Page 80 - Deep Learning

The Production of Novelty 63

Why and How is Creativity Limited?
to be stuck on a problem that is solvable is the most common of experi-
ences. We are confronted with some obstacle or difficulty; we struggle; we
reach an impasse; eventually we think of something that works. The fact that
we succeed in the end proves that the problem was solvable. But if it was
solvable, why were we stuck? Why did we not find the solution right away?
Limits on creativity operate in all areas of life, and they require explanation.
if a person creates once, that proves that he possesses the cognitive mecha-
nisms required to do so; what prevents those mechanisms from operating
continuously?
a satisfactory theory of limitations should help explain why problems that
require a creative response are not all equally difficult for one and the same
person. Laboratory studies show that even problems that look very similar
and have very similar solutions in terms of the complexity of the actions they
require can vary drastically in how easy or difficult they are to solve. What are
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the factors that cause the right solution to come to mind sooner or with higher
probability in one case than in another?
Theories that propose mechanisms of creativity without specifying any
limiting factors implicitly predict that everyone is creative all the time, and
theories that specify limitations but no mechanism for overcoming them
imply that nobody ever succeeds in creating anything. a satisfactory theory
must address both the difficulty and the possibility of creating. it is plau-
sible that difficulty and possibility are two aspects of the same process. The
limitations are intrinsic to the cognitive processes that make it possible to
create.

Four Creativity Questions
a satisfactory theory of creativity should, first, explain how the production of
novelty is possible in principle by proposing cognitive processes that are suf-
ficient to generate novelty, and, second, explain what is creative about those
processes by contrasting them with the processes behind noncreative, ana-
lytical solutions to problems. Third, such a theory should explain what gives
direction to the creative process. Fourth, it should explain not only how it is
possible to produce novelty but also why it is difficult to do so. These four
questions are criteria of adequacy against which theories of the production of
novelty can be evaluated.