Comments on: Elizabeth Gilbert: Is Creativity Divinely Inspired?

By: Mark McGuinness

Mark McGuinness — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 17:01:54 +0000

Thanks Chris, that’s a great analysis from Derek. And sprezzatura is a terrific word!

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 16:36:31 +0000

An awesome perspective into this talk, and how hard she worked at it to make it sound so light and conversational: http://sivers.org/sprezzatura

As Steven Pressfield wrote, your muse has to find you working!

By: 5 Reasons Why You Need a Muse — CYBERZOO interactive

5 Reasons Why You Need a Muse — CYBERZOO interactive — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 19:15:24 +0000

[...] In the West, the abandonment or burial of the muse or genius model around the time of the Renaissance, in favor of the new view that instead of having geniuses certain heroic individuals are geniuses, kicked off a long-term, culture-wide cycle of creative stress and burnout. Mark here at Lateral Action summarized the situation thusly in his commentary on Gilbert’s talk: [...]

By: Elle B.

Elle B. — Mon, 03 May 2010 18:32:03 +0000

What a great post! I’ve come to it late via an answer to one of my comments. I have a vague recollection of Bicameral Mind being mentioned in a college class, but I’ve never read it. Now I’m intrigued. I’m going to have to go through the archives on a more systematic basis. I really like your articles.

By: The Fundamental Insight: Creativity is a Force Separate from You | Demon Muse

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 18:36:45 +0000

[...] example, Mark McGuinness of the creativity-and-productivity site Lateral Action enthusiastically asserted that although he and the site are generally, openly, and pointedly skeptical about the very idea of [...]

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 08 May 2009 06:43:49 +0000

Jaynes never suggests the voices were from *actual* gods or spirits

I never suggested he did. As I say in the article, he was talking about one part of the mind speaking to the other.

It would be more accurate to say the “second part” (right hemisphere) generated the voices, not “received” them.

In the article ‘the second part’ refers to the left hemisphere, which ‘received’ the voices.

So to say “Jaynes took divine inspiration seriously” I think is somewhat misleading.

Those words don’t appear in the article. What I said was ‘[Jaynes] seriously entertained the idea of divine inspiration’ – meaning that he was prepared to consider it as a genuine (albeit highly subjective) aspect of human experience worthy of scientific investigation.

So I think we are agreed on what Jaynes was saying.

I noticed the Kuijsten book recently and was wondering if it was worth reading. Thanks for the recommendation – I’ll add it to my wish list…

By: David

David — Thu, 07 May 2009 23:32:36 +0000

Interesting essay, I’ll have to watch the video you’ve posted. However you may have misinterpreted Jaynes. Jaynes never suggests the voices were from *actual* gods or spirits — he believed that hallucinations originated in the right hemisphere but were heard and *interpreted* as being externally generated (chief, king, ancestral spirit, god, etc.) by the left hemisphere of the bicameral person. It would be more accurate to say the “second part” (right hemisphere) generated the voices, not “received” them. So to say “Jaynes took divine inspiration seriously” I think is somewhat misleading.

By the way for those interested in more on Jaynes’s ideas, there’s a great new book out called “Reflections on the Dawn of Consciousness: Julian Jaynes’s Bicameral Mind Theory Revisited” edited by Marcel Kuijsten…

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 16:58:06 +0000

Thanks Christian – disturbing but exciting, like so many of the best things in life.

By: Christian

Christian — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 19:24:15 +0000

what a thoughtful and well-written piece. I have certainly experienced an interaction with creativity and inspiration much more akin to a conversation with another person than akin to an internal thought process. It can be disturbing, but I agree with the idea of believing that which is necessary for keeping you sane. I loved her talk; thanks for posting.

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 12:51:10 +0000

@ Adam – Thanks for sharing your thoughts and expanding on them in this great post: http://52shortstories.blogspot.com/2009/03/external-genius-vs-internal-genius.html

I like your emphasis on working hard and taking responsibility for the results – while I would argue that Gilbert does the same in a different way, it shows that where creativity is concerned there are plenty of ways to skin the cat!

@ Chuck – love the ‘gaffe’ quote!