The Creative Mind: Myths and Mechanisms

by Margaret A. Boden

How is it possible to think new thoughts? What is creativity and can science explain it? And just how did Coleridge dream up the creatures of The Ancient Mariner ?

When The Creative Mind: Myths and Mechanisms was first published, Margaret A. Boden's bold and provocative exploration of creativity broke new ground. Boden uses examples such as jazz improvisation, chess, story writing, physics, and the music of Mozart, together with computing models from the field of artificial intelligence to uncover the nature of human creativity in the arts.

The second edition of The Creative Mind has been updated to include recent developments in artificial intelligence, with a new preface, introduction and conclusion by the author. It is an essential work for anyone interested in the creativity of the human mind.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Science, Art, Artificial Intelligence

360 pages, Paperback

First published May 26, 1991

Reviews

[Rick Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

1. What does Boden say about Creativity?


Creativity is the ability to come up with ideas or artefacts.

These are new, surprising and valuable.

‘Ideas’ include concepts, poems, musical compositions.

'Ideas' also includes scientific theories, cookery recipes, choreography, jokes.

‘Artefacts’ include paintings, sculptures, steam engines.

'Artefacts' include vacuum cleaners, pottery, origami, penny whistles.

2. What is it & How, Types of Creativity?

Creativity is Aspect of Intelligence.

We focus on, How Creative it is, and in what way?

P-Creativity -- Surprising, Valuable to the Person, who comes with it
H-Creativity -- Nobody has come up in History

Three Forms of Creativity:

1.Invoking Unfamiliar Combinations of Ideas
2. Exploration of Conceptual Spaces
3. Transformation of Spaces

Computer Creativity

Simple example: Combining Data-Structures, together through connectionism

Combinational creativity -- combine rich store of knowledge, many different kinds, ability to form links of many different types.

AARON, an early example of drawing program, for creativity.

Creation in Religious Tradition:

Mediaeval theologians of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam's conception of Creation Ex-Nihilo

Creator shares the creation’s properties, can we really speak of creation?

3. What is the common ways of measuring?

Test of Creativity

Lovelace-question:

a) How human creativity is possible,

b) Whether computers or future, could ever do things which at least appear to be creative?

c) Whether Computer, could recognize, creativity?

4. What have writers said about Creativity & Generating Creativity?

Writers on Creativity

Alan Turing, Computer Scientist -- believed programs could one day, appreciate & write sonnets.

Hadamard, believed, "It is obvious that invention or discovery, be it in mathematics or anywhere else, takes place by combining ideas."

Mechanisms of Creativity:

Generative Rules, abstract descriptions
Generative Rules, inherent possibilities

Concepts of Computation

Generative system - structure of computational space
Heuristic -- Select insightful and move in space

Semantic Net -- represent human memory as associative system

Boden says, Creativity, depends on Mind's Associative Power.
Chess-Masters, recognize thousands of different chess-positions.

5. So, How to Generate Creativity?

Creative Connections

Connectionist computer models

Ability to detect Patterns,
Ability to work with imperfect data,
Ability to work with probabilities, messy ones
Ability to learn
Ability to reactive
Ability to do things naturally, without being programmed
Ability for semantic association with different representation
Ability for contextual association with different representation

"Connectionism contains, associative memory in context and understanding"

Abstractly,

"Connectionist network is a parallel-processing system made of many simple computational units, linked (as brain-cells are) by excitatory or inhibitory connections."

Connectionist systems do not use explicit rules.
Analogical thinking is common in science, as well as in art.
Boden shares about, Expert Systems used in Farming & Inductive Programs.

I thought, we are mostly using connectionism models these days.

Carl Hempel --contributed, search, search-space, heuristic, planning, means–end analysis, and production system.

Boden says, Creative Programs rest in large, about, on hypothesis, about how creativity takes place in human minds. Creative thinking involves chance, chaos, randomness, unpredictability, along with constraints.

Serendipity is the finding of something valuable without its being specifically sought, with coincidence being involved.

In principle, a creative computer could find serendipitous (R-random) ideas by systematic brute search.

6. How can a Machine, which is not like a human generate creativity?

Boden says, many people who discuss on real creativity appeals to consciousness.
‘Creativity requires consciousness,’ they say, ‘and no computer could ever be conscious.’

Much of the mental processing going on when people generate novel ideas is not conscious, but unconscious

Deus Vult,
Gottfried

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book. It is full of interesting ideas presented in a clear and fun fashion. I'm still working on it, so I'll post a full review when I'm done with it.

[Sally Sugarman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book which explores creativity by looking at what artificial intelligence tells us about the nature of thought. Somewhat technical, the book still offers some fascinating insights into how creativity develops. One point Boden makes is that science does not predict but explains; nor does it focus on the unique, nor even the precise, but on laws. She talks about the random, the chance, the chaotic, but essentially what creativity requires is a prepared mind, and an almost ruthless devotion to the endeavor. Mozart had a good short term memory, much experience and a life devoted to music. Boden challenges some of the intuitive explanations for creativity. She also says that it does not diminish creativity to try to understand it. If we can understand, we can believe that it can be achieved by ordinary individuals. If one discounts effort and motivation, then many people will not aspire to creativity. She agrees with Weisberg, Sternberg and others that it is a part of our normal thought processes. She also talks about P-creativity and H-Creativity. The P-type being a process that is original with the individual, the H-that which has significance in the society. The society also has to be ready. Ideas are around a long time before the society is ready to accept them. She makes useful distinctions between science and technology; between art and spontaneity. She sees art as requiring discipline and constraints as does science. She does not see science as more precise than art, but another domain. The biographical material she offers is useful. She asks questions about the possibility of creativity being duplicated by a computer if it is appropriately programmed. Much of what we think needs to respond to the definition of different words. What is intuition for example but unexamined thought. She talks about the world that was imagined before Copernicus, Darwin and Freud. She is for understanding and not ignorance.

[Belle Savage · Rating 2 out of 5]

Trying to understand the answer to what creates creativity but Boden states within her essay, Thinking is Impossible is that the full concept of creativity cannot be learned even if we try to practice it. Simply believing in a unicorn isn’t enough proof, one can dream of one, however they should know that there is no such thing of this form of creation – meaning one can never discover full originality. At the closing sentence she asks her readers “what is creativity” but determines them to stay hopeful because one day the answer might arise. We know that creativity cannot fully be understood, but I think the best solution is to keep trying, to keep the surprises coming in order for creativity to live on just like imagination.

[Alexi Parizeau · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this just to see what Computational Creativity was like before Deep Learning. Though the examples are now very dated, Boden's theoretical perspective is still relevant and inspiring (especially Chapter 9!).

[Steve]

Pretty interesting book, but I got tired of it about halfway through. Very interesting take on the intersection of psychology described through computational analysis.

[Diego · Rating 3 out of 5]

Es un libro bastante interesante para aquellos que estudian inteligencia artificial, ya que se hace uso de los conceptos de esa área para explicar cómo ocurre la creatividad en el ser humano.