larry@JPL-VLSI.ARPA (06/19/86)
(When you read "hir" pronounce it as if you meant to say "him"
and halfway through decided to say "her." It becomes "hi-er,"
a diphthong hard to distinguish from "hear.")
I'm an artist in three media (four if you count programming, which I do).
To me creativity is just another skill which I use without giving it much
thought, at least until discussions like these come along. Here are some
of my ideas on the subject.
Creation is a recombination process. When I come up with a new character
for a story, parts of hir come from prior percepts: a complexion from him,
a walk from her, an accent from yet a third person. (Or a slant from this
letter, a squiggle from that number, etc., if I'm painting!)
Recombination done randomly is not very fruitful. Creativity includes ways
to cut down on the number of recombinants. Or possibly A way, because this
winnowing is done subconsciously. I don't know consciously what it/they
are, but I FEEL them working, so I know they/it exist.
The first step in creativity is "playing," "fingering" the contents of the
field within which a solution is desired. This apparently random,
frivolous activity is anything but. It provides some of the pleasure which
fuels an artist, and it transfers the elements of the field out of short-
term memory into long-term memory (making them easily accessible).
Or it may place them into some kind of mid-term memory, or load the
memories with some kind of potential which makes these elements of long-
term memory more likely to be accessed than others, thereby decreasing the
number of combinations produced.
The second step introduces more (obviously) purposeful activity. The
artist begins looking for the solution to a problem. It's important that
she (pronounced she, just as if it weren't spelled s/he, which it isn't)
not begin with a goal, or at least not one that's narrowly and urgently
defined. You don't want hir to overly restrict hir search for useful
neologs. (Linguists, help! There has to be a better word than neolog.)
This is a less-pleasurable activity than the playing stage, more logical
and conscious. Like the first stage, it transfers percepts/concepts to
long-term memory and reinforces them. And it "grinds in" to hir mind the
goal of the problem-solving, so well that even in the next stage some part
of hir is seeking it.
The third stage is relaxation, where the conscious mind transfers its
attention to some other activity, one which holds just enough attention to
prevent hir from falling into deep sleep (light sleep is OK). But not so
engrossing that she begins solving another problem, which would interfere
with the current problem. Routine physical activities seem to be best.
Ironically, this "idleness" is the most crucial and productive phase.
Because at some point she will experience the "Eureka" phenomenon, where a
combination of percepts/concepts matches the mask of the goal and slips
through into consciousness. (Just before the match occurs she may get a
"Something's happening!" feeling that will wake hir up from hir
doze/daydream/dawdling/drudgery.) This is the magical moment, where (it
feels as if) another spirit, a genie/genius pushes the solution into hir
consciousness. There's usually surprise because the neolog is strange
("Did that REALLY come from me?!") and delight because it solves the
problem so well.
Or at least it seems to. Now comes stage four: fleshing out what is often
a skeletal though pivotal part of the solution. After that is stage five:
evaluating the solution. Then comes the last stage: making the solution
operational.
The evaluation stage is in some ways the least pleasant for the artist (or
engineer/scientist/whatever), but in fact most creativity is faulty and
must be rejected--but not forgotten; some of the worst ideas have the seeds
of wonder in them. The effective artist learns not to be afraid of the
bizarre, ugly, taboo, incorrect productions, but to delight in them and use
them. (And to delight in the ordinary and plain and learn to see them as
equally strange and wonderful.)
So, in answer to the original question: Yes, analogy is essential to
creativity, but I would prefer to make a more general statement. The core
of creativity is a process of combining and recombining percepts and
concepts, guided and limited by a channeling process, and the matching of
each combination against a template, most of it done at a sub- or semi-
conscious level.
And with that definition we can design a creative computer.
Larry @ jpl-vlsi.ARPA