We register and we have modifications on the surface of ourselves that are sensitive to different qualities and attributes of energy forms and so forth, whether these are photons in terms of laser light or sound vibrations with sound, or whether it’s molecular deformities of our skin surface, or molecular immersions in the mucous of the nose or the mouth–at each of these interfaces, all kinds of neural or nervous system impulses, sensory input comes by the gazillions—millions and millions of these data segments are projected into that part of the brain that has to do with organizing sensory information. That process of organization is an absolutely creative one. It must take from millions and millions of data points and it must create an image of what it is that is out there; what it is at the surface, what’s coming through the surface or resonating through the ear, or whatever.
It must build what I call a “resonant representation.” It must be resonant with the outside phenomena, or it is not useful. If that thing out there is really a cobra, then it doesn’t do you much good if you just think it is a rope coiled on the ground–you’re dead! So, our differentiation senses start from that primal level of simply staying alive. All of our senses build images—whatever that sense is open to, whatever it is sensitive to–and it builds images in those terms. So, what we call and what we quite unconsciously process from moment to moment to moment throughout our lives, in terms of the data that comes in through our senses, those are all creative processes that create from a wide variety of sources, of a commonality of image.
That’s part of the creativity that I’m talking about. We see reflected in the everyday life of Man the creation of forms and energies, whether we’re talking about music, or whether we’re talking about architecture, or whatever, from the psychical through sound, vision, touch, taste and smell–in a sense, the images become the basis for a creative response – we react/respond as if the image were real. We move colors around or we move sound around and we create resonances, and we create other ways of looking at the same phenomena, experiencing the world in new ways. Those are creative circumstances, and depending on the degree to which there are resonances, they are all very useful. We help each other to see aspects of the beauty of the world of sound, or of color or form, and so forth.
Related to that, you mentioned earlier about Ashley Montagu and his lifetime of very creative activity. That’s the creativity of his third brain that has for all of us an echo of our first brain’s survival because, in that first brain, we have this great emphasis of necessity on surviving in this moment and then surviving today by taking in food, then surviving into the future by participating in some procreative activity. Well, that triad, if you will, of first brain survival is echoed in the second brain and then, again, in the third brain. In the third brain that survival in the moment is my mental capacity to think on my feet. What is the food for that? It is my life experience, my life’s experiences from day to day to day that I take into that third brain. Finally, and this is the point that I meant to make with this very prolific author, is procreation into the future. What does he create through his third brain that will carry into the future long after he is dead, and that will be a mark of his creative activity in the world that will serve other people into the future?
That’s how I understand the creative aspect of the third brain taken in a very large sense because this is Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, the great sculptors, the great poets, all of the artistic efforts that are made that carry that mark of creativity of the third brain, of the human–of the truly human brain, carries that into the future. That’s one way of seeing the creative aspect of the human being that is resonant with the creativity of endlessness.