The concept of creativity has
always been surrounded by mystique. A thought that appears seemingly out of
nowhere in often unrelated situations, and yet so welcome. Many people even
ascribed its source to a god.
Still, under the perspective of
cognitive dynamics it can be explained. And so, like much else in science, the
previous mystery gets replaced by the awe before the sheer versatile complexity
of nature.
To aid the understanding what
follows, it may help the reader to go through the FAQs page on the Otoom
website for a primer, particularly on functionalities, abstractions, affinities
and latency; they appear in that order. Not the full story by far, but it's a
start.
State Law building, 50 Ann St, Brisbane, Australia. Its nickname is
"Gotham City tower". Is that rendition a creative interpretation?
If there are thought structures
(TSs) which define the content of a representative complex within the neurons
(which is the result of some input), then, given the existence of ongoing
dynamics, the non-existence of a cluster of TSs that could have been evoked is
due to other TSs having been more influential.
The first question is, could the
same input have been responsible for both - the existent TSs as well as the
absent ones?
Since the emergence of a cluster is
a function not only of input but also of the affinity relationships active
within the functional scope of that neighbourhood, a certain input could indeed
eventually create a cluster in one area but not in another.
The entire system is composed of
neurons that are highly interconnected. It follows that outside the existent
cluster there had been an insufficient effect from the input - in other words,
there is latency but no instantiation of a re-representation. While the latency
(ie, the non-instantiation) ensures non-representative clusters along the
current timeline, it equally ensures the potential for a cumulative effect of
affinities which at any given time lead to the formation of some other TS
complex.
TSs of course not only occur in the
grey matter of our brains but also in its white counterpart. Or, to put this
another way, they are not only part of our conscious thought processes but they
are also part of our subconscious.
Which leads to the next question:
is it possible for latent structures to be a source of conscious thought?
For affinities to come into being
they need an abundance of functional elements (the neurons in the wetware, the
nodes in the computer program); they need connectivity; and they need the 'right'
input, meaning input that represents a pattern, ie is not random. White matter
fulfils the first condition (there are more neurons than in the grey matter)
and it also possesses a high degree of connectivity. Which leaves us with the
input.
The functional space of conscious
TSs does not lend itself to random input, or any random data stream for that
matter. There is also the distinct probability of potentially affinitive
clusters. After all, the information content there has been derived from our
subconscious via affinities in the first place.
The answer rests on the degree of
variance within the conscious TSs such that an affinity event lies within the
probability envelope of the subconscious TSs. Conscious TSs are more configured
(since they rely on instantiated representative content) and hence possess less
latency. Subconscious TSs on the other hand reside within a larger volume, have
more latency, and in their ongoing dynamics are not restricted to preconfigured
clusters.
If we take the affinities to be
members of a set, and the conscious and subconscious clusters to be two
particular sets, with the latter (B) being considerably larger than the former
(A), we can express the issue as follows: what is more likely, one or more
members of A occurring in B, or one or more members of B occurring in A?
In terms of probabilities the first
scenario is more likely, provided we assume a finite and set pool from which
all members of both sets are drawn. Although that assumption may seem rather inappropriate
based on our analogy, it becomes less so once we consider that (a), the system
is a dynamic one in which all information is a candidate for dispersal
throughout the system on a continuing basis, and (b), the affinities (latent or
otherwise) constitute the re-representative, ie processed, content of such
input, that is to say, they have evolved under the same overall conditions and
are subject to the same rules of complex, dynamic systems. In other words, we
do have that pool from our analogy, except in our case the pool holds
functionalities.
While realisations from latent
affinities are not a certainty (after all, we are dealing with probabilities
all the way through the process), these probabilities do not, cannot, have a
zero value due to their very nature. Make the timeline long enough and some
affinity relationship between a latent subconscious cluster and its conscious
equivalent can develop. On the higher level of mental perception (ie, our human
interpretation) there would be a train of thought suddenly being 'interrupted'
by a seemingly new idea - except that the label 'new' only comes from our
perception.
The latter excludes the
subconscious by definition. So the idea is not 'new' at all; rather, it has
been waiting in the wings all along, as it were. Hence creativity, the name
given to that seemingly mysterious appearance of a novel idea, takes it mystery
from the limited scope of our conscious thoughts, keeping all the other
cognitive processes hidden from view. Yet they do exist, and under the right
circumstances they pop into our awareness.
And the dark side? Because thoughts
so suddenly appearing in our consciousness start their formation in the
subconscious where our will to invite or suppress does not apply, we have no
control over their presence. Our social constraints hold no sway, and still
they are the children of nature; our nature.