Taylor Hendrix on wed 25 apr 07
Bob,
The universe's bent humor was responsible for me stoping a PhD program
where I probably would have studied all this stuff. But 9/11 went
down, international students stopped coming to Waco to learn English,
and I lost my job. Ed Psych for me went the way of the dodo bird.
Otherwise I'd be right there with you riding down the IQ measure in
favor of some of the more current shots in the dark.
Mrs. Universe is still yucking it up however because one of my
favorite Texas clay folks, Billy Ray Mangham, likes to talk about
flow. He mentioned it one fine morning in Gruene Texas surrounded by a
bunch of potters and some fantastic pots. I never caught the name of
the concept's originator. Thanks for floating that on back to me, Bob.
And thank you Ma'am. You sure look lovely today.
Taylor, in Rockport TX
On 4/25/07, Bob Johnson wrote:
...
> The ability to lose oneself in the moment, especially during creative
> thinking, is what psychologists call "flow." The guy who invented the
> term is Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. (I am not making this up! I once
> wrote him and asked how to pronounce his name, and he replied:
> Mee-HAI CHEEK-sent-mee-HAI, which means something like "the church
> of St. Michael on the hill---in Transylvanian). He is a big name,
> well respected in the psychology of creativity. His book most famous
> book is Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. [Ivor: the
> numbers are ISBN-10: 0060920432 and ISBN-13: 978-0060920432]
...
Bob Johnson on wed 25 apr 07
I agree, Donna. There is little correlation between standard IQ
scores and creativity. In fact, one could argue that IQ scores have
been way oversold as a measure of almost anything, except success in
school. Psychologist Bob Sternberg, however, has been working on a
"triarchic" theory, in which "intelligence" is composed of three
parts: academic intelligence (like IQ), practical intelligence
(roughly, how to get things done), and creative intelligence. He has
some measures, but they are not in wide use yet. Interestingly, he
finds that different cultures place different values on each
component of intelligence.
The ability to lose oneself in the moment, especially during creative
thinking, is what psychologists call "flow." The guy who invented the
term is Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. (I am not making this up! I once
wrote him and asked how to pronounce his name, and he replied:
Mee-HAI CHEEK-sent-mee-HAI, which means something like "the church
of St. Michael on the hill---in Transylvanian). He is a big name,
well respected in the psychology of creativity. His book most famous
book is Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. [Ivor: the
numbers are ISBN-10: 0060920432 and ISBN-13: 978-0060920432]
Please pardon me for lapsing into lecture mode, but I spent 28 years
as a psychology professor.
Bob
--------------------------------------------------------
Robert L. Johnson, PhD
Psychoceramicist
106 Impala Drive
Roseburg, OR 97470
H: 541-672-5301
bjohnson@dcwisp.net
--------------------------------------------------------
At 4/24/2007 04:33 PM, you wrote:
>One of the things they are trying to teach students in China right now is
>the Western culture of questioning those in authority and respecting
>individuals.
>
>It is really hard to have creativity when you don't allow individuals to
>go their own way.
>
>I have heard bits and pieces of the work on intelligence. What I found
>most interesting in this line of research was that the ability to 'lose'
>oneself in one's work (lose all sense of time and outer events when
>involved in doing your own work/play) plays a major part in how creative
>or how successful an individual is. It turns out that the standard
>measures of 'intelligence' (IQ, SAT, etc.) are less correlated with
>success or creativity than this ability or even the ability to persevere.
>
>I think what makes what we do important is that it holds on to the
>difference of individuals. Target/Kmart may have a great piece of RED
>pottery that I can use for day to day but I have no attachment to it. I
>treasure each piece of handmade pottery I have and I will never feel that
>way about anything mass produced.
>
>
>http://wilderdom.com/personality/L2-2SternbergTriarchicTheory.html
>
>http://www.personalityresearch.org/papers/paik.html
>
>
>On Mon, 23 Apr 2007 20:52:16 -0700, Bob Johnson
>wrote:
>
> >I hope I'm not being too presumptuous--and I know that this is
> >somewhat tangential--but I think that many of you would be interested
> >in "Creating Minds," a book by psychologist Howard Gardner (the
> >multiple intelligences guy). In it, he explores the psychology of
> >creativity through a series of case studies of great creative minds
> >that shaped the 20th century: Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot,
> >Graham, and Gandhi. (Each one represents one of Gardner's multiple
> >intelligences.) All are different in many respects, yet there is a
> >common pattern, Gardner finds, in the lives of the most highly
> >creative people, regardless of their discipline. If any of you have
> >read it, I'd be interested in your reactions.
> >
> >Bob - in Oregon
> >
> >
> >At 4/23/2007 03:31 PM, you wrote:
> >>On 4/23/07, John Connolly wrote:
> >>>"All in all, if not for the political-psycholog ical use he served, he
>would
> >>>have been of little to no interest to anybody but some few fellow
>Scientists
> >>>of whatever sort, or occasional lay people.
> >>
> >>> Methinks this thread is well-named.
> >>
> >> Yeah. Some folks can't bear a Gulliver in their midsts.
> >>Imagine tying Einstein down with a spool of thread...
> >>
> >> Einstein changed the world we live in. As Huston Smith
> >>writes in "Why Religion Matters" the real scientific innovations all
> >>occurred before the 1950s. In post-modern times, we have just been
> >>harvesting the riches of the first half of the 20th century.
> >>
> >>
> >>--
> >>Lee in Mashiko, Japan
> >>Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
> >>http://potters.blogspot.com/
> >>
> >>"To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts." -
> >>Henry David Thoreau
> >>
> >>"Let the beauty we love be what we do." - Rumi
> >>
> >>_________________________________________________________________________
>_____
> >>Send postings to clayart@lsv.ceramics.org
> >>
> >>You may look at the archives for the list or change your subscription
> >>settings from http://www.ceramics.org/clayart/
> >>
> >>Moderator of the list is Mel Jacobson who may be reached at
> >>melpots@pclink.com.
> >
> >__________________________________________________________________________
>____
> >Send postings to clayart@lsv.ceramics.org
> >
> >You may look at the archives for the list or change your subscription
> >settings from http://www.ceramics.org/clayart/
> >
> >Moderator of the list is Mel Jacobson who may be reached at
>melpots@pclink.com.
>
>______________________________________________________________________________
>Send postings to clayart@lsv.ceramics.org
>
>You may look at the archives for the list or change your subscription
>settings from http://www.ceramics.org/clayart/
>
>Moderator of the list is Mel Jacobson who may be reached at
>melpots@pclink.com.
Lee Love on thu 26 apr 07
On 4/26/07, Bob Johnson wrote:
> The ability to lose oneself in the moment, especially during creative
> thinking, is what psychologists call "flow." The guy who invented the
> term is Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
While psychology is pretty new in the West, it goes way back in
Asia. In Buddhism, this "flow" is called mindfulness. Usually,
we don't live in the initial experience, but rather, in the thought of
the experience and the thought about the thought of the experience,
etc. The book below is a good introduction:
Zen Training: Methods and Philosophy by Katsuki Sekida
http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Training-Philosophy-Shambhala-Classics/dp/1590302834/ref=sr_1_1/
The book below is a more indepth perspective on our thought process
and how we experience it:
The Awakening of Faith: Attributed to Asvaghosha (Translations from
the Asian Classics) by Yoshito S. Hakeda, Asvaghosa, and Ryuichi Abe
--
Lee in Mashiko, Japan
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
http://potters.blogspot.com/
"To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts." -
Henry David Thoreau
"Let the beauty we love be what we do." - Rumi
Donna Kat on thu 26 apr 07
On Thu, 26 Apr 2007 12:20:56 +0900, Lee Love wrote:
>On 4/26/07, Bob Johnson wrote:
>
>> The ability to lose oneself in the moment, especially during creative
>> thinking, is what psychologists call "flow." The guy who invented the
>> term is Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
>
> While psychology is pretty new in the West, it goes way back in
>Asia. In Buddhism, this "flow" is called mindfulness. Usually,
>we don't live in the initial experience, but rather, in the thought of
>the experience and the thought about the thought of the experience,
>etc. The book below is a good introduction:
>
>Zen Training: Methods and Philosophy by Katsuki Sekida
>http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Training-Philosophy-Shambhala-
Classics/dp/1590302834/ref=sr_1_1/
>
>The book below is a more indepth perspective on our thought process
>and how we experience it:
>
>The Awakening of Faith: Attributed to Asvaghosha (Translations from
>the Asian Classics) by Yoshito S. Hakeda, Asvaghosa, and Ryuichi Abe
>
Humans have, I imagine, always been introspective but that is different
from the 'science' of psychology. The systematic study of how the
mind/brain (different things) works is relatively new (1860s maybe???).
Donna Kat on thu 26 apr 07
On Wed, 25 Apr 2007 17:06:31 -0700, Bob Johnson
wrote:
>I agree, Donna. There is little correlation between standard IQ
>scores and creativity. In fact, one could argue that IQ scores have
>been way oversold as a measure of almost anything, except success in
>school. Psychologist Bob Sternberg, however, has been working on a
>"triarchic" theory, in which "intelligence" is composed of three
>parts: academic intelligence (like IQ), practical intelligence
>(roughly, how to get things done), and creative intelligence. He has
>some measures, but they are not in wide use yet. Interestingly, he
>finds that different cultures place different values on each
>component of intelligence.
>
>The ability to lose oneself in the moment, especially during creative
>thinking, is what psychologists call "flow." The guy who invented the
>term is Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. (I am not making this up! I once
>wrote him and asked how to pronounce his name, and he replied:
>Mee-HAI CHEEK-sent-mee-HAI, which means something like "the church
>of St. Michael on the hill---in Transylvanian). He is a big name,
>well respected in the psychology of creativity. His book most famous
>book is Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. [Ivor: the
>numbers are ISBN-10: 0060920432 and ISBN-13: 978-0060920432]
>
>Please pardon me for lapsing into lecture mode, but I spent 28 years
>as a psychology professor.
>
>Bob
I so wish we had a better way of keeping threads together and reading them
in the list. I almost missed this. I was at Yale for 10 years in the
same department and area as Bob Sternberg (working in a fellow
researcher's lab)! I am familiar with his work and like it (and him).
I often end up feeling like I=92m beating my head against the wall when I
try to explain to people who are miss-using IQ, SAT, and other such test
that these tests are meant to be tools at predicting how well someone will
do in school. A better predictor of that would of course be how well
someone does in school =96 for some reason a difficult concept to grab.
People also don=92t seem to realize that these tests cannot predict how well=
people will do in life.
A great deal of damage has been done with these tests and the ignorance of
what they represent. It is a hot button item for me so I tend to go on
and on about it.
Donna
P.S. I did not think you were lecturing. I thought you did a great job
of sharing.
Ivor and Olive Lewis on sat 28 apr 07
Dear Taylor Hendrix, Lee Love and Bob Johnson,
How do "Flow", "Mindfulness" differ from "Reverie" ?.
And are these things, which go on in our brains, distinguishable from =
that realisation which comes to us when an afternoon has passed without =
any sense of the passage of Time as we accomplish some task ?
Apart from the feeling of superiority of those who are successful in =
completing the tasks given in IQ Tests, do they serve any other purpose =
than Ranking those who take them. In other words, they validate a =
political intention
Best regards to you all,
Ivor Lewis.
Redhill,
South Australia.
Linda White on sat 28 apr 07
Dear Ivor,
As a former reading teacher, it is my opinion that the major use of
standardized tests is to weed out people without having to think
about it too much. If you're hiring people and you say a college
degree is required, then you've gotten rid of all those who don't
have a college degree, even if a degree has nothing to do with the
job in question. In the US, I think the government has gone
absolutely nutty about standardized tests and is trying to mandate a
minimum level of education. The son of one of my friends was a
mechanical genius as a child. He could take apart any machine and put
it back together and make it work! But he had trouble with reading.
He was sent to special schools to improve his reading. He became
convinced that going to college was vitally important and struggled
through. Last I heard, he was working as a bartender. Seems like the
waste of a precious talent to me. I don't know when we're really
going to understand that different talents and professions are
equally important. Where would we all be without the trash collectors
and the plumbers?
Linda White
LickHaven Pottery
Dushore PA
Lee Love on sat 28 apr 07
On 4/28/07, Ivor and Olive Lewis wrote:
>
>
>
> How do "Flow", "Mindfulness" differ from "Reverie" ?.
>
> And are these things, which go on in our brains, distinguishable from that
> realisation which comes to us when an afternoon has passed without any sense
> of the passage of Time as we accomplish some task ?
Reverie noun:
1. Absent-minded dreaming while awake
2. An abstracted state of absorption
Mindfulness is not "absent-mined." It is not "abstracted." It is
direct experience without the interference of the thought of a thought.
Katagiri Roshi use to describe it as "The 'Ah-ness' of seeing the moose in
the woods, before you think: 'I see a moose!'"
Sometimes, no task is present. Just "Being" can be the process. The
mind isn't exactly the brain. There are mind aspects that exist outside
the brain. The mind is a process. The brain is a material object.
Apart from the feeling of superiority of those who are successful in
> completing the tasks given in IQ Tests, do they serve any other purpose than
> Ranking those who take them. In other words, they validate a political
> intention
>
>
IQ tests are only one aspect of intelligence. Primarily, they
tell you how well people take IQ tests.
--
Lee in Mashiko, Japan
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
http://potters.blogspot.com/
"To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts." - Henry
David Thoreau
"Let the beauty we love be what we do." - Rumi
Bob Johnson on sat 28 apr 07
Although I am a psychologist (as well as a potter), I don't have any
special expertise on flow or on IQ. That said, here's my take on
these two concepts:
Flow is Csikszentmihalyi's term for a mental state that occurs when
one is completely absorbed in an activity. It could involve artistic
creation, scholarly pursuits, chopping wood, bird watching, etc. As I
understand it, flow and mindfulness are overlapping concepts, but
(here I'm getting on shakier ground) some of the Asian meanings for
mindfulness could include thinking of nothing, while flow involves
focusing on some particular activity.
As for IQ, the concept originated in the work of Alfred Binet, who
(around 1900) was looking for a way to identify French school
children who needed special academic help by identifying their mental
ages. The American Lewis Terman came up with the idea of dividing
mental age by chronological age to get the IQ. Several problems
ensued. For one, it only works with children, because mental ages
begin to plateau in adolescence, while chronological ages continue to
increase: This makes adults appear to grow mentally retarded. Another
problem is that IQ never was a good measure of anything but school
success, even though Americans have fallen in love with the concept
and think it means "smarts" in general. It has almost no correlation
with creativity. And it has almost no correlation with "practical
intelligence" or "street smarts." (Geo. Bush may be an interesting
example of someone whose intellect is quite uneven in these three
areas. But I digress...) Still another problem with IQ is that people
think of it as fixed, when it is really the result of a fluid
interaction between nature and nurture. Finally, the concept of IQ
has been abused by those who want to categorize people in an effort
to maintain racism, sexism, and other efforts to keep down the
competition. One recent apology for that was in the book, The Bell Curve.
If you don't mind another couple of book suggestions along these lines:
Stephen J. Gould (1996). The mismeasure of man. New York: W. W. Norton.
Carol Tavris (1992). The mismeasure of woman: Why women are not the
better sex, the inferior sex, or the opposite sex. New York: Touchstone.
How did we get so far off the subject of clay with this? I think I
remember: It had to do with Howard Gardner's Creating Minds as an
insightful look at the creative process, based on his notion of
"multiple intelligences."
Again, please forgive: Even though I am retired from the classroom,
it is easy to slip back into the lecture mode---especially when it
comes to one of my other loves, which is psychology.
Bob - in Oregon
At 4/27/2007 05:53 PM, you wrote:
>Dear Taylor Hendrix, Lee Love and Bob Johnson,
>
>How do "Flow", "Mindfulness" differ from "Reverie" ?.
>
>And are these things, which go on in our brains, distinguishable
>from that realisation which comes to us when an afternoon has passed
>without any sense of the passage of Time as we accomplish some task ?
>
>Apart from the feeling of superiority of those who are successful in
>completing the tasks given in IQ Tests, do they serve any other
>purpose than Ranking those who take them. In other words, they
>validate a political intention
>
>Best regards to you all,
>
>Ivor Lewis.
>Redhill,
>South Australia.
>
>______________________________________________________________________________
>Send postings to clayart@lsv.ceramics.org
>
>You may look at the archives for the list or change your subscription
>settings from http://www.ceramics.org/clayart/
>
>Moderator of the list is Mel Jacobson who may be reached at
>melpots@pclink.com.
claystevslat on sat 28 apr 07
--- In clayart@yahoogroups.com, Ivor and Olive Lewis
wrote:
>
> Apart from the feeling of superiority of those who are successful
in completing the tasks given in IQ Tests, do they serve any other
purpose than Ranking those who take them. In other words, they
validate a political intention
>
Ivor --
Political intention? I'd say no. IQ tests are still with us,
more than a century after the first one was devised because they
remain a valid predictor of certain types of success and failure.
The tests, as Binet pointed out when they were new, test attention,
memory, and verbal skills. Some (imho) rather crude tests also
establish some level of understanding of an individual's familiarity
with math concepts (but most of what's on the tests I've taken has
been a combination of verbal analysis and computation).
Almost no one who's familiar with the process will argue that
someone who scores 120 is inherently better at any process than
someone else who scores 110. In fact, many people have scores that
hop around quite a few points. The differing tests, though, have
statistically verifiable reliability across large groups of people --
that is, if you give 100 people an Army Beta test on a Tuesday and a
Stanford-Binet 5 test on Friday, almost all the people who rank
significantly under normal on one will do so on the other; as almost
all who rank significantly above normal will do so on the other.
This means, of course, that something is being measured that's
consistent. This thing has been proven over the years to be a good
predictor of academic performance and success in a few fields of
endeavor. And, equally, not others.
In Binet's time, the tests were used differently from today. He
wanted a trained test administrator to sit with each client and
watch them take the test, to identify the type of question the
person had trouble with. His goal was not to establish a specific
ranking of anything, but to spot actual cases of retardation vs.
normal vs. exceptional intelligence. For that kind of 'sheep and
goats' separation, the tests are still generally useful.
And as far as claims of 'flow' and 'mindfulness' I'd express the
same sort of skepticism towards them as I would about someone who
insisted on telling me his child's IQ. Or someone who insisted that
his cultural group or religious practice held some truth that was
not available to non-members.
Regards -- Steve Slatin
Lee Love on sat 28 apr 07
On 4/27/07, Donna Kat wrote:
> Humans have, I imagine, always been introspective but that is different
>> from the 'science' of psychology.
In the East the approach is via direct experience, rather
than seeing the mind as an exterior object. It is intuitive, rather
than deductive. But several modern schools of psychology are
influenced by Asian psycology. Carl Jung is one of the best
examples.
>The systematic study of how the
> mind/brain (different things) works is relatively new (1860s maybe???).
In the West it is new. In the East, it goes back 2500 years and
before. Buddhist and Vedantic psychology is very systematic and
rigorous. But, our culture is a bit myopic about science.
--
Lee in Mashiko, Japan
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
http://potters.blogspot.com/
"To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts." -
Henry David Thoreau
"Let the beauty we love be what we do." - Rumi
Lee Love on sun 29 apr 07
On 4/29/07, claystevslat wrote:
>
>
> And as far as claims of 'flow' and 'mindfulness' I'd express the
> same sort of skepticism towards them as I would about someone who
> insisted on telling me his child's IQ. Or someone who insisted that
> his cultural group or religious practice held some truth that was
> not available to non-members.
Steve,
You always crack me up. :^)
We are always uneasy with things that jostle our
culture's paradigm.
But mindfulness is not racially determined nor is it
specific to any religion. It is just like math skills and can be
learned. Actually, in pre-modern society, when we mostly hunted and
gathered, it was a very common experience. It is our modern
lifestyles that allow no time for quiet, that it is more difficult to
experience.
Gotta walk the dog. More tonight after the Pottery Festival.
--
Lee in Mashiko, Japan
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
http://potters.blogspot.com/
"To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts." -
Henry David Thoreau
"Let the beauty we love be what we do." - Rumi
Ivor Lewis on tue 1 may 07
Dear Linda white,
Thank you for your reply.
In 1943 I passesd my Scholarship examination, better known as the "eleven
plus", sitting for only one of the sessions. I went on to Grammar School.
My friend Billy did not pass. But he was later given a place at the
technical school and became one of the most respected diesel engine
technicians in the district.
Best regards,
Ivor
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