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From: "Sergio Navega" <snavega@ibm.net>
Subject: Re: Creativity in Old Age
Date: 25 Jun 1999 00:00:00 GMT
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Sebastian Wain wrote in message <376C9867.A4B766F7@impsat1.com.ar>...
>hedrume@my-deja.com wrote:
>
>> I am investigating the topic of creativity in elders (70 and over). For
>> example MichaelAngelo completed the "last judgement" when he was 67,
>> and was made chief architect for the Dome of St. Peter's Basilica at
>> age 72. I am looking for similar examples of great achievement at old
>> age. Also, I would very much appreciate knowing what other newsgroups
>> would be the appropriate ones to assist in search for this information.
>>
>> Please send replies to hedrume@my-deja.com
>>
>> Thanks, m. hedrume.
>>
>> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
>> Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
>
>I think any real scientist or artist do creative work in every stage of
>his life.
>You can find thousands of examples: Picasso (In Arts), Paul Erdos (In
>Mathematics), Jorge Luis Borges (In Literature).
>But if you want to explore deeper, you can read: "Strange Brains and
>Genius", "Out of their Minds" and more.
>
>Good Luck
>Sebastian Wain.
>
Creativity is one of my preferred subjects. I spend a lot of time
thinking and reading about it, mainly because I think it is one
of the most important components of any intelligent creature (so
it must find its way into our AIs).
In my vision, creativity (taken to mean the generation of *valuable*
new ideas) is something that should be *enhanced* with age. It is
strange that, very often, this does not seem to be the case.
Let me say some words about this.
You can say that creativity is the generation of new, valuable and
uncommon ideas. Taken to mean this, creativity is something a bit
different than "that kind of activity" that some of us try to do.
Sometimes we sit in a chair and start speculating about a completely
new idea. Thoughts come and go, thousands of snippets emerge and fade.
Very rarely we stumble upon a really great idea. This whole process
*is not* very productive, it rarely generates brilliant results. How
come there are people able to *consistently* produce good results if
most of us don't? This is the question I propose to investigate.
When we wander aimlessly, we're trying to get creative results by
the exploration of random association of experiences and thoughts.
It is obvious that this will rarely pay off, because there is simply
too much nonsensical combination of ideas: it is difficult that one
valuable will emerge from the chaos of other equally likely thoughs.
Then, this process does not seem to be a good way to be creative.
I propose that creativity is something that is directly related to
solid grounds: it is much more efficacious to try to creatively
devise *alterations* in things that already work than to conceive
whole solutions from scratch. Our chances improve dramatically
in doing so.
This leads me to propose that creativity should be practiced over
a tangled web of knowledge, and not over individual and isolated
concepts. In the former, you propose to "defy" some of the already
existing links, in the latter you have a lot of possibilities to
practice, with only very few of them being really meaningful.
Thus creativity is, essentially, defiance. One should propose to
*break* some accepted rules in order to "see what will happen". This
obviously will pay off more often if this rule is part of a working
model, a *causal structure* that, up to that time, was working
correctly (but uncreatively).
Breaking an isolated rule will seldom produce anything worthwhile.
Breaking one (or more) rules that are part of a *structured vision*
of the world may show us extraordinary new ways of seeing that
world.
For that reasons, I would say that old people should be *more*
creative than young people. It is funny that this is not what
usually happens: take Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and a bunch of
others and you'll see that they are young. So what is happening?
Why the old guys don't produce more creative things than the
unprepared guys?
I find that the decisive answer to this is the loss of a
"defying spirit". Old guys stopped thinking in breaking rules,
they have been accustomed to see the things working the way
they are. But in my opinion, if a person is able to keep this
"anarchist" flame alive inside oneself, you can be 90 years old and
still have significant contributions to give to the world. Just don't
forget to break rules, defy things, propose alterations in the
things that are already working well. Creativity involves knowledge,
but also an inquisitive and querying mind.
Sergio Navega.
From: rickert@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert)
Subject: Re: Creativity in Old Age
Date: 25 Jun 1999 00:00:00 GMT
Message-ID: <7l1hqc$itb@ux.cs.niu.edu>
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Organization: Northern Illinois University
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
"Sergio Navega" <snavega@ibm.net> writes:
>Creativity is one of my preferred subjects. I spend a lot of time
>thinking and reading about it, mainly because I think it is one
>of the most important components of any intelligent creature (so
>it must find its way into our AIs).
>In my vision, creativity (taken to mean the generation of *valuable*
>new ideas) is something that should be *enhanced* with age. It is
>strange that, very often, this does not seem to be the case.
>Let me say some words about this.
Hi, Sergio. Here is a slightly different way of looking at it.
I'll suggest that there are problems with that way of defining
"creativity." Margaret Boden defines "P-Creativity" and
"H-Creativity". Here P-Creativity, or psychological creativity, is
doing something not previously possible for that person.
H-Creativity, or historical creativity is doing something not
previously done by any person.
Your definition, and the most common view of creativity is that of
H-creativity. But the trouble with H-creativity, is that it is not a
measure of the person who is H-creative, but of the person on
relation to the whole history of mankind. I suggest it is more
important to account for P-creativity.
In my view, P-creativity is at its greatest among the young, for this
is the period of maximum rates of brain reorganization. However,
much of this creativity is in the form of reinventing the wheel, and
so we tend to overlook the extent to which the development of the
child's mind is creative.
With older people, the rate of P-creativity tends to be lower. But
what is created may be more profound, since it is built on a
substantial foundation of knowledge. Therefore, although the
creativity rate is lower, the likelihood that a particular P-creative
event is also H-creative should increase with age.
Overall, with aging, you would expect the H-creativity rate to
increase for a while, due to the greater profundity of the creations,
but with continued aging the drop in the P-creative rate eventually
takes it toll so that H-creativity will also decline.
From: "Sergio Navega" <snavega@ibm.net>
Subject: Re: Creativity in Old Age
Date: 26 Jun 1999 00:00:00 GMT
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Neil Rickert wrote in message <7l1hqc$itb@ux.cs.niu.edu>...
>"Sergio Navega" <snavega@ibm.net> writes:
>
>>Creativity is one of my preferred subjects. I spend a lot of time
>>thinking and reading about it, mainly because I think it is one
>>of the most important components of any intelligent creature (so
>>it must find its way into our AIs).
>
>>In my vision, creativity (taken to mean the generation of *valuable*
>>new ideas) is something that should be *enhanced* with age. It is
>>strange that, very often, this does not seem to be the case.
>>Let me say some words about this.
>
>Hi, Sergio. Here is a slightly different way of looking at it.
>
>I'll suggest that there are problems with that way of defining
>"creativity." Margaret Boden defines "P-Creativity" and
>"H-Creativity". Here P-Creativity, or psychological creativity, is
>doing something not previously possible for that person.
>H-Creativity, or historical creativity is doing something not
>previously done by any person.
>
>Your definition, and the most common view of creativity is that of
>H-creativity. But the trouble with H-creativity, is that it is not a
>measure of the person who is H-creative, but of the person on
>relation to the whole history of mankind. I suggest it is more
>important to account for P-creativity.
>
>In my view, P-creativity is at its greatest among the young, for this
>is the period of maximum rates of brain reorganization. However,
>much of this creativity is in the form of reinventing the wheel, and
>so we tend to overlook the extent to which the development of the
>child's mind is creative.
>
>With older people, the rate of P-creativity tends to be lower. But
>what is created may be more profound, since it is built on a
>substantial foundation of knowledge. Therefore, although the
>creativity rate is lower, the likelihood that a particular P-creative
>event is also H-creative should increase with age.
>
>Overall, with aging, you would expect the H-creativity rate to
>increase for a while, due to the greater profundity of the creations,
>but with continued aging the drop in the P-creative rate eventually
>takes it toll so that H-creativity will also decline.
>
Hi, Neil, how nice to have you back here. Your posts are always
good food for thought.
Your words on this matter were appropriate and I agree with this
new vision. The distinction on H and P forms of creativity reveals
another interesting way to see the question and I'll have to take
an additional look at Boden because of that. I'll try to use this
distinction as a starting point for some comments. Much of what
I'm about to say is pure speculation, but then, what's newsgroups for?
One of the points you made that pleased me most was the discernment
of creative behavior of children and adults. It is really surprising
the things that children come up with, even if most of what they do
is merely reinvention of wheels, as you say. On adults, this is much
more infrequent, although, also as you say, the frequency aspect is
counterbalanced by the importance of the creation.
I'm trying to see creativity not only in the light of the the
traditional way it is meant (as a behaviorally observable phenomenon),
but also as a putative internal process, essential for the generation
of unusual combination of facts and patterns. But to get up to that
point, let me first delve into what I think is the main difference
between the mind of a child and that of an adult.
I have some doubts on the issue of P-creativity being lower in old
adults. It certainly is, if we care only with the external aspects
of it. But I'm trying to see this also as an internal process. In
this regard, what is apparent in children, those uncommon and
unexpected behaviors that are often very fun, in reality can be
seen as *also* happening inside the mind of an adult. However, the
difference is that on adults these unexpected and uncommon creations
don't find their way to the outside behavior: they seem to be confined
in that unconscious "layer" of our psyche. They appear to lurk there,
and we may not know (directly) that they exist.
This hypothesis, although lacking evidential support, would fit well
into a model in which children minds "evolve" into an adult by the
*growth* of the conscious part, which is what becomes adult's
behaviorally visible (and "assessable") part of our mind. Internally,
things don't seem to change very much on our way from childhood to
adulthood, but only this external "layer" appears to grow.
It is amazing that this story prompts us to think of our unconscious
as very close to the kind of behaviors that we had when we were
children. Unconscious things, like dreams, are purposeless, don't
carry any judgmental concerns, fail often to obey "rules" like
gravity or time or physical displacement and shape. Our nightmares
often follow this path of "unreasonable" thoughts.
I think that the majority of our creative thinking comes not from
the matches that we play in our consciousness, but from the war that
appears to be in course in our unconsciousness. That way, our
"childish" creativity from the unconscious would be "blocked" by
consciousness and our external vision of it would seem to be faded,
restricted only to the "strong enough" thoughs able to cross that
barrier.
All this talk would be only a "folk psychology" exercise if I
stopped just in the hypothesis part. To give any kind of credibility
to this idea, it is necessary to "fill in the blanks" with evidences
and computational models, and that is part of my current (and
future) aspirations.
All this talk, if not considered just a hypothesis, can also be
seen as a "dangerous" enterprise, close to the kind of thing that
is practiced by those "creativity consultants", in seminars for
corporations. They preach something like that and then, this is
the danger, devise "exercises" to stimulate creativity, as if these
exercises had any kind of evidential support. For what I know now,
they could be doing the *exact opposite* of their intentions:
impairing creativity.
My way of seeing this is to think about that inner creativity as a
necessary "hypothesis generator", a method in which patterns are
combined to obtain tentative solutions to new problems. Then, these
patterns compete with one another and the winner(s) are the ones
that "appear" in our conscious thought, and are the ones that
we use to "feed" our logical thinking (or a slightly more flexible
version of it).
All this prompted me to see Popper with other eyes today (this
includes rethinking a bit the "problem of induction"). Popper may
have a point in regard to induction, but I still think he leaves
the "hypotheses generation" question unanswered. I'm looking for
alternatives to fill that gap. Well, enough of ramblings for today.
Regards,
Sergio Navega.
From: rickert@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert)
Subject: Re: Creativity in Old Age
Date: 26 Jun 1999 00:00:00 GMT
Message-ID: <7l3l7l$l2u@ux.cs.niu.edu>
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Organization: Northern Illinois University
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
"Sergio Navega" <snavega@ibm.net> writes:
>Neil Rickert wrote in message <7l1hqc$itb@ux.cs.niu.edu>...
>>I'll suggest that there are problems with that way of defining
>>"creativity." Margaret Boden defines "P-Creativity" and
>>"H-Creativity". Here P-Creativity, or psychological creativity, is
>>doing something not previously possible for that person.
>>H-Creativity, or historical creativity is doing something not
>>previously done by any person.
>>...
>Hi, Neil, how nice to have you back here.
I haven't actually been anywhere, although I have been rather busy
with other things. But I have been following c.a.p. It is just that
for the last 6 weeks or so I haven't seen anything that I wanted to
comment on.
>Your words on this matter were appropriate and I agree with this
>new vision. The distinction on H and P forms of creativity reveals
>another interesting way to see the question and I'll have to take
>an additional look at Boden because of that. I'll try to use this
>distinction as a starting point for some comments. Much of what
>I'm about to say is pure speculation, but then, what's newsgroups for?
>One of the points you made that pleased me most was the discernment
>of creative behavior of children and adults. It is really surprising
>the things that children come up with, even if most of what they do
>is merely reinvention of wheels, as you say. On adults, this is much
>more infrequent, although, also as you say, the frequency aspect is
>counterbalanced by the importance of the creation.
In my view, natural learning (such as the learning of children) is
highly creative in ways that have not been demonstrated with machine
learning. I am inclined to think that the standard assumptions as to
what is machine learning just about rule out such creativity.
>I'm trying to see creativity not only in the light of the the
>traditional way it is meant (as a behaviorally observable phenomenon),
>but also as a putative internal process, essential for the generation
>of unusual combination of facts and patterns. But to get up to that
>point, let me first delve into what I think is the main difference
>between the mind of a child and that of an adult.
If you look at the Piaget theory of a child's mental development, you
see that there is a great deal of conceptual construction that has to
go on. Conceivably, different children might carry out this
construction in quite different ways, although with similar results.
The variations in the ways in which they might conceptualize the
world can lead to differences in conceptual structure that we might
see as creative.
>I have some doubts on the issue of P-creativity being lower in old
>adults. It certainly is, if we care only with the external aspects
>of it. But I'm trying to see this also as an internal process. In
>this regard, what is apparent in children, those uncommon and
>unexpected behaviors that are often very fun, in reality can be
>seen as *also* happening inside the mind of an adult. However, the
>difference is that on adults these unexpected and uncommon creations
>don't find their way to the outside behavior: they seem to be confined
>in that unconscious "layer" of our psyche. They appear to lurk there,
>and we may not know (directly) that they exist.
The type of conceptual construction that Piaget describes is largely
complete by adulthood. It is not quite complete, for people can
still learn new things. But new learning tends to be specialized and
built on top of what was learned as a child. I would expect that the
extent of conceptual restructuring is substantially reduced in
adulthood.
>This hypothesis, although lacking evidential support, would fit well
>into a model in which children minds "evolve" into an adult by the
>*growth* of the conscious part, which is what becomes adult's
>behaviorally visible (and "assessable") part of our mind. Internally,
>things don't seem to change very much on our way from childhood to
>adulthood, but only this external "layer" appears to grow.
>It is amazing that this story prompts us to think of our unconscious
>as very close to the kind of behaviors that we had when we were
>children.
I'm not so sure about that. I think of childhood as very different
from adulthood.
>All this talk, if not considered just a hypothesis, can also be
>seen as a "dangerous" enterprise, close to the kind of thing that
>is practiced by those "creativity consultants", in seminars for
>corporations. They preach something like that and then, this is
>the danger, devise "exercises" to stimulate creativity, as if these
>exercises had any kind of evidential support. For what I know now,
>they could be doing the *exact opposite* of their intentions:
>impairing creativity.
I tend to be rather cynical about "creativity consultants". What
they mainly do is create bigger bank balances for themselves.
>All this prompted me to see Popper with other eyes today (this
>includes rethinking a bit the "problem of induction"). Popper may
>have a point in regard to induction, but I still think he leaves
>the "hypotheses generation" question unanswered. I'm looking for
>alternatives to fill that gap. Well, enough of ramblings for today.
I agree with you that Popper leaves unanswered the question of the
source of new ideas. Yet that is the fundamental question, and until
that question is settled, all of the arguments about induction or
falsificationism would seem unimportant.
From: "Sergio Navega" <snavega@ibm.net>
Subject: Re: Creativity in Old Age
Date: 28 Jun 1999 00:00:00 GMT
Message-ID: <37777e61@news3.us.ibm.net>
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Neil Rickert wrote in message <7l3l7l$l2u@ux.cs.niu.edu>...
>"Sergio Navega" <snavega@ibm.net> writes:
>>Neil Rickert wrote in message <7l1hqc$itb@ux.cs.niu.edu>...
>
>>>I'll suggest that there are problems with that way of defining
>>>"creativity." Margaret Boden defines "P-Creativity"
and
>>>"H-Creativity". Here P-Creativity, or psychological
creativity, is
>>>doing something not previously possible for that person.
>>>H-Creativity, or historical creativity is doing something not
>>>previously done by any person.
>
>>>...
>
>>Hi, Neil, how nice to have you back here.
>
>I haven't actually been anywhere, although I have been rather busy
>with other things. But I have been following c.a.p. It is just that
>for the last 6 weeks or so I haven't seen anything that I wanted to
>comment on.
>
>>Your words on this matter were appropriate and I agree with this
>>new vision. The distinction on H and P forms of creativity reveals
>>another interesting way to see the question and I'll have to take
>>an additional look at Boden because of that. I'll try to use this
>>distinction as a starting point for some comments. Much of what
>>I'm about to say is pure speculation, but then, what's newsgroups for?
>
>>One of the points you made that pleased me most was the discernment
>>of creative behavior of children and adults. It is really surprising
>>the things that children come up with, even if most of what they do
>>is merely reinvention of wheels, as you say. On adults, this is much
>>more infrequent, although, also as you say, the frequency aspect is
>>counterbalanced by the importance of the creation.
>
>In my view, natural learning (such as the learning of children) is
>highly creative in ways that have not been demonstrated with machine
>learning. I am inclined to think that the standard assumptions as to
>what is machine learning just about rule out such creativity.
>
Agreed. In fact, perhaps this can be seen as the root of the
problem of current attempts at machine intelligence: it seems to
be not only wrong implementations, but lack of understanding of
what are the fundamental aspects. Impressively, the number of
papers published in that area is large.
>>I'm trying to see creativity not only in the light of the the
>>traditional way it is meant (as a behaviorally observable phenomenon),
>>but also as a putative internal process, essential for the generation
>>of unusual combination of facts and patterns. But to get up to that
>>point, let me first delve into what I think is the main difference
>>between the mind of a child and that of an adult.
>
>If you look at the Piaget theory of a child's mental development, you
>see that there is a great deal of conceptual construction that has to
>go on. Conceivably, different children might carry out this
>construction in quite different ways, although with similar results.
>The variations in the ways in which they might conceptualize the
>world can lead to differences in conceptual structure that we might
>see as creative.
>
Absolutely! I'd like to see this viewpoint spread all over the
community of researchers. Comparing two different children we see
that they have different visions of their world (it does not pay to
judge one "right" and the other "wrong", they're just different).
But the world which these children share is mostly the same!
So, the difference in visions can only be explained by different
(and creative) ways of seeing it.
>>I have some doubts on the issue of P-creativity being lower in old
>>adults. It certainly is, if we care only with the external aspects
>>of it. But I'm trying to see this also as an internal process. In
>>this regard, what is apparent in children, those uncommon and
>>unexpected behaviors that are often very fun, in reality can be
>>seen as *also* happening inside the mind of an adult. However, the
>>difference is that on adults these unexpected and uncommon creations
>>don't find their way to the outside behavior: they seem to be confined
>>in that unconscious "layer" of our psyche. They appear to lurk there,
>>and we may not know (directly) that they exist.
>
>The type of conceptual construction that Piaget describes is largely
>complete by adulthood. It is not quite complete, for people can
>still learn new things. But new learning tends to be specialized and
>built on top of what was learned as a child. I would expect that the
>extent of conceptual restructuring is substantially reduced in
>adulthood.
>
I agree. But I note that there is a circumstance in which adults may
appear to act like children: when they face a new (unknown) problem.
With children, this is the rule, they are always finding new things.
But as adults, entirely new problems are infrequent. Most of our
time we delve into slightly different variations of known
circumstances. However, when we find a *totally new* problem, we
appear to act like children, exploring random strategies, keeping
those that appear to be relevant, memorizing instances that appear
to repeat over time. I find that we should focus our attention on
what happens when someone is put to solve a novel situation, because
the process of solving it should say a lot about the way intelligence
"bootstraps" itself.
>>This hypothesis, although lacking evidential support, would fit well
>>into a model in which children minds "evolve" into an adult by the
>>*growth* of the conscious part, which is what becomes adult's
>>behaviorally visible (and "assessable") part of our mind. Internally,
>>things don't seem to change very much on our way from childhood to
>>adulthood, but only this external "layer" appears to grow.
>
>>It is amazing that this story prompts us to think of our unconscious
>>as very close to the kind of behaviors that we had when we were
>>children.
>
>I'm not so sure about that. I think of childhood as very different
>from adulthood.
>
I may agree with this vision, but up to a point. When comparing
children's mind to adult's unconscious, I'd say that the main
difference is "quantity of patterns", but not methods. I have
an impression that unconscious processes in adults are very
similar to the kind of behavior that we see when children are
playing. Unfortunately, we don't have conscious access to this
playground (if we had, I'd say that we'll be living today with
intelligent computers, because the pioneers of AI, 40 years ago,
would have done it right).
>>All this talk, if not considered just a hypothesis, can also be
>>seen as a "dangerous" enterprise, close to the kind of thing that
>>is practiced by those "creativity consultants", in seminars for
>>corporations. They preach something like that and then, this is
>>the danger, devise "exercises" to stimulate creativity, as if these
>>exercises had any kind of evidential support. For what I know now,
>>they could be doing the *exact opposite* of their intentions:
>>impairing creativity.
>
>I tend to be rather cynical about "creativity consultants". What
>they mainly do is create bigger bank balances for themselves.
>
I can cite a dozen of names which are exactly in this situation.
What's even more impressive is the gullibility of the corporations
that spend money with them.
>>All this prompted me to see Popper with other eyes today (this
>>includes rethinking a bit the "problem of induction"). Popper may
>>have a point in regard to induction, but I still think he leaves
>>the "hypotheses generation" question unanswered. I'm looking for
>>alternatives to fill that gap. Well, enough of ramblings for today.
>
>I agree with you that Popper leaves unanswered the question of the
>source of new ideas. Yet that is the fundamental question, and until
>that question is settled, all of the arguments about induction or
>falsificationism would seem unimportant.
>
I've come to appreciate more deeply what the falsification principle
proposes, and I really believe it is a powerful concept. But in
fact, all that story will only be complete once we discover how
the thing starts, *how* we generate the hypotheses that will be
subject to the "scientific method". Until then, we can only say
"ok, that's nice, but something appears to be missing..."
Regards,
Sergio Navega.
From: "Nikon Sevast" <nikonsevast@mindspam.com>
Subject: Re: Creativity in Old Age
Date: 28 Jun 1999 00:00:00 GMT
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> My way of seeing this is to think about that inner creativity as a
> necessary "hypothesis generator", a method in which patterns are
> combined to obtain tentative solutions to new problems. Then, these
> patterns compete with one another and the winner(s) are the ones
> that "appear" in our conscious thought, and are the ones that
> we use to "feed" our logical thinking (or a slightly more flexible
> version of it).
>
> All this prompted me to see Popper with other eyes today (this
> includes rethinking a bit the "problem of induction"). Popper may
> have a point in regard to induction, but I still think he leaves
> the "hypotheses generation" question unanswered. I'm looking for
> alternatives to fill that gap. Well, enough of ramblings for today.
>
> Regards,
> Sergio Navega.
>
I hope you don't mind my throwing a few more ideas into this interesting
conversation. When I read the bit about seeing Popper "with other eyes," a
connection popped into my head. I thought, "well, that was a creative
act."
Not displacing the unconscious, but supplementing it, is the ability to "see
things with other eyes," or "with new eyes," as some people say. (I
think I
saw this idea in something by Merleau-Ponty, but I couldn't find it).
If I asked you which way the key slot faced on your front door, you would
probably not be able to tell me. Yet you might be able to insert a key into
it unerringly in the dark. Perhaps this has something to do with the
reticular formation, but in any case you've ceased to really "see" the key
slot, even if it's daytime. This is the case with a skillion different
things. Perhaps we even do this with people's faces. I almost note a
surprised look on people's faces if I've shaved my beard or gotten a
haircut.
My three-year-old daughter sees *everything*. I test her on this quite
often. If she was playing in the sink earlier, I can later ask, "is there a
dish rag hanging on the faucet?" and she will know. She will ask why the
grocery cashier was upset, when I couldn't have told you whether or not he
was wearing glasses. I can scarcely imagine what it would be like to see so
much "with new eyes" every day. But I believe this contributes a great
deal
to her creativity.
For the sake of manageability and decent reaction time, combinations of
thoughts, ideas and solutions are kilned and set aside, much like the motor
skills necessary to ride a bicycle and for the same reasons. The older a
person is, the more likely that he or she is mostly kilned. People are
often quite resistant to generating new hypotheses. Creative people use the
trick of "seeing with new eyes" to solve difficult problems or come up with
novel hypotheses. It called "lateral thinking" sometimes, but I'd say it's
good perception.
So I think "new" perception is deeply connected to creativity. It's
most
apparent in the visual arts, but I'd say it applies to creativity in
general.
By the way, I came across a creativity consultant sort of thing for creative
writing. The technique was to write a word or phrase then circle it. For
several minutes you'd associate other words or phrases by circling and
connecting them without really analysing what you were doing. After a few
minutes, you suddenly feel a sense of what the piece was, and you'd write
it. Though I think this consultant was preaching a right-brain/left-brain
thing, the interesting part was the phasing out of "conscious" thought about
the piece, and the use of association.
Nikon
From: "Sergio Navega" <snavega@ibm.net>
Subject: Re: Creativity in Old Age
Date: 28 Jun 1999 00:00:00 GMT
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Nikon Sevast wrote in message <7l6u2k$efa$1@nntp8.atl.mindspring.net>...
>> My way of seeing this is to think about that inner creativity as a
>> necessary "hypothesis generator", a method in which patterns are
>> combined to obtain tentative solutions to new problems. Then, these
>> patterns compete with one another and the winner(s) are the ones
>> that "appear" in our conscious thought, and are the ones that
>> we use to "feed" our logical thinking (or a slightly more flexible
>> version of it).
>>
>> All this prompted me to see Popper with other eyes today (this
>> includes rethinking a bit the "problem of induction"). Popper may
>> have a point in regard to induction, but I still think he leaves
>> the "hypotheses generation" question unanswered. I'm looking for
>> alternatives to fill that gap. Well, enough of ramblings for today.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Sergio Navega.
>>
>I hope you don't mind my throwing a few more ideas into this interesting
>conversation.
Please, the more the better.
>When I read the bit about seeing Popper "with other eyes," a
>connection popped into my head. I thought, "well, that was a creative
act."
>Not displacing the unconscious, but supplementing it, is the ability to "see
>things with other eyes," or "with new eyes," as some people say.
(I think I
>saw this idea in something by Merleau-Ponty, but I couldn't find it).
>
>If I asked you which way the key slot faced on your front door, you would
>probably not be able to tell me. Yet you might be able to insert a key into
>it unerringly in the dark. Perhaps this has something to do with the
>reticular formation, but in any case you've ceased to really "see" the key
>slot, even if it's daytime. This is the case with a skillion different
>things. Perhaps we even do this with people's faces. I almost note a
>surprised look on people's faces if I've shaved my beard or gotten a
>haircut.
>
Sometimes we may alter some aspects of our face and people say
that we're "different", but couldn't say why. This is the kind of thing
that exemplifies the structured and hierarchical aspects of our
perception.
An equally interesting case documented by cognitive neuroscience is
Blindsight, the inability of identifying objects in certain positions
of one's visual field. However, people with such a disease are often
able to "guess" what is the object in that impaired region of their
field of vision. This demonstrates that the disease affects "areas"
of the brain that are important to the conscious perception of the
scene, but not to the unconscious processing of it. The fact that
the person is able to "guess" also demonstrates that there's a lot
of important things happening "down there".
>My three-year-old daughter sees *everything*. I test her on this quite
>often. If she was playing in the sink earlier, I can later ask, "is there a
>dish rag hanging on the faucet?" and she will know. She will ask why the
>grocery cashier was upset, when I couldn't have told you whether or not he
>was wearing glasses. I can scarcely imagine what it would be like to see so
>much "with new eyes" every day. But I believe this contributes a great
deal
>to her creativity.
>
If I had to say something about this, I'd say that we adults also have this
ability, but it is so buried in the "unconscious" that we are not able to
perceive it consciously. Your child is able to report it to you, perhaps
because she does not have very much between her perception and her
consciousness.
>For the sake of manageability and decent reaction time, combinations of
>thoughts, ideas and solutions are kilned and set aside, much like the motor
>skills necessary to ride a bicycle and for the same reasons. The older a
>person is, the more likely that he or she is mostly kilned. People are
>often quite resistant to generating new hypotheses. Creative people use the
>trick of "seeing with new eyes" to solve difficult problems or come up with
>novel hypotheses. It called "lateral thinking" sometimes, but I'd say
it's
>good perception.
Creative people are the ones that appear to momentarily challenge their
most cherished perceptions. This involves, in a way, breaking with most
of our "formal" education principles.
Although I'm still thinking about all this, I have some suggestions on
how to "kick" this kind of thoughts in our mind. It goes like this:
Causal reasoning is, along with perception, among the most important
aspects of our cognition. We perceive things, but we also perceive
causal relations among things. I guess most of the time we are
identifying "objects" (a new form of tree, a different face shape
exhibiting surprise, a new potentially dangerous situation, etc).
But in tandem with perception of objects, we also perceive the
causal relations among them (the face was surprised because of
a set of conditions, a dangerous situation emerged because of
the reunion of a group of interrelated events, etc). We are
naturally very able to devise these models in our mind.
With time, children grow to adults "storing" a bunch of such
models. We perceive a lot of objects, but we also perceive
(recognize) a lot of "causal patterns" that are also associated
with stored possible consequences. We use this to "predict"
short-term events, and we position ourselves in order to be in
the "best position" (not to be hurt, to obtain more pleasure,
avoid criticism, etc).
Creative thought, I believe, could start by our questioning of
some of these stored "causal schemas". Take a situation and start
asking "why". It does not matter if it is a silly question, just
ask it and see where it leads you to. Often we discover that
what appeared to be a silly question is the way to a *significant
discovery*, an important insight, a creative masterpiece.
Then, my suggestion is not to use the "challenging principle"
(often preached by creative specialists) over *individual* facts
or historical data. We should challenge the *causal models* of the
world that we have in our mind, challenge each of the supporting
trunks of that model, to see if it falls or not.
Now what we should do is to educate our mind to ask "why" more
often, even to the point (I'd like this to be true) to incorporate
this process into our unconscious "daily task list". That could give
us a creative mind (could...).
Of course, all this is mere speculation, but in my vision, it doesn't
hurt to ask "why".
Regards,
Sergio Navega.
From: cam@holyrood.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm)
Subject: Re: Creativity in Old Age
Date: 28 Jun 1999 00:00:00 GMT
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"Sergio Navega" <snavega@ibm.net> writes:
>I find that the decisive answer to this is the loss of a
>"defying spirit". Old guys stopped thinking in breaking rules,
>they have been accustomed to see the things working the way
>they are.
Two senses of "old" get conflated in this discussion, because they
usually have the same referents, namely "old in years" and "old in the
topic". In other words, is creativity a function of a chronologically
youthful brain (calendar age), or of chronologically youthful synapses
(topic age)? After all, are not old neural net simulations less
creative?
I think the role of the latter (topic age) is underestimated. I
habitually advise research students to learn only enough about a new
topic to see the problems, and then to strike out on their own, not
returning to do a complete literature search until they've formed some
ideas of their own. The danger of learning too much before you start
thinking is becoming (in the topic) an old dog too fast,
strait-jacketed by the cognitive clothes of old men. I note that aged
scientists who switch specialities late in life often show a youthful
creativity in the new topic.
Anyway, that's how I explain to people that I'm not too (cough,
wheeze) old yet to, to, what's the damn word! -- to, er -- (snore...)
--
Chris Malcolm cam@dai.ed.ac.uk
+44 (0)131 650 3085
School of Artificial Intelligence, Division of Informatics
Edinburgh University, 5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK
<http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/daidb/people/homes/cam/> DoD #205
From: "Sergio Navega" <snavega@ibm.net>
Subject: Re: Creativity in Old Age
Date: 28 Jun 1999 00:00:00 GMT
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Chris Malcolm wrote in message <7l7sf1$l9p$1@scotsman.ed.ac.uk>...
>"Sergio Navega" <snavega@ibm.net> writes:
>
>>I find that the decisive answer to this is the loss of a
>>"defying spirit". Old guys stopped thinking in breaking rules,
>>they have been accustomed to see the things working the way
>>they are.
>
>Two senses of "old" get conflated in this discussion, because they
>usually have the same referents, namely "old in years" and "old in the
>topic". In other words, is creativity a function of a chronologically
>youthful brain (calendar age), or of chronologically youthful synapses
>(topic age)?
It is a pertinent question.
I'd say none of them, and this is because I add a third sense for
"old". It is old in the "kind of approach". A youthful brain may be
creative or uncreative, according to its predisposition to think
about the new. An "old-hat" may be creative or uncreative, also
in respect to his/her search for the novel (the novel must be an
important thing in its life, it is something that bears some
relation with the kind of emotional satisfactions one is up to).
It seems to be a bit more frequent to find the former, because
the latter tends to allow the impact of age (in a physical sense)
to drag the energies devoted to the search for the new. Old guys
usually don't jump from planes in parachutes, which is
understandable given some "physical restrictions". But there
should be no such restriction to do the "same kind of thing"
inside one's mind.
>After all, are not old neural net simulations less
>creative?
>
Apparently yes, but I think this should not be this way, and I'd
ascribe that to a problem in the design. Current neural net
systems don't find a way to put random sources of excitation
and I propose that this is the way to obtain "out of the box"
thoughts from the system.
>I think the role of the latter (topic age) is underestimated. I
>habitually advise research students to learn only enough about a new
>topic to see the problems, and then to strike out on their own, not
>returning to do a complete literature search until they've formed some
>ideas of their own. The danger of learning too much before you start
>thinking is becoming (in the topic) an old dog too fast,
>strait-jacketed by the cognitive clothes of old men. I note that aged
>scientists who switch specialities late in life often show a youthful
>creativity in the new topic.
>
I can't emphasize enough how much I agree with your ponderings here.
In fact, I'm a bit surprised, I thought it would be very difficult
to find a similar way of thinking, for which I commend you.
This is *exactly* the process I use to delve into new subjects.
Although I'm not exactly "old", I switched specialties relatively
recently, and I feel exactly the way you described.
>Anyway, that's how I explain to people that I'm not too (cough,
>wheeze) old yet to, to, what's the damn word! -- to, er -- (snore...)
>
Well, in fact, hem..., I also feel that way, hum..., I met a 25 years
old colleague some weeks ago and he was so young and I am, hum...,
well, only mentally young, you know.
Regards,
Sergio Navega.
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