The Performance of Transformative Practice

May 19th, 2006 Fred McVittie

Abstract ideas are understood in terms of more concrete ideas. That is, we understand and structure our thinking about intangible concepts (love, time, justice etc) based on experiences that give us direct sensory experiences. For the most part, the types of concrete experience we have and that we use to structure abstract ideas, are routine; standing up, walking a path, sensing a containment etc. The efficacy of what might be referred to as transformational actions; firewalking, sweatlodge, initiation rituals etc, lies in their power to create new ground from which new conceptual metaphors might be sourced. After an experience such as firewalking (or bungee jumping, sundance suspension rituals etc), in addition to conceptual or abstract structures relying on day to day experiences we also have non routine experiences to draw upon.

In other words, a firewalking ritual is not effective simply because it allows us to face our fear of fire or for some other obvious physical reason, but also because it provides a novel, organised, totally embodied concept which might then be used to structure a range of other, more abstract concepts.

This gives a rational basis for understanding certain physical practices associated with particular performer training regimes, and their relationship to particular uses of metaphor within those regimes. The aim is to allow the trainee to have concrete experience of a concept such that this concrete concept might then be mapped onto more abstract concepts present in the metaphorical language of the practice.

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Moments of Change in Creativity metaphors

August 6th, 2006 Fred McVittie

The dominant metaphors of creative processes all contain a phase during which a rapid change is affected. This might be variously described as a ‘breakthrough’, a ‘turning point’, or as a moment of ‘illumination’ depending upon which metaphor is being invoked. This moment of change, which is usually assumed to be indivisible and of short time span, is not present in metaphors for processes which we are regarded as less creative; building, ‘handicrafts’, folk art, etc.

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A Dream about Mixed Metaphors

September 11th, 2006 Fred McVittie

I had a dream last night about a world without any objects. Everything was unstable, in flux, but not chaotic or confusing. What would happen is that I would look at something, and that looking would be accompanied by a thought, and then as my stream of consciousness proceeded then as my thoughts changed this would physically change the thing I was looking at. It was as if I was watching the motion of my own thinking. I can only assume the dream was a reflection of the material on metaphor I have been hearing about; that as the metaphors which comprise my conceptualisation of experience shift, then the experience itself shifts. This kind of shifting presumably happens all the time in non-conscious cognition; I am thinking about something, love for example, and (usually unconsciously) understanding it as a PATH, and then my metaphorical understanding of that shifts so that I (again usually unconsciously) start to understand it as a CONTAINER. This suggests that however stable and consistent the external world may be, the internal, symbolically (metaphorically) structured, world must be much more motile. Many of the elements of the external world which we regard as object-like, particularly abstract concepts like love, justice, truth, etc. must exist in our minds as variable, transformable entities; PATHS can turn into CONTAINERS and then into BATTLES, and then into a DANCE. The symbolic universe of the unconscious must undergo these kind of transformations all the time, and these transformations should be surreal but not arbitrary; they should follow the logic of cognitive linguistics. I think it must be a vision of that universe that I dreamed about.

Posted in Cognitive Linguistics, Dream, Metaphor, Sleep, Story, Transformation | No Comments »

Mind Metaphors and States of Consciousness

September 19th, 2006 Fred McVittie

The various metaphors which we use to describe mind can be broadly gathered in three key groups; objects, substances, and spaces. The application of metaphor from each of these groupings is largely dependent upon the particular mental function or mental state one is trying to conceptualise of describe, and some metaphors lend themselves particularly well to describing complex states of mind and forms of consciousness. An example of this, drawn from the Substance group of metaphors, is that of MIND IS A LIQUID. The entailments of this metaphor, drawn from the variable properties and qualities of the source, allows a wide range of mental states to be conceptualised and described, and for these concepts to be structured in an organised way in accordance with the organisation of the source metaphor. LIQUID, typically water, can undergo a range of transformations, from solid ice to vaporous gas. It is capable of flowing and making its own channel, but also of being contained. When heated in a sealed container it is known for increasing in pressure and possibly exploding, when cooled it solidifies and acquires the form of the container holding it. Water can both be absorbed and can dissolve; taking other material into itself, or entering into other material completely. All these entailments, drawing on the variable properties of liquids, particularly water, structure the particular ontology of mind which draws on the MIND IS A LIQUID metaphor.

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Wallas and Wordsworth

May 28th, 2007 Fred McVittie

William Wordsworth in the introduction to the second edition of Lyrical Ballads in 1802 described poetry as ‘the spontaneous outflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origins from emotion recollected in tranquillity’. This remark, often held to be an example of the Romanticism which dominated much (English) poetry of the period, also suggests that poetry, as a creative act (perhaps the creative act) requires the poet to move through a series of psychological stages. Also the mention of a ’spontaneous outflow’ points toward a model of creative production which is hydraulic or pneumatic, involving some metaphorical substance that is accumulating within the mind of the poet, a mind possibly limited in capacity. The limited capacity of the mind causes the substance to be compressed and alchemically transformed into its most dense state and the eventual inevitable result of this continued accumulation is the overflowing or bursting forth of this transformed substance. The mechanism by which this accumulation and transformation takes place has a number of stages. ‘Emotion recollected in tranquility’ points to two of these stages. The ‘emotion’ stage is one in which one is immersed in the experience that is the source of the poem, it might be considered a ‘preparatory’ stage or even a period of ‘research’ (although this term suggests an emotionally-disconnected activity this is not an accurate conception of research, or indeed of any form of experiential cognition. See Damasio 2005). The ‘emotion’ stage is when the object of study is given over to the senses, it is when one metaphorically runs one’s hands over the experience, gathering subtle feelings and sensations. This is followed by a period in which one is separated from the experience, the phrase ‘recollected in tranquility’ suggests a period of calm, in which the poet is not directly involved in the conscious exploration or examination of the experience, but that other, non-conscious cognitive processes are active. It is during this period presumably that the ’substance’ circulating in the mind of the poet undergoes processes of accretion and accumulation, compression and condensation, such that it eventually overflows the container of the mind. At this point the third stage in the poetic process is entered in which the tranquility is replaced by a mental state corresponding to the bursting forth of this ’spontaneous outflow’ .

These stages show some correspondence to the stages of the creative process identified by Wallas (1923) and others since. These are the phases of Preparation, Incubation, Illumination, and Elaboration. Whereas Wallas uses the metaphor of light to relate this process, Wordsworth uses a metaphor of liquid. For Wallas, the moment of creative insight when the poet witnesses the emergence of the creative artifact into his own consciousness is seen as the sudden switching on of a light (Illumination). For Wordsworth this moment is the equally sudden breaking of a dam and the flooding of the stage of consciousness with the liquid of creativity.

Posted in Alchemy, Creativity, Damasio, Antonio, Emotion, Liquid, Metaphor, Transformation, Wallas, Graham, Wordsworth, William | No Comments »

Flow of Creativity

October 7th, 2007 Fred McVittie

It is widely understood that individual creative processes go through several stages. Activities which mark the early stages of a process are different to those which dominate later. It is further noted that the creative process is not linear, beginning with a particular problem or stimulus and working in an orderly fashion toward a final conclusion or response, but is chaotic and lacking clear boundaries. Inasmuch as there is an end to a creative process, perhaps in the revealing of a product of some kind, this end is likely also to be the beginning of others. Moreover, it is noted that the stages of a creative process tend not to be sequential and singular, but rather are multiple and cyclical. During any period of creative activity, the individual is typically working on different parts of the problem simultaneously, and the results of one activity tend to be recycled into other parts of the process. Also, these cycles within the creative process tend to occupy different scales, with some involving large formations of material undergoing massive transformations, whilst at the same time small problems are being creatively solved and tiny questions answered. We can visualise the creative process, then, as a tumble of circulating material and ideas, rather like the flowing of a river through rocks, with currents entering and re-entering the flow.

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