Design Perceptive

The topic of creativity presents a very challenging subject to study.  Indeed, Margaret Boden, a professor of cognitive science at the University of Sussex who studies creativity from various perspectives, says that, next to consciousness, it is the most challenging phenomenon to make sense of in a materialistic world.¹  Why is that?  We have a sound and straightforward etymological foundation for the word.  What is it that makes it so difficult to study?

Simply put, the word create means to produce or make something.  Create, in the intransitive sense, is to be creative meaning to have the quality of being able to create.  The “-ity” suffix forms a noun from an adjective.  Thus, we can say straightforward, that creativity is the possessed state, property and/or quality of being able to produce or make something.

Part of the challenge comes from the field itself.²  As with most fledgling fields of study, there are many personalities each with distinct ideas about the topic.  So, there are as many definitions of creativity coming from various academic domains.  For instance, we find definitions of creativity in the literature of business, cognitive science, computer science and artificial intelligence, the arts and also within education.³ The straightforward definition given here is an oversimplification of the entry on the word create in Webster’s Dictionary.

Another challenge comes from questions regarding the mechanism of creativity.  Whatever the definition of it, how does it happen?  How are creative acts achieved?  Why are some people apparently more creative than others?  What is the neurophysiology of creative behavior?

Also, is creativity possible outside of a social context?  Can the process of creativity be defined mathematically?

For, if so, then that process can be computed.

1.  http://philosophytalk.org/pastShows/Creativity.html [↩]
2. Parkhurst, H. B. (1999). Confusion, Lack of Consensus, and the Definition of Creativity as a Construct. Journal Of Creative Behavior, 33(1), 1-21. [↩]
3.  http://www.csun.edu/~vcpsy00h/creativity/define.htm [↩]

The folks at Radiolab have done several interviews – one of them with David Cope – talking about musical language.  Two of the interviews open the door to considering physiological foundations of experiencing dissonance and consonance in sounds.  One of these discusses dissonance and consonance in terms of brain chemistry.  The other discusses the similarities of tonal melodies that occur across various cultures and languages when addressing a baby or child.

Listen to the interview at: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2007/09/25

David Cope teaches music theory and composition as well as classes in algorithmic computer music at the University of California, Santa Cruz.  One of his interesting accomplishments behind the (computer) keyboard is his development of EMI (standing for Experiments in Musical Intelligence), a computer program that develops music in a particular style given that which it learned from sample music.  In general, the music is classical in nature, but some have a modern composition.

His web-page, including MP3 files of the music, is online at http://arts.ucsc.edu/faculty/cope/index.html.

Here are some interesting links for the week!

Monday

Ok, like many people Monday is a frantically-paced rush to get back into the swing of the weekly routine after a weekend of mayhem, err…rest.  Like many people I get my coffee on in the morning.  I tell you now that I like coffee.  I often seek out the best coffee houses in whatever areas I frequent so know where to get it.  I may drink it a little too much though and, apparently, get less effect because I’ve habituated my body to the caffeine.  Well, here’s aninteresting article from Alex Holcombe’s blog on how to optimize your coffee consumption.  Happy sipping!

Tuesday

It’s TED talk Tuesday again.  This time it’s a little more of the other side of the brain.  Here’s Imogen Heap singing at TED.  Sweetness.

Wednesday

It is HUMP-DAY!  Right smack in the middle of the week.  It’s a good time to talk about balance.  This Study Hacks article Freestyle Productivity: Balancing Systems and Simplicity When Organizing Your Life talks about using the right tools for the job.  In this author’s recommendation, high-tech tools that that are highly structured are best for capturing information and low-tech, freestyle tools are best for planning.

Personally, I like high-tech, freestyle tools that allow you to make your own structures as you need them, such as WordPress, Google Calendar (Docs, etc.), Microsoft Onenote – especially those that use tags.

Thursday

Another video for you to watch.  This one, from Make is Heather Knight of JPL talking about sociable robots.  It’s about six minutes and simply talks about her background and some about why sociable robots might be helpful to astronauts on long-haul missions.

Friday

The Quantum Lobe Chronicles provides our Light Reading for the weekend with this article Bye bye modular, hello cognit.  It’s about a paradigm shift in thinking about how the brain is organized.  It talks about postulates of J.M. Fuster who, in 2006, coined the term cognit as a basic unit of memory or knowledge.

Enjoy and have a great weekend!

A $150 Xylophone from EBay

For this project to support research in the area of computational creativity, we’re building a robotic xylophone.  Well, we’ve got the approval for funding and the xylophone has been ordered.  Naturally, this is exciting!  This means that soon, we’ll be opening a box like children at birthday parties, putting it together and playing with it.  It might actually get a little loud around the 2nd floor of Nedderman Hall for a few.

Now, the next order of business is to settle on the solenoids and get those ordered as well.  Perhaps, we’ll get one to test our construction ideas.  Brandon Skinner has agreed to help put together the controller.  His help is greatly appreciated!