Sampling and the Creative Act

I found this week's readings to be quite involved. Dj. Spooky's essay on "Sampling and the Creative Act" is rife with references to other people's work and ideas and is really quite impressive as a catalog of knowledge on various topics. Miller's writing style mimics the idea he is conveying: the world is at this point a shared information culture, and that more and more ideas intersect and people understand the world in terms of the technology that surrounds us. Paul seems to be invigorated by this idea, with a sense of possibility as to what can be created and experienced by this sort of "democratization" of media, information, and the creative pursuit. I tend to take a little more pessimistic view of the path that I see civilization heading down. Though I think that there is something very profound in the idea of a shared culture and experience on a global scale, I do think that there is too much emphasis on thought and information, which is leading to more and more technology and individual expression, and less and less to nature and more lasting forms connection, which may come from activities such as meditation, quieting the mind, and simply enjoying what is.

Among one of Spooky's many references is one to David Bohm's Thought as System. Upon looking into this resource, I was interested to see that David Bohm (a quantum physicist who helped develop the first atomic bomb) actually summed up much of what I was thinking with this book (a part not implicated by Spooky). From Wikipedia:

Thought as a System

Bohm was alarmed by what he considered an increasing imbalance of not only man and nature, but among peoples, as well as people, themselves. Bohm: "So one begins to wonder what is going to happen to the human race. Technology keeps on advancing with greater and greater power, either for good or for destruction." He goes on to ask:

What is the source of all this trouble? I'm saying that the source is basically in thought. Many people would think that such a statement is crazy, because thought is the one thing we have with which to solve our problems. That's part of our tradition. Yet it looks as if the thing we use to solve our problems with is the source of our problems. It's like going to the doctor and having him make you ill. In fact, in 20% of medical cases we do apparently have that going on. But in the case of thought, it's far over 20%.