Creation

This is a departure from the series of posts I began a couple weeks ago.

Creativity is something that hasn't ever seemed like part of my personality.  And for the most part, I've never had a problem with that.  I get plenty of pleasure out of simply experiencing the creative works of others.  And, since I am fairly proficient in music, I do enjoy performing creative works using the instruments I am familiar with.  The way I see it, creativity is a win-win situation.  Those who create and those who experience both benefit.  For most of my life, I have been content to sit back and let other people be creative.

But for the past few months, I've started feeling a desire to create things.  I've had several opportunities recently to develop my talent of singing, and some of my friends are attempting to form an a cappella group.  I'd like to try writing some things that we could perform together.  They probably wouldn't be very complex; mostly just some hymn arrangements.  I have an idea of something I could use to write an original piece, but I won't elaborate on that until I have a better idea of what form that's even going to take.  I'm definitely going to start small if I'm going to try creating anything.

Not that I haven't created anything before.  I mean, I've written my fair share of book reports, essays, and (to use an example that wasn't mandated by education) blog posts.  But in most of those cases, I felt more like I was transcribing something that was already there into a visible form.  Especially with the blog posts.  The vast majority of them (including this one) are about topics that have come into my mind lately, or things that have happened in my life, and I just put my thoughts and experiences on paper (or online).  I rarely feel like it was something that I just brought into existence.  But that's exactly how Dieter F. Uchtdorf describes creation:

"Creation means bringing into existence something that did not exist before."

It's talks like these that open my eyes to the concept that God wants us to create.  And I've been aware of that for a while, but lately I've been feeling like now is the time for me to start really trying to create something.  Specifically, a musical something.

But here's the deal.  I've casually thought about that several isolated times in the past, and every time, I have this general feeling that almost everything musical that can be created has been created.  And I know that Boyd K. Packer said that there is still plenty of good music that remains to be written.  But even if I was to create something new, would it sound so much like an existing song that it wouldn't really even be worth it?

And here's another deal.  Uchtdorf says that creation is bringing something new into existence, but he also teaches that crucial to creation is relying on and trusting in the Spirit.  And I wouldn't be surprised if every work of creation was directly or indirectly influenced by the Spirit, even in a small way.  But if I rely totally and completely rely on the Spirit for any work of creation that I do (which I don't think is a problem), can I really justify calling it creation anymore?  Or, at least, can I call it mine?

I do believe that the act of creation consists largely of the ability to transform an idea that's already there into another form.  And maybe that's all it is.  After all, the creation of the universe by God was not bringing matter into existence that didn't exist before.  It was the organization of already-existing matter into a usable form.  I don't really know where the ideas for creation come from, and I don't know if I will ever know, or if anybody will ever know.  I don't know if there's a single hypothetical "source of creativity" that simply manifests itself in different forms, or if every conscious mind is (or can be) a source of creativity in itself.  But I think before I get to the point where I feel like I can create, I'm going to have to uncover more of that mystery.

Capturing meaning with isomorphisms

One of the main themes of Godel, Escher, Bach (GEB) is the process of transmitting meaning through different forms.  This is one of the reasons formal systems were created; to structurally organize interpreted meaning into a usable form.  Mathematics itself can be thought of as a huge collection of formal systems, some of which are meant to express abstract principles (pure mathematics), and some that are tools that assist us with making calculations of real-world situations (applied mathematics).  Hofstadter includes a formal system of his own making that operates the same way as addition, though he uses different symbols.

The existence of isomorphisms is necessary to the creation of a formal system, or at least one that is meant to have an interpretation or application in the real world.  Hofstadter defines isomorphisms as information-preserving transformations.  I like to think of them as almost a sort of transportation device that moves information from one form to another.

Isomorphisms are almost constantly present in our lives without our conscious realization of them.  All of our five senses can be thought of as isomorphisms.  The eyes receive the input of visible light, then transduce the electromagnetic radiation into neural signals to be sent to the brain.  The ears transform vibrations in the air into our experience of sound.  The nose and tongue use different mechanisms to receive the properties and configuration of various chemicals, then preserve that information in the form of a neural network of signals.  And sensory receptors throughout our bodies receive pressure and heat stimuli, which they use to communicate to the brain what is happening in the outside world.

Beyond that, we use isomorphisms as tools to accomplish innumerable tasks.  As you read these words, the cognitive networks in your brain are converting the otherwise meaningless figures known as letters into the experience of understanding concepts real and abstract.  You may be listening to a CD, whose microscopic convoluted substructure is being read by an audio player and transformed into the sonic vibrations of a speaker unit, which in turn is being translated by the brain into the physical and emotional perception of music.  And ever since the day you were conceived, an army of RNA polymerase and ribosomes has grown and multiplied and worked tirelessly to translate DNA into RNA and then into protein to build the complete, complex, complicated biological organism that houses your consciousness (since the part of you that matters wasn't made by any simple nucleic acid or enzyme).  Isomorphisms are inescapable.

The above picture, Liberation by artist M.C. Escher, illustrates a transformation of one form to another.  The title suggests that it's meant to be viewed from bottom to top, as if the birds above are being freed from their restrictive form below.  But what if we made a slight alteration to this work?  If we renamed it Capture, would it be interpreted differently?  From freedom to bondage?

Capture is exactly what much of modern applied science has done and will do until everything is known.  The natural phenomena that became interpreted as Newton's laws of motion, Le Chatelier's principle of dynamic equilibrium, the laws of thermodynamics, the central dogma of molecular biology, Kepler's conjectures of planetary motion, Kubler-Ross's five stages of grief, the Darwinian perspective of evolution, and thousands more were all "captured" to some extent from their free position in the universe to the human's world of pen and paper.  But how well were they captured?  How much information was accurately preserved?  Looking back at Escher's Liberation, how far down can you go before the birds aren't really birds anymore?

In reality, the workings of the universe are so much bigger than any theorem, conjecture, or law that we try to use for capture.  It's going to be a long time before we understand everything; much less express or use that knowledge intelligently.  Few isomorphisms are perfect.  Information is almost always lost in translation.  But even if the birds are more beautiful than the triangular prisons we hold them in, the snares allow us to use the rigidity of form while retaining our appreciation for the unlimited.