Where does one begin an inquiry into human nature?

Inquiry is usually hopeful.  This hopefulness rests on the assumption that there are answers.  The most intelligent of humans assume that with determined and sustained application of reason nature will succumb to order and all will be well.  We may remain hopeful, if only of an individual acquisition of enough knowledge to reach some semblance of balance or “happiness”.  However within the scope of the totality of human endeavours, it becomes harder to maintain hope.  It would seem plain for anyone who would look carefully that the very structure of thinking lends itself to a subtly inconspicuous and therefore dangerous reductionism or simply that the set of filters through which all information is processed can possibly cause groupings that engender the naive unverified dismissal of some essential portion of the answers we seek.  Today, some reasonable theoretical sifting reduces humanity to binary processing, while it is clear to the discerning that the human essence functions at points between 0 and 1 – ghosts in the machine.  More importantly, the necessary reduction of thought by language (for example: the word love vs. its meaning) allows for the loss of possibly integral intricacies of the soul.  So the diatribe continues…Millennia of inquiry filtered down through species historicity to the tip of the pen of yet another human in yet another century of inquiry.  This pen will argue that the core method of human inquiry has filtered down in various permutations to those that still conduct sustained practice of one of the oldest occupations in the history of human kind – art making.  It can be argued that this pre-occupation of individual humans in an activity that is as mysterious to those that practice it as it is to non-practitioners remains in its core methodology the same as in the days of ancient caves; where the shamans of hunter-gatherer societies performed rituals to assist in the understanding and conquering of nature.  Though some may contend that ancient cave paintings or three dimensional artefacts may simply be the work of ancient interior decorators or equivalent to the scrawling of children, this is a contention that is put forward for contemporary works of art and does not in and of itself invalidate a claim that it is as it was.  This includes the persistence of a historically continuous presentation of the tightly bound relationship between religion and art.    As an extant field of practice that is arguably unchanged in the structure of its processes (and possibly changed only in the content of its products) from a time that is generally investigated as the period of the emergence of human consciousness, it is believed that an investigation of the practice of art or the creative process can provide fundamental information about the structure of consciousness itself.  One of the primary difficulties in the investigation of consciousness is the problem of subjectivity (i.e. introspection) which convolutes issues of intentionality.  Using comparative analyses of the creative process with religious experience, some cognitive processes involved in introspection (metacognitive judgements and autobiographical memory) and psychoanalysis it is hoped to clarify why scientifically grounded and sustained investigation of the artistic creative process can possibly elucidate ‘problems of consciousness’. 

Why is this would this be a direction to take in an inquiry into human nature?  Because eventually, regardless of beginnings or tangents, one settles in on the question, “What is essentially human – what would be the essential portion of human nature?” It is believed that question can be answered with the following statement, aware it is weighted with assumptions.

 The essential portion of humanity, that separates man from animal, is the soul; oftentimes used interchangeably with mind or consciousness.

Four assumptions are noted. The first is contained in the question itself; that there is an essential portion of humanity – a human nature or thing that is necessary in order to be human.  This is the same as the idea that man can be separated from animal.  In fact, it is hoped narrow the inquiry to an essentially (i.e. possibly necessary to) human behaviour; objectifying subjective thoughts through analysis and/or attempts at refinement of those subjective thoughts.  The second assumption is that soul, mind and consciousness[1] are interchangeable words, or more properly they represent the same concept based on the third assumption; it is this thing barring all others that makes a being “human”.  These assumptions are, for practical purposes, of no interest to us.  Within the scope of this inquiry, in the interests of time, arguments to these assumptions will not be addressed.   We must however address the use of the word soul as opposed to mind or consciousness.  The use of “soul” though fraught with some problematic connections becomes necessary since portions of these very connections are what enable it to be more comfortably and properly used as a referent of human differentiation -- from all other beings that may have consciousness or mind to some degree. 

It is a word that separates humans in kind from other animals and embodies the entire weight of the first assumption.  If we speak of a pet’s soul this anthropomorphizes the pet.  We wish that the beloved pet has a soul, but we can be more sure that only human beings participate in activities that fit into the concepts (the most pertinent of which is the awareness of or the desire for betterment of the soul) that form a larger concept of a soul, than that pets may.  This does not beleaguer an extension of our human feelings to the concerns of animal welfare or eliminate a moral responsibility to animals.  It only states that we can more reasonably be sure that the concept of soul is essentially human and fails to extend to animals; it does not seem possible for a serious argument to be made at this point toward an animal quest for the betterment of the soul.  There has been the trend of investigating humanity through animal research.  It would seem that it has been an easier and more scientifically plausible task to get at answers to essential questions of humanity through attention to interspecies associations and similarities.  This trend, we will suppose is an effort to adhere to a scientific objectivity avoiding the many problems of subjectivity.  This is the largest hurdle of all in the race to the finish line of answering the question of human nature; the idea that the subjective has less weight than the objective.  However, the trend toward this type of research faces its own problems – fanciful extensions of analogy, the least of which is pet souls[2], and degree vs. kind errors in reduction – and may in fact be innocuously misdirected by the mechanisms of the essential portions of humanity and thinking itself.  The objective, in case anyone misses this, is based on a ruling conglomerate of subjective deduction. The small portion of human souls, of grounded individual inquiry, silently screams during meditation, reflection and prayer against mob rule.  In the struggle to acquire objective information to test subjective beliefs, as is necessary, the problem of the conglomerate’s deeply rooted filter persists.  History provides examples of this mechanism for scientific progress; the majority decries the validity of a new science, brought forward by the individual who audibly screams, until the old majority reluctantly steps aside or the new one overcomes.  Maybe this mechanism is flawed.  It would seem more efficient to direct attention to intraspecies similarities.  Here we arrive at the line of demarcation.  The majority of humanity ascribes credibility to some aspect of the soul, inasmuch as the soul concept encompasses, through semantics and/or analogy,[3] the larger whole, outside of conventional reason, contained within or eclipsing the individual.  The noted assumptions fall away from practical application through the very weightiness of this similarity even as the present inquiry succumbs to the methods of majority rule.[4]  

Perhaps there are portions of the continually revisited machinations of the majority resistance that are necessary.  Though the minority would cure the majority, can we really arrive at a cure by ignoring the symptom?  In every minority cry, the system of the majority must be addressed and overcome.  The methodology of the symptom gives clue to the treatment of the disease.[5]  The knowledge of the familiar must be used to fully assimilate the new.  Hence the thrust of this inquiry – the soul, with all its associative incongruities tightly bound to the concept of searching for objectivity, is the essence of humanity.  A note should be made that a search/necessity for objectivity is effectively ended/filled by the concept of God.  This does not mean that those who accept this concept without question do not have the essential human nature that is currently under discussion, but rather that they no longer need to search.  The fact that such people exist therefore does not necessarily invalidate a claim to its essential nature.  Having established that thrust, the hand is played and we will take advantage of the interchange of words; noting that although, from this point forward, we will bring into play the more “reasonable” terms of mind and/or consciousness it is with all the weightiness of the familiar assumptions that accompany claims to being the essence of humanity.  This illustrative use of the term soul was a semantic manoeuvre in the attempt to bring to the forefront concepts that are largely analogous to a spiritual search or simply encapsulated in the concept of spirituality; the specificity to human endeavours and importance of which, it is hoped will be clarified through the following comparative analyses of the creative process.  Still, upon arriving here, we are faced with the realization that the question is no less intricate.   For though the term soul carries with it a weightiness, this weightiness is usually alleviated in the prescribed leap of faith.  We may accept the construct of the soul, mind and consciousness being interchangeable and ascribe properties of the concept of the soul to our use, but the soul is allowed to leap away from in depth analysis in a fashion we cannot consistently correspond to mind or consciousness.  More firmly bound to reason and its limits, a methodological inquiry of the mind becomes a thorny matter.  We are tempted to think that the only path toward determining how the mind works in an investigation of human nature is to investigate the why of consciousness.  Why is there consciousness at all?  Why must the mind even attempt to process the unreasonable and why in this fashion, manifesting ideas of the soul, creating myth and/or religion?   As before, we try to manoeuvre beyond beginnings or tangents.  It is important that, for this inquiry, we address how consciousness currently functions for the average human being.  And we must investigate this functionality within the context of the majority, as deluded or error laden the more enlightened minority may believe them to be or even prone to be.  We want to be sure of our parameters – to arrive at the very nature of the thing – the root of the ‘problem’.   Again we make a statement, grounded by the weightiness of being the thing that separates human from animal (or machine). 

Human consciousness or the mind, at its root, attempts to objectify our subjective perceptions and ideas for a process of evaluation toward the determination of and aligning with reality or truth, i.e. it is used in a seeking manner – in the search for truth or objective reality.

This statement manoeuvres past other formulations of how consciousness functions, for example: 1) functions as simply a processor – of sense perceptions or 2) allows for development or learning.  Even if animals at some level make “decisions” about the veridical nature of their sense perceptions it is not in the manner we wish to address in this inquiry.  We assert that animals invariably trust their perceptions and are not interested in a search for truth.  Thus, the mind we investigate cannot be reduced to a thing that merely exhibits the ability to develop or learn, but must do so in a very specific manner.  It must have the capacity of developing a self-awareness or self-consciousness, which is specifically described as an awareness of “The Seek”[6] – a term we will occasionally use for the purposes of this inquiry.  With this concept we push the envelop of consciousness further into an unequivocally human territory.  The mind or consciousness functions to assess, catalogue and store all received information for further use, comparison and possible subsequent modification.  Additionally, the received information is subject to the filter of previously accumulated information that has been assimilated by the mind; the individual in essence becomes the sum total of this process.  The focus will be on the portion of this process that involves analysis of subjective beliefs; introspection coupled with an attempt at objective reflection on the contents of the mind.  This very functioning of the mind is what constitutes the basis for development of the human psyche. 

It is this essential portion of human nature that we address in this inquiry as what makes ‘consciousness’ seemingly immaterial or indescribable; the psyche – another word that is interchangeable with ‘soul’.  It is a word weighted with meaning that necessitated a studied development within our inquiry before use.  When we speak of the psyche we usually mean the individual human being, with specific thoughts of psychology and analysis or the development of an individual to a whole, psychologically (and in some sense spiritually) healthy human.  There is a puzzle created by the realization that there are parts of an individual consciousness that may be inaccessible; that require effort to bring to awareness and decipher.  The word psyche, our link to both self and psycho-analysis, calls for the comparative discourses to follow and the essence of human nature is subsumed into the psyche for this further investigation.  Artists are of a specific group whose activity is largely predetermined by the concept of different levels of consciousness.  Artists work in a manner is effectively similar to psychoanalysis or analytic psychology, but it is more like the self analysis practiced by the founders of these fields; with the exception that artists do not necessarily focus on repression or individuation perse, but on a studied immersion in the creative process itself – a practice of introspection that has as its products works of art.  As prognosticated, the majority must be addressed; using the familiar to move forward into a new way.  The basis of the problematic associations of the majority belief system stem from ‘religious’ belief.  The belief in and subsequent experience of God(s) and spirituality are primarily subjective and inaccessible to reason.  As such, human experience and the development of the individual psyche, mediated by consciousness, stretch beyond the limits of conventional reason.  An investigation of the creative process can be the middle road between an objective methodology and the subjective inaccessibility of religious experience and practice. 

The ascribed task of this inquiry is to attempt to explore human nature – the phenomenon of the human psyche – as it is relative to the question of art or, more specifically, the creative process.  On this basis, we will attempt to establish the role of the artist and the art making process in the investigation of emergent consciousness, therefore an important resource in a phenomenological understanding of the mind.   This proposed role is specific to the capability of addressing ineffable portions of the human psyche, a concept that seems to be difficult to explain in a satisfactory matter.  It seems reasonable to believe that if we come to an understanding of process of making art, and by extension the creative process, we can then come to an understanding of general human behaviour. At this stage, we will make correlations between the aesthetic experience and the religious experience.  The kinship of the aesthetic experience to the religious experience will enable investigation leading to an alternative rational recounting of these ineffable portions of human nature.   The aesthetic experience, because of this kinship, has throughout history been intertwined with religion and religious experience.  In spite of this, aesthetic experience can be subject to scrutiny without an inevitable appeal to an external indefinable "divine intervention" beyond our cognitive capabilities and/or the possibility of grounded scientific investigation.  Similarly, we will attempt to show that a development not necessarily involving the suprasensible can be documented through the tangible objects of expression produced by the artist.   Evidenced by the usually noticeable line of development within the body of work of a single artist, a conscious awareness seems to be developed through the continued effort to refine expression. 

 By taking into account artist intentionality, using the root functionality of consciousness, in investigating the source and meaning of tangible objects produced and how this process relates to an emergent consciousness, we hope to establish that this type of inquiry into the art making process is essential to an understanding of the human psyche.

The common usage of the term aesthetic experience has as a major component, or is generated from, the activity of aesthetic appreciation upon viewing of an object.  The aesthetic experience of the viewer is extrinsic to the object itself, though some artists may take this into account during or deciding upon the direction of the creative process.  The external viewer’s experience focuses on the affective nature of an art object, which is secondary to its innate nature.  The emotional or psychological effect that art has on a person is based on that particular person's perceptions and experiences.  For the purposes of our inquiry into human nature, which has been synthesized into an investigation of the human psyche in the process of self-analysis, it is necessary to make a distinction between the aesthetic experience of the viewer and the aesthetic experience of the artist.  To come to an understanding of the intrinsic purpose of an art object and by extension art itself, one inevitably has to direct some questioning to the object-maker.  Thus, we focus on the aesthetic experience of the object maker, the artist, and the experience during the process of creating.  It can be argued that the objects themselves by bringing into being an overwhelming experience in the viewer contribute to the idea of the artist as divine messenger or divinely inspired.  Unexplainable phenomena have throughout history been attributed to God or Gods, forming the basis for religious myth.  When evaluating portions of art history it is evident that a large portion of what we now identify as objects of art were originally created for religious purposes, either as a tool for an ancient priest/shaman or as an architectural construct used as a place of worship.  This use of these objects creates the same kind of need for distinctions within the religious experience.  That these objects are made with purposes specific to religion is apparent.  Primarily, the purpose of the object would be to create an environment or psychological space to bring about the religious experience in the layman.  This basic process of a form of appreciation of the object leading to a type of overwhelming experience is in keeping with the idea of the ineffable nature of both the religious and aesthetic experience.  They are indescribable using common language or, more accurately, understanding cannot be reached through language alone.  A similar or familiar experience has to be evoked in the viewer.  In other words the object created to communicate an experience beyond words tended to lead to an experience or psychological state that was in itself indescribable.  

The comparison of the aesthetic experience to religious experience is not meant to assert an equivalence between the two.  It is intended to illustrate a similarity.  Both involve aspects of human experience that are difficult to communicate yet seemingly essential.  This essential nature can be solely illustrated by the steadfast though troublesome occurrence of the question of the ineffable, throughout the history of thinking, specifically in the areas of aesthetics and religion.  A description of this ineffability would involve the relaying of first person experience, which is extremely problematic.  However, as established within the thrust of this inquiry, relegating such experience to the category of those things that may be delusory, therefore not capable of being investigated is, in essence, a coward's solution to a troubling problem.  Delusions are an inescapable problem when addressing the mind and questions of belief.  A comparison of the two experiences may allow for some understanding through the aesthetic experience of the artist.  A more in depth investigation of the aesthetic experience should make it possible to remove religious implications, approaching the experience of the ineffable in a way that focuses more on psychology and neurology.  For the moment, our objective is establishing that they are similar types of experience.  It is also unimportant whether the understanding of the artist is also related to religion, only that the reader is able to understand that there is a consciousness driven growth within the artist and the art making process.  Even if the artist is driven by religious belief[7], we can usually trace development of expression and awareness through the body of work, and as we investigate a development of awareness or emergent consciousness, it is necessary to focus our attention on the experience of the artist within the process of creating.   It may seem contradictory to focus on attempting to communicate an experience that has indescribability as its core element, but there are portions of the experience that can be described.   Outlining these portions should at least give some form of negative[8] knowledge about those that resist being properly communicated.  Again, the intention is to illustrate how the aesthetic experience of the artist, the creative process, is in some ways analogous to religious experience.  These following sections are, of necessity, based on internal reflection.  The relationship to general human psychology and/or consciousness can be determined in this attempt to classify and describe the experience of an artist according to an external source of types of religious experiences.  Caroline Franks Davis, in The Evidential Force of Religious Experience, has outlined types of religious experience.  She has divided the experiences into six categories: interpretive, quasi-sensory, revelatory, regenerative, numinous, and mystical.  Though she asserts that this is not a categorization that sets definite lines or is all-inclusive, it is suitable to drawing enough of an analogous relationship between religious experience and the creative process.

The interpretative experience is such that the person "views the experience in the light of a prior religious interpretive framework".  The aim to highlight similarities between the creative process and religious experience would only pertain to the frame of mind or psychological state that accompanies the experience.  Some artists may consider the experience of making art a religious one, but reflective judgment on the creative process would not be that it is religious in nature, but is composed of an importance and of a generative aspect that are comparable.  There are elements that are factored into the evaluation of the importance of art making that are of a non-rational nature.  The question of purpose is answered with a gut feeling of assurance that is not entirely explainable, but this is an important part or the very thing that drives the questioning manner of the process.  The feeling that the artist is in possession of an innate talent that could be a "gift" is part of this assurance and to follow this “calling” is akin to what would be described as "doing God's will".   This similarity to religious experience is primarily reflective judgment; when outside of the creative process we can find analogies, but during the experience the assurance is not at all linked to the religious.  Additionally, outside of this process, a description usually seems supernatural in nature (or at least very difficult to explain).  This can be seen in the following description of the interpretation of a quasi-sensory experience.

 The process of creating an art object involves steps that are not directly involved in physically producing the object.  There are periods of grappling with the problems of the choice of imagery, structure or even medium.  It is during these times that solutions may present themselves as images - usually unbidden.  There are occasions that amount to flashes of an image or waking up with a completed idea in the form of an image related to a problem that has persistently occupied the mind.  However, we want to focus on a particular and less frequent type of occurrence, simply because it is more difficult to comfortably explain the fundamental element of it.  This experience, which usually presents a "completion”, upon reflection, would be close to an ineffable religious experience involving images, but also involves something that eclipses the merely visual.  This is a fundamental component because it is a part of what is comparable to the revelatory experience (and is closely related to the mystical experience that will be addressed later).  The fullest manageable description would be similar to a movie clip as a three dimensional hologram – imagine immersion in a virtual reality machine.  The general visual image of Lego blocks or puzzle pieces coming together in space can be substituted for what would be more problem specific imagery.  A resonance accompanies the obviously inevitable (after completion) formation when the final form is realized.  The problem here is that, though we can be confident that the correct words are being used for the concept of a "completion", we can also be confident that if a person has not had a similar experience, an essential part of what is important about such an experience is lost.  The resonance (including any implications the word may have of sound and/or vibration) accompanies the recognition of the final formation that, in the moment of understanding, has a feeling of 'rightness' that transcends a solely conceptual awareness of the visualization of a proper form.  The inability to properly explain is based on this feeling of ‘rightness’ and the difficulty of being assured of the proper communication of this concept with the same weight of this feeling of ‘rightness’.  It is also impossible to use the statement “feeling of rightness” without the question being raised about the definition of rightness.  One is left with a feeling of dissatisfaction in communicating this concept to someone who has not had a similar experience and all sorts of sceptical questions become more difficult to properly counter at what is or should be the stage of the most clarity. 

The choice of becoming an artist is not one that is easy.  Fortunately, within the creative process, there are times when a part of the experience validates the time spent.  This is the same as the regenerative part of religious experience.  After being worn down by external (and internal) scepticism about this indescribable experience that seems to serve no purpose, faith can be renewed by some portions of the creative process.   

These times of renewal accompany portions of the creative process that are the most difficult to pin down with conventional language.  In order to explain just what it is that has caused a renewed "belief" or replaced sceptical thinking with a rejuvenated "knowledge" that art making can answer questions more efficiently than other processes, we are again forced to refer to the "ineffable".  These instances relate to the last two of Davis' categories – the numinous and the mystical experience.  The artist, when completed with the artwork, reviewing it or reflecting upon it, at times has a feeling that there was an "other" that somehow took control of the outcome of a specific art project.  This is sometimes heard referred to as "Divine Intervention".  The realization of "otherness" is usually accompanied with other feelings that make up the numinous – awe, fear, etc.  This portion of the creative process probably serves to perpetuate the idea of the artist as a medium, not knowing exactly what they are doing and in extreme cases on "automatic" – having very little input at all in the creative process.  It is especially powerful or affective because there is the idea that the "other" has used you as an instrument.  For example, when looking at a sunset one may be struck by the feeling that one is insignificant in relation to such beauty and feels a very small part of a much larger whole.  However this is experienced in a way that still allows for a conceptual separation from the experience and lessens the emotional and psychological impact of the experience.  When faced with the feeling of "otherness" in addition to the memory of the experience of creating (including those related to the mystical experience) and the knowledge that even though there is this feeling of "otherness" you did indeed make this object or objects, there is a profound impact on your psychology.  The effect of such an experience is heightened by the resulting inability to conceptually separate self from the larger whole.  In this way the experience of the artist within portions of the creative process is more closely related to the mystical experience.  When making an art object the most productive and successful moments are usually when the artist has been able to reach a certain point of, for lack of a better word, efficiency – The Zone.  Athletes and performers are familiar with something like this or perhaps someone who meditates. 

We may temporarily think of "The Zone" as a place rather more than a state.  It encompasses more than an emotional or psychological state and has a palpable presence.  For example, there is a distinct feeling that happens upon returning home from a trip.  Recognition of The Zone is the same as the fleeting thought when you finally sit in the car for the drive home from the airport or turn the key in your front door.  You have been home since the plane landed, but it doesn't register in this certain way until one of these moments.  Home, or The Zone, is a place where a person functions optimally, because of familiarity or the sense of freedom within recognizable constraints.  In other words, certain things are allowed to drop from conscious awareness, because an established pattern has been set.  This recognition is fleeting, passing almost as soon as it comes.  Within The Zone there is an increased feeling of efficiency, both mentally and physically.  This situation is somewhat different from simply having a state of mental clarity because it has a direct causal effect on physical efficiency.  Mental clarity can be defined as the ability to efficiently process conscious thoughts, possibly more than one at a time, but thoughts that are clearly based on "activity"; i.e. The amount of drops of catalyst for this much resin is 5" or "A smaller brush will be needed in order to apply this correctly".  This type of mental clarity is on the surface of "consciousness" where one is aware of decision-making and actions.   The feeling of being in The Zone can only seem to describe in opposites or having an objective view of subjective experience.  Seemingly applicable descriptions such as "intensely concentrating although the mind wanders" or "losing track of the task at hand while thinking of the steps to come immediately after" still omit an important component of the experience; the feeling of being separate from the actual experience in an observing manner.  Frequently the choice is not to observe but to "work" on something else.  Although this situation would seem to warrant a description of "being conscious of consciousness", there is a marked hesitation in using that term.  It is more accurately a feeling of "overcoming consciousness".  The awareness reaches a point that it is not accurate to use the word consciousness to relay proper meaning and is probably tightly wound to the feeling of having an objective view of subjective experience.  There is also the feeling that this objectivity is somehow related to an increased or additional knowledge – similar to how gained experiential knowledge can allow someone to think of past behaviour and be objectively analytical about their actions and emotions or how it is possible to give a friend objective advice because you may be privy to information that your friend is not.  A true description of this type of awareness has eluded many – this feeling of being at one with something larger than your individuality.  The words "At One" do not properly convey any information.  "At One" with what?  If one were truly at one with something, shouldn't one be able to describe what this thing is?  During the time of the experience, there is the feeling of having tapped into a "larger" reserve of information and/or knowledge.  This is the quandary.  

The experience is almost beyond "reality".  Impossible or highly improbable things seem to make sense with all the force of "the feeling of rightness".  There is the assured feeling that although this thing, whatever it may be, seems impossible, all that would be required is the diligent application of "will".  How does one resolve what sometimes seems to be a God's eye view of existence with the everyday reality and scepticism that dull the sharpness of such an experience?

In the previous illustration of similarities between the religious experience and the creative process there are several possible responses to these types of experiences and the types of questions that they can raise, however understandably we should focus on the nature of this inquiry.  The questions raised by analysis of the creative process prompt us to try to reach some comfortable understanding of what is at the very least an enigmatic portion of conscious existence; to try to resolve "The Zone" which seems to be a place of natural existence substantiated by the ‘feeling of rightness’ with the ‘objective’ reality of which we are consciously aware and which causes insult to this subjectively based and seemingly natural feeling.  Upon reaching the final categorization – the mystical, we have also begun to touch upon the most important similarity between religious experience and the artist’s aesthetic experience or creative process; the attempt to determine the relationship between self and the ineffable by use of a "ritualistic" avenue toward objective understanding.    In effect, we have just provided a description of portions of the ‘Seek’.  Within certain levels of the creative process (and religious practice) there is the attempt to resolve the unexplainable; to come to an individual understanding of the process itself.  In these levels the individual is involved in a concentrated effort to order and understand concepts that have been formulated within their mind.  To gain more of an understanding of the processes involved we direct ourselves to a more reasonable and analytical investigation.  What are the steps of this self evaluation or self-analysis?  How does the individual process the information kept within the mind and, even more troublesome, below the level of conscious awareness?  The creative process will now be investigated in relation to cognitive psychology and we will be concerned with elucidating certain cognitive process in portions of visual art practice that correlate to introspection and are effectively self analysis – metacognitive (thinking about one’s own thoughts) monitoring and control in judgements related to autobiographical memory (one’s own episodic memory or the memory of one’s own experience). 

The implication is that even if it is primarily the case that the production of art is largely based on emotional content or formal issues of beauty and below conscious awareness of the artist, the act of expression included in the creative process itself requires the aforementioned certain types of cognitive functionality.    

Additionally, a necessary aspect of the creative process is intentionality (making decisions or choices toward some end) – at the very least some self initiated feedback processes of analysing whether or not the expressions are successful and decision making/problem solving processes for continued production.  This stage of the artist’s development to be investigated we will treat with equivalence to the ‘Seek’ for the following reasons:  1.) The practicing artist should be at a level of practice that is both self initiated and goal directed, having set ideas or concepts to focus on for the making of art.  2.) The artwork is approached in a questioning manner that is of a personal nature with an awareness of attempting to answer internal questions.[9]  3.) The artist is engaged in a continuing process of investigating the source and meaning of the tangible objects produced, attempting to objectively analyse moments of the creative process that are deeply subjective.  Though less involved at beginning levels, critical review of artwork is standard in art education.  One can make the inference that this type external monitoring and subsequent control leads to the development of internal processes of monitoring and control or metacognitive processes.  However it is more feasible to concede that developing metacognition is predetermined within the art making process itself.  Creating art, at the outset, involves a system of self generated and defined symbols toward representation.  To continue creating art, it seems necessary that cognitive processes are developed to form judgements about and then refine symbolic representation.  External monitoring is more likely a mechanism for the further objective checking of fundamentally internalized processes and also serves to bring a portion of these processes into conscious awareness.  In a phone discussion, a friend began to explain that her seven year old son had developed a penchant for painting black churches with red windows and doors.  In the background, her son said with an exasperated tone, “The red is for blood.”  This situation may differ from the norm for children by the level of abstraction (just a colour as representation), but most children are able to explain the content of their artwork.  However, are they able to understand making art as symbolic representation and furthermore, do they need to understand?  Outside of her worry about what this meant about her son’s psychology, on some level he was cognisant of the symbolic nature of his artwork.  [The red is for blood ║ the red is not blood and is a representation of blood].  Are we then able to draw the conclusion that he should be able to modify his chosen representations according to future desired results?  And does this type of metacognitive process have to be at a conscious level?  In contrast, there does not seem to be a necessary causal link between external controls and the development of metacognitive processes.  There are many examples of competent closet artists who have later stepped out into the open.  Nevertheless, a solution to the ‘which processes came first?’ question is not necessary to the investigation of the processes themselves.

For simplicities’ sake, we will address metacognitive processes within the framework of the undergraduate visual artist preparing for a critique.  The university environment can be relied upon for a fairly standard methodology, while still taking into account the individual differences in practicing artists.   The undergraduate artist is subject to regular external monitoring of the development of his personal methodology – through critiques and one on one or group discussion with major professors and other students.  This model is arguably significantly similar to art practice at the post graduate level or otherwise outside of the university environment.  An artist outside of the university environment receives or seeks out critical review and possibly engages in discussion about the work with other artists, friends or family.  However, the single most important reason for using the undergraduate model is the aspect of verifiably regular external monitoring.  If an undergraduate visual art major, then it follows that art practice regularly involves external monitoring.  There need not be any speculation about if such monitoring occurs.

A critique usually begins with the artist giving an oral presentation of his intentions and the artwork, including the ideas/processes/chosen imagery found in the work so far, a self report of success or failure at correlating his intentions to his representations and possible changes to be made/intended future directions.  The respondent group (major professor and/or fellow students) then offers commentary based on the artist’s volunteered information.  The ensuing discussion involves (non-exhaustively) topics such as:

1.   The correlations between the artist’s verbal account and the artwork,

2.   Reasons why the verbalization and imagery do or do not significantly correlate,

3.   Additional clarification from the artist regarding underlying concepts and chosen representation,

4.   Group attempts to define/refine the artist’s underlying concepts and chosen representation,

5.   Suggestions for improving the correlation between the verbal account and imagery,

6.   Suggestions for particular or general modifications to future art production, and

7.   A summation by the artist, including a plan of action.

The summation may actually be performed by the artist alone after the critique and can include a dismissal of the entire review process. Depending on the individual it can be as informal as a ‘mental note’ or formally memorialized in a journal or sketchbook.  At this point in an artist’s development, if not already a practice, a journal or sketchbook is introduced as part of the educational requirement.  With this tool, the artist is further able to track intentions and feedback while formulating methods and goals.  One would hope that this external monitoring of a journal would not function as something that places

boundaries on the usual mechanism for the internal monitoring, but to more properly align the external sources to the artist’s intentions.  The question should be raised as to whether or not the simple awareness of pending review of what should be a personal tool affects the integrity of the information.

This undergraduate model allows for a comparison of verifiable external monitoring with the more intangible internal monitoring.  Treatment of both processes as analogous may make help to make these processes clearer, give some direction toward investigating the particularized cognitive processes used in the introspective analysis that is a major part of creating art and eventually shed some light on how they initially developed.  The intended implication (which is just raised as a possibility and will not be drawn out here) is that internal monitoring and control (or metacognition) occurs during all art practice inside or outside of this model, even if only in an intuitive and automatic manner whilst in the midst of creating.  The internal monitoring and control by the artist mirrors the external monitoring and control of the undergraduate critique.  The artist gathers his thoughts in preparation to orally present his intentions and the artwork.  What this entails is preparing for the topics that have the potential to come up in a critique – an ‘internalized’ version of these topics.  The artist:

1.   Thinks about correlations between what he intends and the artwork,

2.   Formulates explanations for why his intentions and imagery do or do not significantly correlate,

3.   Attempts to define/clarify/refine underlying concepts and chosen representation,

4.   Formulates methods for improving the correlation between intention and imagery,

5.   Plans particular or general modifications to future art production, and

6.   Sets revised goals or a plan of action.

The preparation process probably occurs in more than one sitting or throughout art production and possibly also involves the use of the journal/sketchbook.  Though usually a personal tool, the journal/sketchbook is sometimes subjected to external monitoring through review by professors.  Arguably, these actions on the part of the artist though described as ‘preparation’ for a critique or discussion would occur without external motivation.  This type of internal dialogue seems necessary to the development of an individual or series of art objects and an important aspect of the creative process.  The creative process is a troubling enigma, notoriously difficult to pin down and understand, even for those who are recognized as creative individuals.  Creativity, whether specifically artistic or a more general ingenuity, seems to be an innate ability outside of description or effective analysis.  For an artist to ‘gather his thoughts’ about intentions, as mentioned earlier, the convoluted area of the creative act has to be probed.  Autobiographical memory of this experience is heavily relied upon for visual art practice, affecting the development of artistic expression.  An important aspect of the undergraduate model is that, as stated earlier, at this point in an artist’s development, if not already a practice, a journal or sketchbook is introduced as part of the educational requirement and this tool aids the artist in tracking intentions and feedback while formulating methods and goals.  Most practicing artists engage in journaling to keep track of thoughts, to refresh their memories on past work as a form of internal monitoring and to note ideas and plans for future artwork. 

For the artistic creative process, intuition plays a large role.  While not every artist may deal with emotional issues in their work, all artists have to address formal issues like the use of form, line, colour, etc.  Even for an artist with analytical tendencies or who works in an extremely planned manner these stages of the production of art usually involves a state of mind prohibitive to conscious awareness of underlying processes[¹⁰].  Additionally any awareness, during or immediately after artistic creation, seems to be highly susceptibly to interference.  It is this area of the creative experience that, while being the most difficult to access consciously, is the most important area to address if there are changes that need to be made.  Fortunately, the artist has an important object as a tool to aid in recalling the moments of the creative act – the work of art itself.  The artwork or ‘artefact’ of the creative experience is the central most important aid for the artist in mining the memory.  Even the journal/sketchbook, as the other external memory aid, has as its basis the individual artworks or artefacts of the creative experience.  The artefact would be the only external object that could aid in the recall of automatic metacognitive judgements based on emotional or formal issues during the experience of creating, and as such should take precedence over verbal accounting of the artist’s intentions.  These are a translation of the experience further removed than the work of art itself.  Attempts should be made to match the verbal accounting to the artefact as opposed to changing the subsequent artwork to match verbal accounting.  As a visual cue, the art object, should engender vivid recall of the experience – eliciting perceptual (colour, line and form), physically contextual (placement and movement of the parts of the body) and affective (emotionally qualitative) information associated with the experience.  This artefact assisted recall of the phenomenology of the creative experience should serve as a now objectified tool of introspection, and most importantly, inform about the metacognitive processes during the experience.

Upon going through some of the steps that the artist follows repetitively in evaluating each artefact of the creative process (with the intention of applying observations to decision making and metacognitive judgements for continued production and possibly during production) we have finally reached the point that necessitates a review of some portions of psychoanalysis in relation to the creative process.  Per Freud, “The teachings of psycho-analysis are based on an incalculable number of observations and experiences, and only someone who has repeated those observations on himself and on others is in a position to arrive at a judgement of his own upon it.”  (Psychoanalysis, What is Psychology?)  We look to Freud’s methodology and some of his theories as a resource, because Freud is willing to take a phenomenon that has wide ranging occurrence over the species but is usually dismissed – Dreams – and attempt to scientifically investigate the meaning behind this phenomenon.   Since their presentation, his theories met with resistance, indifference or dismissal and even today psychoanalytic methodology is seen as problematic.  Freud’s work developed through the synthesis of theory and practice toward his primary goal of a general theory of mind.  He saw this work as the primary foundation of a biologically grounded science of mind.  Possibly because of this – understanding his methodologies within the context of the attempt to develop a structural theory of the mind’s processes that is scientifically grounded – Freud’s work continues to be revisited, as we now do here.  However, it must be noted that dreams are still deeply subsumed within the subjective realm and are therefore more susceptible to problems of an objective inaccessibility. 

Within the psychoanalytic methodology the analyst attempts to overcome the complexly convoluted issues of subjectivity, introspection and objective inaccessibility; Our inquiry has aimed to establish that the artist within the creative process employs a methodology similar to psychoanalysis and has a tangible 'artefact' that can be subject to objective scrutiny.

“Experience soon showed that the attitude which the analytic physician could most advantageously adopt was to surrender himself to his own unconscious mental activity, in a state of easy and impartial attention, to avoid so far as possible reflection and the construction of conscious expectations, not to try to fix anything he heard particularly in his memory, and by these means to catch the drift of the patient's unconscious with his own unconscious." This "left a great deal of play to the physician's tact and skill; but, with impartiality, and practice it was usually possible to obtain trustworthy results."  (Lopston, 346). Seemingly obtuse, but perfectly understandable if one takes into account "the incalculable amount of observations and experience" in the previous quote from Freud.  This type of observation and intricate, repetitive analysis of autobiographical experience is an integral portion of the creative process that artists must constantly undertake in order to maintain a depth of personal creative integrity.  The 'state of easy and impartial attention'  is would also seem to be another way of describing the artist's experience in the 'Zone' or 'overcoming consciousness'  in other words an experience similar to the Seek.   A review of some of the concepts within Freud’s work should further elucidate the processes of the developing human psyche in the process of the Seek that concern us.  The first concept attributed to Freud is the Unconscious and with it, it is reasonable to accept his version of the Conscious and Preconscious.  In his 1940 Outline of Psycho-Analysis, Freud asserts that one of the founding arguments of psychoanalysis is that a significant dimension of the psychic life of human beings is not available to our conscious minds and as stated earlier, artists are of a specific group whose activity is largely predetermined by the concept of different levels of consciousness.  A large portion of the contents of the psyche are either preconscious – not presently conscious, but available to consciousness through the processes of memory or suggestion – or unconscious.  Artists are effectively mining their memories in order to continue art production.  So, according to psychoanalysis, not all the sense-perceptions processed through the perception-consciousness system present themselves immediately in to consciousness, but remain in the memory in a preconscious state.  They are not technically unconscious; not having been repressed they are available to consciousness through recollection or as material for dreams (or art making).  In Freud's three-part model of the mind, containing the id, ego and superego, the id is made up of the biologically based instincts.  The id represents the objects of these instincts to itself through the primary processes and the ego performs the secondary processes that correlate the instincts with conditions of external reality.  The ego is the dimension of Freud's three-part model of the mind that integrates the instinctual impulses of the id with the expectations and prohibitions of the superego, channelling the energy of the id into ideas and actions that respond to conditions in the real, external, social world and that correspond with the expectations of the superego.  The activity of the unconscious within the id's primary processes that can be detected in dreams, and arguably in artefacts of the creative process, markers of conflicts within the psyche that can lead to neuroses. 

Neuroses, a broad term covering many forms of psychic distress, develop when the pressures on the ego from the id or superego become difficult to manage and are presented to the consciousness in dreams.   When the id and the ego come into conflict, the ego has to stop some of the impulses coming to it from the id – aggressive desires to, for example, kill an opponent, or to gratify sexual urges in socially unacceptable ways.  These ideas are repressed, driven from consciousness by the ego.  Less severe than the psychoses – they usually do not involve a psychic "break" with external reality – neuroses include states of anxiety, obsessions, phobias, and hysteria.  For Lacan, neurosis is an inescapable condition of human consciousness because the psyche, caught up in its identification with an illusory, unattainable image of wholeness – as in the previous description of the relationship between portions of the creative process and the 'mystical' experience – and in its ultimately unfulfillable desire, can never attain the "equilibrium" or "self-awareness" that we commonly associate with "normal" mental health (CriticaLink).  Freud imagines "mental health" to consist of a balanced flow of energy among the three components of his model.  As stated earlier, repression serves to drive incompatible and conflicting thoughts from consciousness.  While repression is a valuable process in maintaining the individual's well-being, repressing memories or thoughts that are highly invested with libidinal energy – that are strongly cathected – it can lead to mental disorders such as neuroses.  Cathexis is used to describe an investment of libidinal energy in an object or an idea.  Sentimental attachment to a keepsake, a family heirloom, or a photograph [or artefact as in the case of the artist and the creative process] would be an example of cathexis.  In the model, the superego plays the role of an internal monitor over the actions of the ego.  Developing as individuals, human beings assimilate the standards of their families and cultures, the superego maintains the image of the ideal ego toward which the ego strives, and also serves as the center of "conscience".  Where the ego works to sustain the individual's connection with the reality of the outside world, the superego works to sustain the individual's aspirations to the ideal.  Patriotism and other impassioned identifications with groups and systems of belief are also forms of cathexis.  Psychoanalytic therapy aims in part to help patients overcome repression and to explore and come to terms with the emotional content of the repressed material (CriticaLink).   

In Freud’s model of the mind, both the primary and secondary functions work to discharge ‘quantity’ or energy.  There is a regulatory mechanism, which ensures that the mind functions within the appropriate parameters.  This mechanism is called the “pleasure-unpleasure series”.  When the mind is regulated by it, it is said to obey the pleasure principle.   Freud postulated a particular stage in the development of the individual where the pleasure principle is abandoned and the reality principle takes its place.  Freud wrote, “The substitution of the reality for the pleasure principle implies no deposing of the pleasure principle.  A momentary pleasure, uncertain in its results, is given up, but only in order to gain along the new path an assured pleasure at a later time.”  Here dynamic workings of this model of the mind are explained with the interaction of the ego as the developing regulatory mechanism that takes into account more than the impulses that the id would have us obey.  In the Project for a Scientific Psychology Freud asserted the tendency for the mind to divest itself of ‘quantity’ or libidinal energy; to reduce tension to zero.  The model of the mind also originally contained this as a principle of psychic inertia, the death instinct or “Nirvana” Principle.  This proved adequate only for a simple case of mental functioning and was revised to substitute notion of a goal of zero tension with one of a minimum level of tension.  However, Freud asserted that the mind acts as though it could altogether eliminate tension – as though, it could reduce itself to a state of extinction (Wollheim, Sigmund Freud, 211). 

It is this that is the basis of the worry about a potentially harmful reductionism or innocuous dismissal of a integral portion of human nature – the majority, though deluded, has a safety embedded within their psyche – religion, spirituality or some form of the God concept, as mentioned briefly before, functions as a final solution to the Seek by providing a place to relegate things beyond understanding.  It is more reasonable for us to look within the processes themselves for answers to inherent systemic problems within the dynamic mechanisms of the human psyche.  Overlooking the root functionality in these processes in the attempt to get everyone up to speed may cause more harm than good.  (Although there are an abounding and ever increasing availability of drugs to solve such problems.)  The very elusiveness of one of the largest problems of science, the problem of consciousness, gives clue that the possible intricacy and delicacy of balancing the human psyche must be placed as prime directive in general theory and practice.  Unless the minority has a replacement mechanism for the proper discharge of this remnant to the equation of the average individual’s ‘Seek’, the foremost direction for scientific efforts should be to attempt an understanding of the current mechanism as such.  There are the inherent problems unique to the mind’s task of developing the psyche and it can be argued that the sheer enormity of this task, made more so in this age of information, overwhelms most and evidences itself in various states of psychic imbalance, inner tension or neurosis. This psychic imbalance necessitates the development of various methods to objectively verify the contents of subjective belief – the most common of which is probably simple discussion.  However,  some things may induce a state of inner tension that are unable to be discussed or in most cases unconscious or deeply preconscious 'thoughts' not conducive to discussion – here (hopefully, for the individual’s sake) is developed a system of internal check and arguably the most efficient, or at least the most prudent would be the development then externalization of an internal set of symbols which are understandable and useable only for the individual i.e., art (poetry, music, visual art, dance, etc.).  The application of the concepts in these previous comparisons and the extension of that idea to the common use of the term aesthetic experience would be based on the fundamental psychological assumptions that there are commonalities throughout all of 'humanity'.  “[M]ental mechanisms which produce symptoms of illness are equally present in normal mental life.” (Lopston, 347).  It would seem that the appropriate 'scientific' approach should not be to scoff at or shrink from problems that are 'all in the mind', especially if the mind is the area of study.  This is why the scientific community should look to Freud’s methodology with the intention of refining, not debunking, it as the basis for an investigation of the mind or consciousness.  

It has here been attempted to illustrate the creative process as closely linked to the methodology of psychoanalysis and introspective analysis, therefore an important resource in investigating the essential nature of human consciousness.  A recap of the main ideas are as follows:

1. Human consciousness or the mind, at its root, attempts to objectify our subjective perceptions and ideas for a process of evaluation toward the determination of and aligning with reality or truth, i.e. it is used in a ‘seeking’ manner – in the search for truth or objective reality.

2. Upon reaching the mystical categorization in the comparison between the creative process and religious experience, we touched upon the most important similarity; the attempt to determine the relationship between self and the ineffable by use of a "ritualistic" avenue toward understanding.  In effect, providing a fairly detailed description of portions of the ‘Seek’.  Within certain levels of the creative process (and religious practice) there is the attempt to resolve unexplainable; to come to an individual understanding of the process itself.  In these levels the individual is involved in a concentrated effort to order and understand concepts that have been formulated within their mind. 

3. Some cognitive processes that would be a part of introspection (metacognition and autobiographical memory) were elucidated with respect to the creative process.  These cognitive processes are treated as an equivalence to the ‘Seek’ for the following reasons:  1.) The practicing artist should be at a level of practice that is both self initiated and goal directed, having set ideas or concepts to focus on for the making of art.  2.) The artwork is approached in a questioning manner that is of a personal nature with an awareness of attempting to answer internal questions. 3.) The artist is engaged in a continuing process of investigating the source and meaning of the tangible objects produced, attempting to objectively analyse moments of the creative process that are deeply subjective.

4. Artists work in a manner similar to psychoanalysis or analytic psychology, but that is more like the self analysis practiced by the founders of these fields; we make the exception that artists do not focus on repression, rarely neurosis or individuation per se, but on a studied immersion in the creative process itself – a practice of introspection that has as its products individual works of art.  

5. Within the psychoanalytic methodology the analyst attempts to overcome the complexly convoluted issues of subjectivity, introspection and objective inaccessibility; Our inquiry has aimed to establish that the artist within the creative process employs a methodology similar to psychoanalysis and has a tangible 'artefact' that is subject to objective scrutiny and can be ground for scientifically based inquiry.

Still, after all of this, it can be argued that consciousness, even as put forth in this discussion, is not the placeholder for an essential human nature.  But, there it is.  It has here been argued that consciousness as described, tightly wound to the psyche and introspective analysis, is the essential portion of human nature.  It is the thing that makes a being human.  It is very clear that, while attempting to illustrating it in this sense as the essential human nature, narrowing in on consciousness as such does not bring us any closer to a solution and in fact thrusts us into a murky field of investigation fraught with convoluted issues. 

In closing, psycho-analysis is defined as the name (1) of a procedure for the investigation of mental processes which are almost inaccessible in any other way, (2) of a method (based upon that investigation) for the treatment of neurotic disorders and (3) of a collection of psychological information obtained along those lines, which is gradually being accumulated into a new scientific discipline (Lopston, 343).  Naturally, following the course of the present inquiry that has been attempting to make clearer the processes of the human psyche in comparison to the creative process, what is currently pertinent is the first part of the definition.  As mentioned earlier, the majority system must be addressed; using the familiarity of the common human experience to move forward in a new and more reasonable way and the art making process is already used in some therapy.  With emergence of new scientific fields of scientific inquiry like neuroesthetics, neurophenomenology and neurotheology, it seems that there is a minority with the growing realization that there are portions of the majority's system that can and must be addressing in order to come to an understanding of consciousness or the essential nature of humanity.  These fields may form a bridge that is necessary to any ‘Science of Consciousness’ – the study of subjective experience in conjunction with study of the brain.  It is hopeful that this inquiry, through the attempt to establish that the artist within the creative process employs a methodology similar to psychoanalysis and has a tangible 'artefact’ of this process of introspective analysis, will mirror these beginning steps toward a contemporary approach to the third part of the definition and a way of making inquiry into human nature at its essence. 

References & Resources

Books

Croce, Benedetto. The Aesthetic as the Science of Expression and of the Linguistic in General (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1992)

Davis, Caroline Franks. The Evidential Force of Religious Experience (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1989), 29-65.

De Chardin, Pier Teilhard. The Phenomenon of Man, Harper Colophon Edition (New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 1975).

Dewey, John. Art as Experience, Perigree Books Edition (New York, NY: The Berkley Publishing Group division of Penguin Putnam, Inc, 1980)

Franfort, Henri, et al. The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man: An Essay of Speculative Thought in the Ancient Near East (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1946), 3-30, 363-390.

Gardner, Howard. Art, Mind and Brain: A Cognitive Approach to Creativity (USA: Howard Gardner, 1982).

Gardner, Howard. Creating Minds: An Anatomy of Creativity Seen Through the Lives of Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, and Gandhi (New York, NY: Basic Books, 1993), 49-186.

Ghiselin, Brewster. The Creative Process: Reflections on Invention in the Arts and Sciences, Reissue Edition (Berkley, CA: University of California Press, 1996)

Hegel, G.W.F. The Phenomenology of Spirit (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1977).

Heidegger, Martin. Basic Writings: Revised and Expanded Edition (New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 1997) 139-212, 365-392.

Jaynes, Julian. The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, First Mariner Books Edition (New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000).

Lopston, Peter. Readings on Human Nature (Orchard Park, NY: Broadview Press, 1998), 343-361.

Matlin, Margaret W. Cognition, 4^th Edition (Orlando, FL: Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1998)

Mithen, Steven. The Prehistory of the Mind: The Cognitive Origins of Art, Religion and Science (New York, NY: Thames & Hudson, Inc., 1997).

Parson, Michael J. How We Understand Art: A Cognitive Development Account of Aesthetic Experience (New York, Cambridge University Press, 1987)

Siewert, Charles P. The Significance of Consciousness (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998)

Solso, Robert L. Cognition and the Visual Arts (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1994) 37-128, 189-198.

Wartenburg, Thomas E. The Nature of Art, an Anthology (Orlando, FL: Harcourt, Inc., 2002).

Wollheim, Richard. Art and its Objects, 2^nd Edition (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1990).

Wollheim, Richard. Sigmund Freud (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1971).

DVD

The Matrix, Warner Home Video – 1999

The Matrix: Reloaded, Warner Home Video – 2003

The Matrix: Revolutions, Warner Home Video – 2003

Internet

CriticaLink, Freud: On Narcissism “n.d.”, <http://maven.english.hawaii.edu/criticalink/narc/terms.html> (27 October 2004)

Kant, Immanuel. Prolegomena, “n.d.”, <http://www.mnstate.edu/gracyk/courses/phil%20306/kant_materials/prolegomena1.htm#info> (Various)

Kant, Immanuel. Theory of Aesthetics and Teleology: The Critique of Judgement, “n.d.”, <http://www.iep.utm.edu/k/kantaest.htm> (Various)

Psychoanalysis. Teachings and Practice, Online Psychoanalysis Course, “n.d.”, <http://www.freudfile.org/psychoanalysis/courses.html> (25 October 2004)

Psychoanalysis. What is Psychoanalysis? “n.d.”, <http://www.freudfile.org/psychoanalysis/definition.html> (25 October 2004)

The Visual Thesaurus, Online Edition “n.d.”,

 <http://www.visualthesaurus.com/online> (Various)

Endnotes

[1] The additional assumption that causes the omission of the use of “reason” is here noted.  In a Kantian manner, we place reason as only a portion of the essence of humanity – the soul or spirit, and by extension consciousness/mind.  Humans in the attempt to order, extend understanding beyond the limits of conventional reason.  This, according to Kant, is an exercise which reason itself demands. 

[2] As with comparisons between computer data processing and human information processing becoming treated as equivalents.

[3] Unequivocally human, not animal, constructs.

[4] It would be good to note here those that reach or cannot deny some concept of a soul, through reason, have no need to exercise a voice as they are within the existing majority.  Nevertheless, they often exercise their voice and are only truly silent to the portion of the new minority whose filters blind them.

[5] Supposition: The soul exists as a symptom of the dis-ease of reason.  If we take into account that most symptoms are an attempt by the body to heal itself; recognition of this without the filters of reason’s gaze (that in unnatural or unchecked growth makes us unable to discern in time that it is not this symptom we should attempt to alleviate but the very thing that dis-eases the perception) would be an avenue to a remedy.

[6] This type of self awareness is held as a discrete concept; specifically tied to the awareness of “evaluating” – of setting a course for ‘self’ toward understanding outside of simply being, to an ontological understanding of the phenomenal ‘world’ where the self exists – consciousness being aware of itself.  Though the methodology of phenomenology is to investigate this awareness without making ontological claims; this is in order to hone the instrument of reason…always toward the end of a more accurate ontological understanding. 

[7] It should be evidently clear that within these pages, any arguments to problems attached to religious belief or belief in a soul concept cannot be addressed, as these are taken to be results of the general mechanism of consciousness or as will be mentioned later, a possible necessary product of the attempt to have a cohesive and balanced psyche given the difficult task of consciousness as illustrated.

[8] With enough of a description eventually the thing you are trying to describe takes form in the negative space not occupied by your words – another of the inexplicable things consciousness is capable of doing.

[9] It should be noted that focusing on art making as emotional outpouring or primarily about formal aspects is in itself a conscious decision and does not preclude artist intention.  The verbally or externally concentrating on formal aspects of the work can be a solution to potential problems with ‘clouding pertinent issues’ or a device specifically used to address an awareness of the possibility of source monitoring convolutions.

^[10] There is a state of mindful awareness or a state akin to a meditative or hypnotic state.  It is likely that there is some form of, for lack of a better word, ‘higher’ awareness that does not hold integrity within normal conscious processing. 

^[11] In the French language version of The Matrix: Reloaded and The Matrix: Revolutions the term used is '[avoir] la foi' - to have faith instead of 'croire' - to believe (as it is in the English language version).