The Computational Creativity Complex - Computational Creativity Research: Towards Creative Machines - page 83

and does also, in fact, represent a Gödelian process over which the agent may not
have any control.
The computational challenge faced in realizing this step of the “algorithm”
depends upon which, if any, of the possibilities above best explains insight. In the
first three cases, the simplest solution must involve some variation on a brute force
search (in what space? Is identification/construction of the search space another meta-
level problem?) Such an approach will (eventually) produce artifacts that satisfy the
agent's aesthetic and are potentially considered creative. Of course in any interesting
domain, the search space is very likely to be infinite and so the first real computabil-
ity concern raises its head. Such a search will not be computable in the strong sense
of decidability (see more on this in Sect. 4.4.4 ); however, it will be in the weaker
sense of recognizability, and this could be argued to be no more egregious than is
the case for human creativity—we can't define or guarantee it, but we know it when
we see it. The next obvious solution is to introduce search heuristics to circumvent
the complexity/computability issues associated with the brute force approach. These
may be learned from the environment 11 or invented by the agent (meta-level process,
again) and there will be a tradeoff between computational guarantees and possibility
of success.
In the fourth case, we have the possibility that creativity has an analog to Gödel's
incompleteness theorem in that something from outside the agent is necessary. This
would, of course, preclude any general (closed) computational creative system and
will perhaps seem appealing to some who may see creativity as a last bastion of
humanity or as something ex vi termini impossible computationally. And yet, if the
premise were indeed true, the same would have to be said about the human variety as
well. Even if this is the case, we still see creative acts, both personal and historical,
occurring with regularity, and we might yet simulate this productivity computation-
ally by acting ourselves as the requisite extra-agent component of insight. That is,
computational creativity would be effective at least some of the time only with the aid
of external intervention, suggesting something of co-creativity, and if that external
intervention comes from a person, the possibility yet persists of maintaining a small
toe-hold on the precipice of human superiority.
As a last comment, we note that in at least one theory, insight has been equated with
re-representation [ 43 ]. That is, creativity is difficult (or impossible) when the agent's
representation of the problem is not amenable to it—the agent can (figuratively)
wander around forever and not discover anything useful until—Aha!—it “lucks into”
the right representation (this appears like yet another potential meta-level issue, with
at least the outside possibility that there may be no access to the meta-level by the
agent).

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And may, in fact, simulate some unconscious cognitive or sub-cognitive process.