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Creativity: Meaning, Mechanisms, Models |
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The concept of creativity is surrounded by a great number of
theories and ideas, which all seem to have a point, sometimes seem to conflict
with each other and at other times seem to be complementary. There is the idea
of creativity as an evolutionary process, socially driven,
building upon prior ideas, allowing co-creation, and advocating a more-or-less
deterministic world view (cf. the Marxist view on technological innovation).
New technology always has its predecessors, science merely ‘discovers’ what is
already there, independent of the individual. There is also the idea of the
disruption of a grand tradition, the paradigm shift, forced by the individual
psychology of the genius who at a flash of insight sees what others do not see.
And then there is the role of chance, probability, ‘serendipity’
or systematically adding noise to a pattern (cf. fractals), the results of
which may be interpreted as an artistic ‘objet trouvé.’ Science, technology, arts, and business thrive on creativity.
Yet, are we talking about discovering novelties or are we constructing them?
And what is the creative process actually about? Association, integration, and
evaluation are often-mentioned ingredients of the creative process but can
easily be extended by incubation, abstraction, adaptation, etc. How do these
concepts relate to one another? This Lorentz workshop
is meant not as a mere inventory of perspectives on creativity but as a serious
attempt to evaluate the meaning of the different concepts, to define the
different mechanisms, and try to come to the layout of a theory that
integrates the different views. The discussions should be guided by the
objectives that in the long run, such a theory is implemented as a computer model
to validate its logical consistency and is confronted with real people to
verify its empirical value. [Back] |
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