For Discussion: Imagination, Creativity, Improvisation, and Knowledge

It's important to note that Taylor, after suggesting that knowledge and the imagination are mutually determining and of equal importance, defines the imagination as a controlled recombination of memories: a recombination to distinguish simple remembering from imagining; and controlled to distinguish dreams from imaginings (we typically think of dreams as uncontrolled recombinations of memories).  What Taylor fails to clarify is the distinct nature of creativity (which she occasionally treats as synonymous with imagining). In my dialogue, I suggest that creativity is a special case of imagining; a concrete application to the world of the more free-wheeling capacity to imagine (for example, I become creative only when I produce or create a story from my imagination).  Further, I suggest that improvisation is a special kind of creativity -- creativity in the moment, or relatively spontaneous acts of creativity under conditions of uncertainty.  How might these notions (creativity, imagination, and improvisation) relate to the last term of our discussion, knowledge?  (We can think of knowledge as consisting of true beliefs for which we have evidence.)  Other terms to consider include the understanding, conscious awareness, wisdom, and experience.  What questions/comments do you have about these readings?

Assignment #7: Knowledge, Imagination, Creativity, and Improvisation

Read: 

1. Taylor, "Is Imagination More Important than Knowledge?"

http://neurotaylor.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/thes-for-web-ii.pdf

2. Sawyer, "Improvisation and the Creative Process" (JSTOR):

https://www.jstor.org/stable/432094

3. Johnson and Silliman, "Improvisational Pedagogy"
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Mm6ANBj5htqF5FHWTBKlD8J7XAh4UYt5jtJACy2-os8/edit#

Essay #3:

What are the relations between knowledge, imagination, creativity, and improvisation?

Due: Monday, May 4.

This is the last graded assignment of the semester; it may not be dropped or missed!  I will, however, drop the lowest grade on quizzes/essays prior to this one for each student when calculating final averages.

For Discussion: Carlson's NE model

There's an interesting symmetry to Carlson's critique of the object and landscape models and consequent adoption of the "natural environmental" model.  In his view, the object model rightly focuses on natural objects while neglecting the environmental context which contains and constrains them.  In contrast, the landscape model rightly extends its purview to the larger environment, but appreciates it in the fashion of a landscape painting rather than as a part of (nonhuman) nature.  So, combining the virtues of each model (the appreciation of nature in the object model and the appreciation of the environment in the landscape model), Carlson arrives at his preferred model, the natural-environmental model.  Comments/questions?