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want to come to these conclusions, it seems highly doubtful that we should want
to reach these conclusions analytically! A definition allowing these matters to be
decided synthetically seems to be highly preferable. Our definition provides all the
resources needed to accommodate this.
13.4.3 The Very Possibility of Creativity
Some might object on the grounds that everything that occurs is hugely improbable!
Any continuous distribution has probability zero of landing at any specific point. So
long as we look at specific outcomes, specific works of art, at their most extreme
specificity—where every atom, or indeed every subatomic particle, is precisely lo-
cated in space and time—the probability of that outcome occurring will be zero
relative to any framework whatsoever. It follows, therefore, that the ratios of prob-
abilities given new to old frameworks are simply undefined, and our definition is
unhelpful.
Strictly speaking, this objection is correct. However, nobody operates at the level
of infinite precision arithmetic, which is what is required to identify those absurdly
precise outcomes in a continuous state space which have occurred and which have
probability zero. The achievement of probability zero on this basis would appear to
violate Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. Disregarding quantum mechanics, ev-
eryone operates at a degree of resolution determined at least by systematic measure-
ment error. In effect, all state spaces are discretised so that the probabilities are em-
phatically not zero. Our definition is already explicitly relative to a cultural context;
so, to be perfectly correct, we need also to relativise it to a system of measurement
that accords with cultural measurement practices and normal measurement errors.
13.5 Consequences
13.5.1 The Irrelevance of Value
As we noted above, many popular definitions of creativity such as that of Boden we
outlined, stipulate that a creative pattern must be both appropriate and valued in the
domain. Hofstadter requires that the creative individual's sense of what is interesting
must be in tune with that of the masses, thereby ensuring also popularity (Hofstadter
1995
, p. 313). We find this expansion far-fetched and the original connection of
creativity to value dubious.
The history of the concept of creativity clearly undermines the idea of popularity
as any necessary ingredient in it. Consider the role of women in the history of art and
science. The value of their contributions has been systematically underestimated,
at least until recently. Concluding that their contributions were therefore also less
creative than that of their male counterparts would surely be perverse. Many artists
