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56 Creativity

concept uncle one can think with the concepts male sibling to parent. The new
concept unpacks without residue into the concepts used to define it, so it is not
truly novel and there is no genuine increase in conceptual or expressive power.
On the other hand, if the meaning of the new concept cannot be represented
in the person’s existing system, he could not represent its meaning to himself;
that is, he could not learn or acquire that concept. The implication is that the
system of symbols (concepts) with which a person is equipped at the outset
of life defines and circumscribes the space of all thoughts that he is capable of
thinking and ever will be capable of thinking.
although Fodor’s purpose in constructing his argument was different
from Gödel’s in constructing his, its implication is similar: a formal symbol
system can, in principle, only generate a subset of all possible truths and that
subset is implicitly specified in the definition of the system. There is no way
to bootstrap into a more powerful system. But breaking out of initial frame-
works, moving between perspectives and stepwise ratcheting up the power of
cognitive representations is precisely what human beings somehow do. The
bounded generativity that inheres in deductive symbol manipulation is insuf-
ficient to model human creativity.
The neuroscience framework for understanding the mind is equally
unhelpful on this point. Consider the kidney, that prerequisite of good health.
Day in and day out, it clears out chemical junk from a person’s bloodstream.
it is a physiological system that evolved to perform a specific task within the
overall configuration of human physiology. it performs that task with high
reliability across the life span. No physician has observed a kidney changing
the way it operates. How could it? after all, the kidney is merely a physiological
system specified in the person’s genetic blueprint and governed by the causal
laws of chemistry and physics.
Now consider the human brain. Day in and day out it carries out the task
of interpreting perceptions and coordinating motor actions. it is a physiologi-
cal system that evolved to support the individual’s survival within the overall
configuration of human physiology. it performs this task with a high degree of
reliability. We would not expect it to ever change. How could it? after all, the
brain is merely a physiological system specified in the person’s genetic blue-
print and governed by the causal laws of physics and chemistry.
The analogy between the kidney and the brain shows once again that the
capability to produce novelty is in need of explanation. if every organ in the
body, the brain included, goes about its business in accordance with the laws
of cause and effect, life ought to be an endless repetition of the same cycle of
events. But even on days when life feels that way, it is not, in fact, that way;