This is wonderful, thanks for sharing! I do have one question about poiesis and repetition. Coming at it from how I think Bergson might’ve looked at it, is it that thinking steps out of repetition, or that there is ontological repetition in the sense of Deleuze’s eternal return of the Same, where what is repeated is difference in-itself, which doesn’t efface the past, but does something new with it? This comes mostly from my skepticism about whether creativity is possible without memory, however I do sympathize with the desire to cultivate a kind of non-conceptual awareness of the present like what you find in Zen, for example, though I do struggle a lot with this, and it’s something I actively try to reconcile with Bergson’s metaphysics.
These are great questions, Pedro. A few quick thoughts (which I'll have to spend more time with as I consider them):
1. I think we could set up (as Bergson does) a kind of theoretical limit case called "pure thinking" that would be, I think, a kind of sui generis creative thought, which probably doesn't really exist, but it does put us in a place where we can think what thought looks like outside of repetition at its limit, and so at least gives a direction to follow.
2. Surely there is an "ontological repetition" that subtends the human repetitions of habit, perception, memory, etc. I *think* thought as I'm describing it is a version of Bergson's "creative evolution" writ large, which doesn't have to be 100% novel, but nonetheless produces something new beyond recombination in response to new problems (in thought in this special case as opposed to in life in the larger, more general case).
3. Thinking surely does depend on memory, but perhaps here not on the content of specific repetitions of memory but on the capacity for remembering as such (if we can create another useful but not entirely real distinction).
4. I think Bergson's intuition, at least as he writes about in say, Introduction to Metaphysics, must involve non-representational awareness. As he says, "Either metaphysics is only this game of ideas, or else, if it is a serious occupation of the mind, it must transcend concepts to arrive at intuition." Intuition thus just is non-conceptual (i.e., non-representational) in a way that his description of the "analytic" mind surely struggles with. So, yes, there's probably much more to be said for an engagement between Bergson and Zen Buddhism.
I like the approach to thinking of pure creativity as a virtual limit, kind of like how he talks about pure perception without memory.
You're right, in Introduction to Metaphysics he does say that metaphysics should be the science that dispenses with concepts. This question came up for me recently because I've been rereading Matter and Memory and there is a section where he talks about how engagement with deeper layers of memory leads to greater degrees of insight into reality, which confused me a bit, but this was also before he fully developed the concept of intuition in Creative Evolution. I guess memory need not necessarily be conceptual, but I definitely need to think more about the relationship between memory and intuition.
This is wonderful, thanks for sharing! I do have one question about poiesis and repetition. Coming at it from how I think Bergson might’ve looked at it, is it that thinking steps out of repetition, or that there is ontological repetition in the sense of Deleuze’s eternal return of the Same, where what is repeated is difference in-itself, which doesn’t efface the past, but does something new with it? This comes mostly from my skepticism about whether creativity is possible without memory, however I do sympathize with the desire to cultivate a kind of non-conceptual awareness of the present like what you find in Zen, for example, though I do struggle a lot with this, and it’s something I actively try to reconcile with Bergson’s metaphysics.
These are great questions, Pedro. A few quick thoughts (which I'll have to spend more time with as I consider them):
1. I think we could set up (as Bergson does) a kind of theoretical limit case called "pure thinking" that would be, I think, a kind of sui generis creative thought, which probably doesn't really exist, but it does put us in a place where we can think what thought looks like outside of repetition at its limit, and so at least gives a direction to follow.
2. Surely there is an "ontological repetition" that subtends the human repetitions of habit, perception, memory, etc. I *think* thought as I'm describing it is a version of Bergson's "creative evolution" writ large, which doesn't have to be 100% novel, but nonetheless produces something new beyond recombination in response to new problems (in thought in this special case as opposed to in life in the larger, more general case).
3. Thinking surely does depend on memory, but perhaps here not on the content of specific repetitions of memory but on the capacity for remembering as such (if we can create another useful but not entirely real distinction).
4. I think Bergson's intuition, at least as he writes about in say, Introduction to Metaphysics, must involve non-representational awareness. As he says, "Either metaphysics is only this game of ideas, or else, if it is a serious occupation of the mind, it must transcend concepts to arrive at intuition." Intuition thus just is non-conceptual (i.e., non-representational) in a way that his description of the "analytic" mind surely struggles with. So, yes, there's probably much more to be said for an engagement between Bergson and Zen Buddhism.
I like the approach to thinking of pure creativity as a virtual limit, kind of like how he talks about pure perception without memory.
You're right, in Introduction to Metaphysics he does say that metaphysics should be the science that dispenses with concepts. This question came up for me recently because I've been rereading Matter and Memory and there is a section where he talks about how engagement with deeper layers of memory leads to greater degrees of insight into reality, which confused me a bit, but this was also before he fully developed the concept of intuition in Creative Evolution. I guess memory need not necessarily be conceptual, but I definitely need to think more about the relationship between memory and intuition.
I guess the question for me is what the relation is between memory and intuition, which is still open for me.
This is an excellent — and thought-provoking! — meditation on thinking. Thank you for sharing this.