding every brushstroke. 3- a feeling of surrender 4- I was witnessing while something moved through me *my role ? *The relationship of this energy to consciousness? *Is it I who accesses states of consciousness or is it the other way around: consciousness is accessing me?
- 6. The basic definition of presence is: the ability to completely dedicate attention to the task at hand. It is the embodied feeling of a combination of surrender, letting go, trust, and the ability to be in a liminal state where the mind is quiet and is able to make new connections (Klein. G, 2013). The Literature
- 7. THE FLOW STATE flow. This is not a new concept. Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius (Pies, 2014) and Viktor Frankl (1959/2006) have all talked about flow. Csikszentmihalyi (Cheek sent me high- 1990) was the first to research flow and there are several studies that follow after that Flow is a Process, not a state Through my research I found that the flow state is composed of several states, not just one state Presence - the mystical notion of being here now is just one fragment of the flow state I began to ask what are the other states? One of them is insight.. I was able to find clues to this through looking at Vipassana and the literature on insight meditation.
- 8. Meditation has four primary phases: • withdrawal of external sense awareness (pratyahara), • concentration (dharana), • meditation (dhyana) and • absorption (samadhi). So I speculated that presence occurs between the two states of dharana and dhyana, between concentration and meditation.
- 9. I was now trying to understand how insight happens in the painting process because the creativity literature did not really speak about this, it addressed insight from a scientific process perspective: preparation incubation illumination Implementation This implies a linearity which is not true of creativity
- 10. The Encyclopedia of Creativity defines insight as that which can re- organize the mental field in a dramatic, and self-organizing way (Richards, 1999, p. 36). Removing blocks
- 11. Insight as I define it: a deep state of consciousness that allows for understanding the essence of things.
- 12. The interviews Findings *infinite numbers of creative process, infinite insights *Creative processes vary from one individual to another, and within each person. *An alchemical quality to flow creative process that is unaccounted for in neuroscience, and the available research ====> This alchemical quality is apparent when chaos theory is applied to analyze the emergent nature of creativity.
- 13. Chaos theory holds that within the seeming chaos of a system, there is a self organizing force (mystery) that creates order out of the messiness, the newly self organized product is what is emergent, and the process itself is emergence.
- 14. Emergence can take place when control is relinquished and flow is allowed. Presence, awareness, trust, and surrender are required. Emergence
- 17. I applied creative process (painting) to the concept of paticca samuppada or what is known in the Vedas as dependent co-arising or mutual causality (Macy, 1991). This theory holds that there are no primary causes but an interdependence and interaction of mutually conditioning events. It is reciprocal, cybernetic, non-linear, and depends on a multiplicity of factors in each moment.
- 18. Systems theory tells us that the individual interacts with the environment and responds as is appropriate in the moment. Each person responds depending on their belief systems, and worldviews. Since life is characterized by impermanence or annica, the process will change as the individual changes moment by moment, and day by day. There is always something perishing and something else replacing it (Macy, 1991, pp. 91–104). This change is a vital part of creative process and this is why researchers have found it difficult to really pin down how creative process takes place.
- 19. ..one last important finding…
- 20. Creative process are what bring the unconscious to the conscious by the mystery of self-organizing Self-organizing cannot take place without the state of presence. Presence is what allows for bringing what is the unconscious to consciousness: Insight This presence is witness consciousness and the concept comes from Advaita where the self is observing what is arising with equanimity. The remarkable finding is that the idea of making the unconscious conscious is what C. G. Jung defined as individuation (integration of shadow and light). Individuation is a Creative Process
- 21. Enlightened Deviousness Oil on woodboard, 2017 16”x20”