Some notes on Creativity:

Professor Brian Butler

December, 2003

 

            The lecture on creativity was designed to counter one of the common criticisms of the CRUM hypothesis.  Many people would claim that a computer can never capture the essence of the mind because a computer could never, in and of itself, be creative.  This argument arises periodically and was first stated by Ada Lovelace, the daughter of Lord Byron, who was a mathematician who helped Charles Babbage design the first computing device in 1830.  It was Lovelace who proposed using punched cards similar to the ones that programmed the newly invented Jacquard looms.

 

            To understand if a computer can be creative we need some definition of creativity and a description of what may constitute the creative process in people.  Two cognitive scientists have taken a special interest in creativity and both support the view that computers can be creative.

 

Douglas Hofstadter

 

            Douglas Hofstadter, of Godel, Escher, Bach fame, endorses the idea that computers can be and will be creative.  In a series of articles he wrote for the Scientific American in 1982, he claimed that the essence of creativity is pursuing a theme through all its possible outcomes and being clever enough to recognize a bright new possibility with the combinations that emerge.

 

            He claims we need:

(a)    Domain specific knowledge: most creative artists, inventors, etc. become productive after about ten years of study according to John Hayes with his “ten-year rule”.

(b)   Systematic exploration of a theme: Hofstadter actually uses the example of the Rubic’s Cube and all the variations of this theme that emerged after the original cube became popular.

(c)    Ability to recognize a good idea:  Part of the role that knowledge plays is that it allows the person to recognize a good idea when and if they accidentally stumble over one.

 

I then illustrated the ideas that Hofstadter mentioned by exploring an intriguing box packing “game” that Thomas O’Beirne had invented in 1961.  If you like you can read more about this at www.johnrausch.com/PuzzleWorld/art/art02.htm.

 

Maggie Boden

 

            Margaret Boden, one of the doyens of cognitive science and Dean of Cognitive Science at the University of Sussex, has similarly argued that creativity can be explained as a process combining exploration and recognition.  This is a theme Boden has now pursued through two books and a series of articles.

 

            Her argument is similar to Hofstadter’s except she places a greater emphasis on the type of search.  She distinguishes three types, or degrees, of creativity.  The simplest type of creativity occurs when one explores permutations and combinations exhaustively, hoping for an inspired change.  Thus, one artist succeeds at capturing the imagination of the public with pictures of small children with big eyes; another tries the same thing by painting children with big ears.  Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn’t.

 

            The next degree of creativity involves exploring an unknown space, that is, a dimension or variable that has not been used before.  She gave the example of Christopher Columbus who set sail not knowing what he might find – and then misrecognized it as “The Indies” when he did get there.

 

            The third and highest degree of creativity is again when one explores a space but this is a space that has been transformed in a way that others have no considered.  Einstein did this by linking mass and energy.  This type of creativity changes things dramatically by making what was considered impossible possible.  An example is the discovery of the transistor.  Prior to 1950 it was considered a given that all electronics and information processing systems had to work at relatively high and dangerous levels of electrical voltage.   The invention of the transistor changed this so dramatically that power distribution through wires may cease to be needed in the next few years.  Another example is Edwin Abbott’s Flatland, a story/travelogue he wrote about the inhabitants of a two-dimensional universe that is designed to better acquaint us with our own three-dimensional world.  Abbott’s Flatland is at http://www.alcyone.com/max/lit/flatland/ and I recommend it highly (even at exam time!).

 

            Boden herself gives the example of Kekule as the third degree of creativity.  Kekule, if you remember, discovered the ring structure of benzene while thinking about a ring of snakes chasing each others tails.  He had actually seen such a ring some years before.

 

AARON

 

            The final example of creativity that I included as AARON the computer artist invented by Harodl Cohen  over a very long period of time.  Details about AARON can be seen at http://www.kurzweilcyberart.com/.   As Maggie Boden points out, AARON raises an interesting issue of who nis the artist.  Is it Cohen who invented AARON or AARON who composes and produces the artwork?  Cohen can never predict what AARON will do so…..?    I then suggested that Cohen could be considered as the teacher or mentor of AARON and the source of his inspiration, just as the master teaches the apprentice or just as Beatrice inspired Dante Algheiri.