Re: Creativity

"David Longley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, M. 
> Ciumeica <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
> >
> > What is creativity? How exactly do you define it, and how do you
> >simulate it? Is it purely random, or it is somehow linked to our
> >memory?
> >
> 
> You must have heard of the phrase "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" 
> sometimes confused with "ontology recapitulates philology" <g>?
> 
> People (including many "Cognitive Scientists") use folk psychological 
> terms such as "creativity" much as they do other words like 
> "intelligence" - ie as just another "folk psychological" *property*. 
> This leads to all sorts of metaphysical talk which today may not be 
> called metaphysical, but it does lead to the same old muddles.  An 
> alternative, simpler way to talk about all this is more directly in 
> terms of behaviours. Roughly speaking, we can functionally analyse 
> ontogenetic behaviour in two useful ways, a) in terms of "selection" and 
> in terms of b) "variation" (just as is the case with phylogenetic 
> behaviours). Emitted behaviour is *selected* by the environment and we 
> tend to talk about it in terms of its outcome or consequences. Variation 
> in behaviour may well account for what we *call* "creativity", but just 
> as not all selected behaviour is "intelligent" behaviour, not all 
> variation in behaviour is "creative"  in the folk psychological use of 
> these terms. one has to look to outcome and consequences to see how 
> these terms are applied. It's important to appreciate that all of this 
> operates on populations or species.
> 
> The bottom line: don't think of these as (folk) psychological 
> "properties". Look at behaviour.

I'm afraid I can't agree with you on this one. What you described here
is indeed the creativity of a species, that it, its ability to select
the individuals which possess the behaviour best suited for their
environment. It still has the following disadvantages:
 a) It's blind. Practically, it's a stochastic selection process, much
like throwing a die multiple times to get the best result.
Intuitively, human creativity is directed by intelligence.
 b) It's slow. If a change in the environment takes place, several
generations of individuals must pass before a significant change can
be noticed. Human creativity, on the other hand, must be extremely
dynamic -- the survival of a single person is based on this.

What I am looking for is a description of *human* creativity, which,
in my opinion, shouldn't be based in those principles.

And then, reducing the mental processes to reactive behaviour is a
rather risky approach, and I think that it should be given a reason in
this case.

> -- 
> David Longley

 -- Mihai