D’Andrea

The single concept I find most intriguing and replicable from D’Andrea’s approach to creating is his consistent collaboration with innovators from other fields.  It seems this kind of approach could benefit any type of creative endeavor. It will always broaden possibilities, ideas, approaches, expertise and apparently, success.  I have found in my own experience that this approach can be incredibly useful. I have a creative group I meet with regularly in which we all critique, review and advise each other’s work. Among the group is a writer, a singer/songwriter, a jewelry maker, and visual artist and a chef. The types of feedback from this group are completely different, and in many ways, much broader and unique than the feedback I get from only visual artist.  Hearing D’Andrea speak has encouraged me to more activity pursuer this idea of assembling collaborators not only for feedback, but to actually work together on creative projects.

I read that D’Andrea, while contemplating the idea of changing the way a distribution warehouse works, asked himself the following question, “What if the products could walk and talk?” What a simple approach to an incredibly complicated and massive task. He didn’t start with fancy algorithms, focus groups, or expensive research. Instead, he started looking at the warehouse and the distribution warehouse from the eyes and ears of the robot. As a result, he has completely changed the way in which distribution warehouses for several large companies are run, saving many man hours and cost. I have started to use this approach in my own problem solving. Already, it has altered my creative process, and how I approach creative problem solving for the better.

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D’Andrea Response

I can see why D’Andrea was the last lecturer of this series. I believe his work is a perfect mesh of creativity meets technology and hiis collaboration with artists like Max Dean mesh Science and Art.

After reading the articles provided and viewing the soccer robot documentary, I thought D’Andrea would be the stereotypical roboticist; highly intelligent but socially awkward. Of course he was not. In fact, he spoke more like an artist than a man of science.

***Sidenote- If you are hard of hearing, you should sit closer to the speaker.

I truly enjoyed Dr. D’Andrea’s lecture. I would love to own one of those flying squirrel suits. I also was amazed as how quickly the technology for the soccer robots evolved in just a year. I was pleased to learn that we are far away from a time when robots and humans compete in the same sports because I am slightly technophobic.

An interesting moment occurred when D’Andrea posted some of the comments posted on the YouTube robot chair video. Amongst the “This is fake” comments lies a criticism. The poster questions why money is fronted for projects like the robot chair when health issues such as cancer are still uncured. While I sympathize with the commenter I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. This argument is also often raised when funding for NASA is in the news.

During the Q & A part of the evening an audience member asked D’Andrea about possible medical applications (specifically artificial limbs).  To a certain degree this is already the present. I can only imagine that the current technology will evolve as quickly as the soccer robots. I wonder if one day eyes will be replaced with cameras. Also, what will happen if cybernetic limbs progress to a point that they are more efficient than biological limbs. What will this do to athletics? Also, how close are we to owning those flying skateboards we were promised?

All joking aside there were some other very important questions asked in both our class meeting with D’Andrea and the lecture. Perhaps the most important question (and most relevant to today’s economic climate)  is whether it is ethical to replace human workers with more efficient (and economic from a businessmen’s viewpoint) KIVA warehouse robots. D’Andrea masterfully answered this question by stating that these jobs are menial and are jobs that many people do not wish to fill. He later added that robots also replace humans in jobs that are dangerous, the bomb squad is a perfect example.

One question I forgot to ask and I am interested to hear his response deals with military applications. A few years ago our military adopted robotic drones (or unmanned aerial vehicles). These drones have so far been successful (however there have been reported errors that are inexcusable.)  These drones are controlled remotely and as such has been a hotbed of heated debate. I think by operating these drones remotely detaches the operator from the battlefield. War becomes a video game. Even though D’Andrea is not involved in this aspect of robotics I would be interested to hear his thoughts. This was a very interesting lecture and a brilliant way to close a successful lecture series.

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Whitehead’s Expansive Expanse…

Whitehead ideas, similar to Bohm’s, are expansive, sometimes abstract, and intimidating to address. I most certainly detect a physicists mind behind observations on the “pulse” and how it draws from converging threads/syntheses of energy to create infinite and unique effects, which then pay a role in becoming sources for new effects. But this sort of “telos” makes me wonder as to where “traces” initially stemmed from. Some big bang?

Also, if I’m reading him right, it sounds like Whitehead relates existence and experience to beauty (at least a certain type of it) in the idea that a pulse creates its own “final unity” and completes it’s own perspective of the world, bringing “into being a slightly, sometimes substantially, novel pattern of integrated feeling.” This rather sounds like Whitehead is saying that beauty is the frisson created by as a unit (human or otherwise) uniquely conduits an experience, an unwitting and “unconscious aim” present in each moment of our existence. This again leads back to a problem with characterizing the zest that the human soul has. Are souls simply convergences of energy? If so, do rudimentary souls evolve, while others decay? Where did these souls come from and what was their original form? As only dead things are persistent, everything else much participate in the flux. Is there any teleology or ontology in the vast flows of energy, especially in the notion of “concrescence”?

I have a great many questions of Whitehead. Now to get to his books…

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A little on Bohm, albeit a little late…

My experiences with Bohm have been multi and mani-fold. I first encountered his work when I began to interest in wholistic philosophies/perspectives on consciousness. In reading “On Creativity” and parts of “The Ending of Time” with Krishnamurti, I suddenly realized that a book that had affected me tremendously, “The Wholeness of Nature: Goethe’s Way of Science,” had been written by a student of Bohm’s, Henri Bortoft. Things came together, so to speak.

I find Bohm’s distinction between imaginativerational insight and imaginativerational fancy useful, though I find it a little hard to think of the term “fancy” as to mean conducting a task as tedious as testing ideas out, one by one, until a match is hit upon. To some extent I suppose that’s how it is with words, when I have a certain important tone/impact resonance/aftertaste I want to achieve, I often must brainstorm proximate words/phrases, and afterwards sit with them in front of me till the right one emerges. Very often, there is somewhat of a recognizable trajectory, a vague sentiment coming into shaper focus, but very often I leap back to restart. When the final word is chosen, if it simply catalogues all desired reverberations, I will probably just have exercised my imaginativerational fancies. However, if the word is one that is invested/embodied with meaning, not only in the immediate text but in the entire narrative, recapturing a theme/tension introduced in the first chapter perhaps, I may have exercised my capacities to engage in imaginativerational insights. This is of course easier to describe this sort of a thing with more narrative expansion, but enough about me. My hand doesn’t fascinate me all that much.

Of course, the imaginativerational fancies idea is expressed similarly in BVSR, bootstrapping, etc?

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Crewdson’s Creative Process

I figured it would be interesting to go back and look at Crewdson’s creative process and relate it to the ideas presented throughout the semester. Many of the ideas presented apply fairly well to Crewdson’s work moving from Pre-Production, Production and finally through Post-Production.

Simonton – Simonton’s theory of blind variation, selective retention applies well to Crewdson’s process. The theory that many ideas happen when a person is doing unrelated things that are then selectively pursued is apparent as Crewdson talks about his “eureka” moments for conceptualizing his ideas happening while he is swimming. Swimming is a key relaxation medium for Crewdson that allows him to creatively arrive at the images in his head as Simonton theorized.

Nersessian – Expanding on Simonton’s theory, Nersessian talks about metaphor and how “eureka” moments are not completely random but the result of many small incremental successes leading to the final problem solving success. It is evident in Crewdson’s use of water in many of his photographs that there is a greater connection between his works and his ideas while swimming then being purely random or blind.

Bohm – The aspect of “Bohm on Creativity” that struck me the most is the concept that the use of metaphor is not just how two unrelated things are similar but how they are both different in similar ways. Crewdson talks extensively about his father’s psychology practice and the discomfort and voyeuristic nature of peeking through holes in the floor to see the mystery of what his father was doing. This unique aspect of his childhood presents itself in the unresolved and distant feel of Crewdson’s works. What separates Crewdson’s childhood from others’ childhood is the same that separates his works from other photographers’ works.

Csikezentmihalyi – While I still feel flow is not an inherent part of the creative process, there is no denying the use of flow to describe Crewdson’s process. Crewdson describes being in Production as the time when he is most engaged with is work and finds the most pleasure. This is a clear example of someone being in a state of flow. There may not be any “eureka” style creative moments, but maybe  being in a state of flow is the conduit for getting the creative novel idea in your head into a tangible medium, such as a photograph, that has the utility or function.

Whitehead – Trying to relate Whitehead to Crewdson would be a 3 – 4 post long discussion in and of itself so I will talk about Whitehead just on the surface. Whitehead talks about how every pulse of experience is us trying to have an aesthetic achievement that we overlook. Crewdson being a photographer aims to bring that moment of aesthetic achievement back into our minds. This is apparent in the unresolved nature of his works. His works are very clearly just a moment in time and these moments have a desire to be beautiful regardless of the narrative and other pulses of experience surrounding them before and after.

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D’Andrea Lecture

From both the D’Andrea meeting and lecture, I was surprised to find out that he shared a perspective more aligned with Gregory Crewdson than of our other speakers.  I found this quite interesting given the fact that D’Andrea is also the speaker whose experience relies so heavily on the hard sciences.  D’Andrea values the creating things, in his case robots, for enjoyment.  He does not worry about every creation having a utilitarian purpose.   If one enjoys his/her creative process, and not focus on the function, it may eventually lead to a creation that can benefit society.  I see a similarity between Crewdson because he as well did not put so much emphasis on the purpose, or meaning, behind his photographs.  Crewdson stressed the importance of making the most beautiful image at that moment.  D’Andrea’s presentation of his devices shares that connection.  The robotic chair, the wingsuit, and the robocup all demonstrate a desire to create something pleasurable.

We do not allow much room these days for a creation we just enjoy.  Though a lot of current technology may be enjoyable, I believe it falls under the category of being more distracting.  I do not think I have to take up a lot of time explaining these devices because I believe most people agree that our devices for enjoyment, such as a cell phone, is a form of distracting us from our lives.  Possibly that is the purpose of most present-day technology: to distract us from our mundane surroundings.  However, these devices do not foster creativity as D’Andrea’s robots could.  The robotic chair, a functionless device beyond its ability to reassemble, intrigues the viewer.  The chair merges art and science, and as the article over the chair proves, the chair prompts an intellectual discussion.  Enjoyable, fun creations such as these may not have a utilitarian purpose, such as the Kiva robots do, but just like seeing a performance piece or hearing a song, the experience can foster a separate act of creativity.  It can accumulate other creations.  It can inspire others to be creative in the field of science.  One should not always worry about the function of an item.  Even the wingsuit falls under this category.  Though the suit clearly has a function, to make someone briefly experience flight, there is no real purpose for it.  Rather, the wingsuit captivates both the user and viewer.   They go against the norms and expectations.  A person should not be able to fly in a suit, and a chair should not fall apart and reassemble itself.  What D’Andrea and his team prove is that creativity can eliminate such expectations, or boundaries.   By demonstrating such possibilities, D’Andrea opens the scope of creativity.  Though this may seem overly optimistic, I am comfortable discussing the excitement of these robots because they are only for enjoyment.  I am still leery of the functional robots.  I believe we must set limitations on what tasks the functional robots will do.  Though they can take the mundane and dangerous jobs from humans, we have to consider how far we will allow robots into the functional environment of society.  Until we establish such guidelines, scientists such as D’Andrea, and even artists, should continue to explore the aesthetic possibilities of robotics.  The evolving creativity in this realm can lead to greater discoveries.

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D’Andrea and Practical Examples of Creativity

D’Andrea had some interesting and practical examples of what other speakers have been saying about creativity. What’s fascinating about his work is not just the problems he overcomes, but even coming up with the problem in the first place.

Considering many of his projects have no inherent utility just figuring out what problem to tackle is itself creative because it is something that has not been thought of or approached before. His anecdote about wanting to create the balancing cube while watching a circus is a prime example of the use of metaphor in creativity that we’ve seen in a variety of speakers this semester.

On the other side he also gave anecdotes  about how metaphors can be detrimental and stifling to the creative process. The metaphor of how a human operates and interacts and applying it to robotics doesn’t always yield the best result. He talked about how the original concept for how the Robot Chair would operate back in ’85 was by using a robotic arm to grab the pieces in the way a human would. D’Andrea said many times how impractical this would be to try and implement. Also using a spinning bar to add backspin to his Robocup robots was solving the problem of the robots not having control over the ball and not solving the problem of how can we make these robots operate more like how human soccer players operate.

In a more general perspective, the basis of his talk, creation for creation’s sake, was interesting because it shows how far our society has to go before we understand the creative process and it’s importance. His practical and tangible examples are a strong supporter in favor of creation for creation’s sake that resonates alongside comments other speakers have made such as Nersessian addressing the importance of the doodles along the edges of Newton’s notebooks.

This practical look at creativity in action makes for a nice closer to the semester as it allows us to look at creativity using the lenses of topics we’ve heard from earlier in the semester. It will be interesting to discuss his work as a class and see the relationships between it and the theories discussed in earlier presentations.

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Whitehead

I apologize to my fellow classmates and Professor Brown for not being present last week.

I feel I must preface this post by stating point-blank that I have never had the pleasure of being enrolled in a formal course on Philosophy. I have been in courses wherein the heavy hitters (Foucault, Rousseau, Nietzsche, etc.) were touched upon, but were never the main focus.

During my first podcast project (which was lost due to me deleting a file I thought was superfluous) Diane McGurren mentioned that some people exist on a completely different plane. We call them geniuses. Dr. Turner is a prime example.  After reading Victor Lowe’s The Philosophy of Whitehead, it is clear to me that Lowe felt the same way about his former teacher. According to Lowe, “(Whitehead) has become the most quoted and the least accepted of twentieth-century thinkers” (226).

Of the two readings I found Lowe’s more accessible and thought-provoking. This is probably due to the fact that I am not familiar with Whitehead’s work, so some of  Hanna’s in-depth critique flew well over my head. If I had the time and philosophical background to read Whitehead’s work I feel I may have more appreciated Hanna’s work  – but more on that later.

I am not normally a highlighting fiend. However, I found myself highlighting many of Lowe’s lines. Many lines I find beautifully written, such as (on discussing Whitehead’s metaphysics as a modern Platonism) “In truth, this philosophy generalized perfectly, in the terms of the European philosophical tradition, the attitude of that rarest of men–he whose feet are on the ground while his eyes are turned upward” (234).

I appreciate Lowe’s thoughts as to why some are hostile to systematic philosophy.  Although I am not hostile to philosophy per se, I have debated enough philosophers in my years to know that such debates are never won. Lowe offers one explanation for this hostility. “One reason is that practically all philosophers presented their schemes of thought as closed systems, and claimed to arrive in principle at a complete understanding of the world. These claims have been shown up, and so systematic philosophy has received a bad name: we condemn the arrogance of philosophers, with their neat, closed little systems, each sure of his truth and of the error of other philosophers.” Lowe adds that Whitehead once said, “”We must have systems, but we must keep them open.” That was the final word in the philosophy of the wisest man of our period” (239).  I appreciate this quote and believe that such arrogance is not confined to philosophy but is present in nearly every creative field because no one wants to be wrong.

One concept I found particularly interesting is Whitehead’s concept that nothing in the universe is ever  really dead. He also portrays nature in a way I haven’t thought of before. I was also interested in his discussion about the impact of experiences. He writes, “Your present experience, as a whole, is another process–a synthesizing process of feeling this wide environment, that is, of bringing its factors to a new head, self-enclosed and privately enjoyed” (228).

This discussion in particular spawned a daydream of sorts. I began thinking “OK, we create experiences and these experiences are always colored by our past experiences.” Now this past weekend I spent hours editing down 2.5 hours of conversation to 1, in short creating a new experience. This new experience is, in a sense, its own because through editing down the audio no one was present for the experience I created. This all makes perfect sense in my head but I fear I may not be as clear as I need to be.

I found Hanna’s work very challenging. It was as if I couldn’t find a point of entry and at times I thought Hanna was writing in circles. However, it is evident that Hanna did heavy research for this project. Some mentioning of creativity correlated with some points which can be heard in my project. On page 136 Hanna writes “The very meaning of what it is to be an entity is contained in the triad of creativity, many, and one.” During the podcast Diane mentioned that human beings have an innate need to create- whether that be a work of art, a scrapbook, or even a sandwich. However, this line does seem to be in conflict with Lowe. Lowe commented that one way Whitefield was different from his contemporaries was his inclusion of the natural world. So I am interested in what constitutes an “entity” to Hanna, because not every entity is creative (if we are to consider animals entities.) Or do you even need to be animate to be considered an entity? However, it should be noted that in this essay this discussion of entities was part of a discussion of Whitehead’s The Category of the Ultimate, so it is more than likely that I am missing a piece of the puzzle.  On page 139 he writes “… creativity may at once be the “universal of universals” and yet “behind” all the universals is its distinctive universality. I am still working this statement out in my head.

Overall I found both readings worthwhile and am sorry I missed what I am sure was an enlightening discussion. I def. have plenty of questions regarding Hanna’s essay.

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Whitehead & Bohm

While considering Whithead today, it occurred to me that there an interesting similarity to the Blackfoot Philosophy that we read about in Bohn’s, On Creativity.

Whitehead sees the “unity, which underlies all things as a unity of process, that is, as a temporally continuous whole which is self-unfolding, open-ended, and essentially incomplete.” Whitehead’s unity of process states that “every part is present in the whole and the whole in every part — present in the sense of the essential interconnectedness of all things”.

The Blackfoot philosophy presented in On Creativity includes ideas of constant motion, constant flux, or all creation consisting of energy waves….”  “The constant flux notion results in a ‘spider web’ network of relationships. In other words, everything is interrelated.”

These two concepts seem to run consistently through both philosophies – the idea that creativity always involves continually change and flux, and the interconnectedness of everything.

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Whitehead & Buddhism

While I found the Whitehead readings extremely difficult to understand with zero prior knowledge of his work, or Process Theory, our discussion last Thursday night prompted me to examine what seems like similarities between several Buddhist concepts  and Whiteheads theories.

1. Perhaps the most obvious similarity between Whitehead’s philosophy and Buddhist doctrines is that both view existence as flowing rather than static. In Buddhism, this idea is expressed in terms of the impermanence of all phenomena; our actual experience is always changing and that all phenomena arise and pass away. We never find anything constant or permanent in our experience. For Whitehead, the final real things of the world are actual entities and these entities are not permanent essences, but rather processes of becoming: “how and actual entity becomes constitutes what that actual entity is. …Its ‘being’ is constituted by its ‘becoming’”. The actual entities of reality are thus never static, but are in a process of becoming and “perpetually perishing.”
2. Whitehead’s concept of superject is the notion that every impermanent phenomenon, every fleeting drop of experience, does not simply disappear without any trace, but always leaves behind consequences that enter into other moments of experience. In other words, the karmic consequences of each impermanent phenomenon constitute its objective immortality. Another way of stating this is that an entity’s relatedness to other entities (i.e., its emptiness of independent existence) is its permanent aspect.
3. According to Buddhism, the root of all suffering is our ignorance of dependent arising. Based on this fundamental mistake, we imagine things to be permanent when they are impermanent, we imagine things to have isolated, independent existence when they are actually empty of any such independent existence, and we ignore the causal relationships between things. We then suffer when things change or pass away, or when we experience the unpleasant consequences of our prior actions. This ignorance is so deep that it is normally operative below the level of consciousness. The ultimate purpose of Buddhist practice is to become aware of this ignorance and change the habitual patterns of action that are based upon it. Whiteheads states, “The world is thus faced with the paradox that, at least in its higher actualities, it craves for novelty and yet is haunted by terror at the loss of the past, with its familiarities and its loved ones. It seeks escape from time in its character of ‘perpetually perishing’” Whitehead roots evil in the impermanence itself, while Buddhist doctrine roots suffering not so much in impermanence but in our failure to come to terms with it.

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