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boxes, with properties and affordances; there is a core set of requirements that would
make something not a post box (e.g., having no opening) and there are some properties
that are incidental (e.g., in the UK, a post box is always red, whereas elsewhere in
Europe they are often yellow and sometimes blue). Interestingly, a post box is still
a post box if one removes it from its intended function and, for example, grows
flowers in it. The conceptual space of post boxes then defines what it is to be one;
a general space of post boxes may include both UK and Dutch examples, while
there are two disjoint conceptual spaces for the two nationalities' mail. A human
or computer interested in post boxes may search the more general space for a box
that will meet their needs; this is
exploratory creativity
in Boden's terms. However,
to invent a Dutch post box on the basis of knowledge restricted to UK ones, it is
necessary to apply
transformational creativity
to (at least) the dimension of colour.
Wiggins [
49
,
50
] has formalised these notions in a Creative Systems Framework
(CSF) and shown how the concept of
aberration
, in which the conceptual space is
“stretched” by the production of new concepts that nearly (but not quite) fit within
its boundaries, can be used to drive learning and adaptation in a creative system.
Boden's conceptual spaces (which may usefully be defined in terms of those of
Gärdenfors, via the CSF or a similar theory) may be represented in many ways, the
most obvious analogy beingwith anAI search space—except that the
apriori
solution
detector of the AI approach is not present, because, in creative work, one does not
always know the solution until one sees it. In the context where one is interested
in sequences, as we are here, a convenient representation of the space compiles its
sequences into a statistical structure that summarises the space. Exploratory creativity
can then be implemented as sampling in the structure, while transformations of the
space can be viewed as changing the structure's parameters, one way or another—
and so statistical learning is a (weak) kind of transformational creativity. This is the
view we will take in IDyOT; the interesting research question at this point is: how is
the sampling to be implemented?
7.3.3 Conscious Awareness and Creativity
IDyOT's simulation works at the boundary between the conscious and the non-
consciousmind, and so it is appropriate to examine the relationship between creativity
and consciousness here. First, it is important to make a distinction between two
different behaviours which are both called “creative” when observed in humans. We
call these “spontaneous” and “deliberate” creativity.
Spontaneous creativity
4
is a
cognitive event in which an idea appears in conscious awareness without warning
and without immediately prior conscious preparation, and is then consciously judged
novel and/or interesting by the person who experienced it; a familiar example would
4
In earlier publications, we have referred to this as “inspiration” [
53
] and “non-conscious creativity”.
However, “spontaneous” captures better the meaning we intend. Similarly, we have previously
referred to deliberate creativity as “conscious creativity”.
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