But creativity involves creating something, something new. Otherwise it isn't creativity. I can't deny the literal truth of what you're saying, but I really can't see that it's a useful way of looking at creativity. It obscures the original part by emphasising the part that isn't wholly original. [Did you see what I did there? :grin: ]

This is what creativity is. It's what we're actually doing when we're doing creative things. — Terrapin Station

No it isn't. Everything you say is true, but it doesn't describe what creative people do. I.e. it doesn't describe the part of what they do that is creative.

When you create something, you're simply taking pre-existing materials and putting them into some different relationship, one step at a time. That's all there is to it, really. — Terrapin Station

This path leads to the conclusion that nothing is truly creative except the first one. The first song, or the first painting. All others are derivative, using as they do the same components that the original used. I don't find this a useful description of creativity. It dismisses all creativity that is not wholly unique, doesn't it?

It cannot be denied that there IS only one of YOUR perspective. It requires a leap of faith to believe that there are other perspectives. — Norman Stone

On the contrary, multiple perspectives are usually a central part of being human. Different ways of looking at things can be hugely valuable and useful, IME.

Solipsism is one of the least creative of alternative ontologies. No wonder solipsists are so lonely.. — Norman Stone

The use of solipsism is as a lesson: no matter how daft a theory might be, it can only be refuted by evidence. And if there is no evidence, there can be no refutation. So, no matter how odd or unlikely you think solipsism is, it cannot be refuted. This applies to all theories which are possible but for which there is no evidence.

Philosophy should confidently assert what we don't know as opposed to faith in the unknown. — Willyfaust

The problem with that is the huge amount of stuff we don't know, leading us unavoidably to guesswork or faith. Either that or we cannot progress beyond our current position, because there's too much we don't know. Why did we invent axioms, do you think? :smile:

There are some subject areas, or ideas, which are not amenable to the kind of analysis that will yield the kind of empirical evidence that is considered scientific, so questions about those kinds of topics aren't considered legitimate at all by scientific standards. — Wayfarer

And there it is: the blind spot of science, as the topic title describes, put simply and clearly. Is this topic over now? :wink:

What I mean by "rearranging" is that with the car, for example, you're taking some metal and plastic and rubber and electronics, etc. that already exist and you're putting them into different relationships with each other to make something different.

I don't know enough about software to describe it in these terms, but that's all we're doing when we create musical things, and visual art things and cars and so on. — Terrapin Station

This "rearranging" you describe is odd to me. We could say that a new painting reuses and rearranges existing things like lines and curves, paint and canvas. Just as a new program reuses bytes and RAM to produce a new executable. But such a description is so misleading, in some ways, that it misleads and mis-describes (is that a word?). Microsoft's Word is a collection of bytes. Bytes that have been used many times in the past. Does that make Word derivative and unoriginal? No, it doesn't.

Music reuses and rearranges notes and timbres, but the end product can still be new and fresh. It is a betrayal (of the artistes) to describe this as rearrangement, I think. It demeans and trivialises their work. Of course not all compositions are as ... successful as others, but all of them are new, just as they are also partly derivative in their composition. Creativity produces novelty.

What I mean by "rearranging" is that with the car, for example, you're taking some metal and plastic and rubber and electronics, etc. that already exist and you're putting them into different relationships with each other to make something different. — Terrapin Station

That applies to the components that do already exist, and can be reused in the new design. But what about the components that are custom-built for the new design? Nuts and bolts are universal, but body panels aren't. Nor are new, less eco-unfriendly, engines (although they contain nuts and bolts).

We can say that all cars are assembled from similar parts, but each new design is ... new; novel. If it's just a rearrangement, the creativity is minimised, surely? If it's just a rearrangement, why are we bothering? What we end up with won't (can't!) be significantly different from what we already have. Sometimes, with cars, a simple facelift seems to be what is required. A new look to a product that remains substantially unchanged. But this is almost the trivial case of design, whose most significant and useful purpose is to create something genuinely new, at least in some respects.

Is belief or faith in the supernatural a worthy idea for us or is it a tool used by lying preachers intent on fleecing sheeple? — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Anything that helps us to deal with the real world is a worthy idea, I think. I find my beliefs form a sort of scaffold on which to assemble my own personal mental model of the world, to hold and connect my ideas and beliefs. And of course, any worthy idea could potentially be used to fleece the unwary. I don't think that supports or takes away from the idea itself, do you?

Sure, but a different perspective of the universe? — Brett

Of some aspect of the universe, yes. Not normally the whole universe, but maybe...? :chin: :wink:

I was trying to think of how what you’ve said relates to my own thoughts so far, because it threw me for a bit, that is the creative act in a business orientated environment, and it seems to me that that’s the only place creativity can take place today because there is purpose, a demand, and result, as has always been required in the creative act (according to my thoughts). — Brett

Well yes, sort of. :wink: But sometimes the purpose is a personal one. Some creative people feel compelled to do what they do, for their own satisfaction and fulfilment. Sometimes, art simply carries a social message. The artistic rendition amplifies the message, makes it more memorable and more accessible.

‘... a different perspective of any aspect of the universe.’ What exactly does that mean in terms of being creative?

What you’re saying is that a different perspective of the universe forms part of the creative process because what you’re doing is creative. That doesn’t explain anything. It’s an endless loop. — Brett

A different perspective - a different way of looking at things - is a very powerful aid to design. I once solved a particularly intractable design problem purely by finding a new perspective. The way forward then became obvious. To designers, at least, perspective is a central part of the creative process. I dare say this applies to other creative practitioners too.

Creative work is ultimately constrained in some way, whether by the materials/parts available or by the discourse or value systems in which they are often required to operate. The creative animal is acutely aware of these constraints and strives to explore just beyond them, to challenge them in the creative process.

The creative process, in my view, is an open-ended interaction with these constraints of subjective experience. This is how we discover new ways of seeing the world, new ways to relate to the world and relate elements of the world to each other, and new capacities or ways to achieve. — Possibility

Yes, this is what creativity is about, in all its guises. And not everyone is, or can be, creative. Some people are intelligent, others strong or dextrous, and some are creative. Creativity is a way of thinking, that not everyone can do. It requires flexibility of thought, and sometimes a willingness to suspend disbelief, as we do when we read a story. It requires imagination too, and curiosity (could it work better if we did it this way...?).

I am happy and proud that I was able to be creative as a firmware designer, but pure art is beyond me. I don't know what I lack, but I do know I don't have what I would need to run with Emin or Banksy. Creativity takes many forms. :smile:

The question is would it be better if there was no 'work' to the process, or not. And the creator was just purely enjoying his/her self? It it my opinion that the process of having that enjoyment is in part derived from the social value of the act itself. — kudos

From the social value, yes, but also from the personal satisfaction of creating something that didn't exist before. To neglect the personal aspect is a mistake, I think. It's a strong motivator; perhaps the only motivator, in some cases? [Yes, the practical aspects of needing to earn a living also impinge.]

Well there's the pure act of creativity itself and then there's sub-category of creative industry. Being involved in industry presupposes there's a reason to produce already determined. But being involved in any type of creativity doesn't have to involve producing for the work-return benefits of an industry, which would account for the big difference in these two types. Suppose you were independent, and had decided to make a software app or a painting. What are the reasons why you would do this, pure love of one's neighbour, G-d, or on the other side vanity or glory maybe? I presume the reasons would be similar or comparable in nature despite ending in very different results. — kudos

Yes, that seems to capture the sort of creativity I'm describing. :up: I did it because I loved doing it (and also because it paid the mortgage! :smile: ). I am proud of my best efforts; I regret some of my less successful ones. :wink: I am proud that I spent my career learning, and getting better at it.

For me, creativity is not about use-value, but about sharing our subjective view of the universe in a form that pursues at least one of three aims: increased awareness, increased interconnectedness or increased overall achievement/capacity. These aims, I believe, are instinctive at the deepest level of existence, but it is in recognising my uniquely subjective view as valuable in itself to the unfolding universe that enables me to be creative.

Putting creative (uniquely personal) work into something for the benefit of others is precisely what drives creativity in the first place. It is a selfless act at its core. Monetization or any system of value is counterproductive to creativity - the moment a value system begins to influence creative labours, the original impetus is obscured and the creative animal is lured from creativity towards productivity. — Possibility

I agree with most of this, but my own (former) vocation was very much involved in production, as an end result. It's easy to miss the creativity in firmware design, or car/bridge/etc design. The customer specifies what is required, and the designer has to come up with the how. This involves lots of thinking, checking and engineering ... and a surprising amount of creativity.

Perhaps a bit like writing haiku, the constraints that apply to a firmware design seem to sharpen creativity. I can't design a program to do just anything. It has to do what the customer asks for, to an unreasonably small budget, on a hardware platform that is often barely up to the task, to meet exacting size and performance constraints. The whole thing is a novel solution to a problem that has never been solved before. To achieve that, creativity is essential ... along with quite a few other skills. :smile:

IME, design involves much more than rearrangement of existing building blocks. Often (usually), the building blocks themselves must be designed and implemented before they can be used in the main project. — Pattern-chaser

What are you building the building blocks out of? — Terrapin Station

Smaller blocks. Like bones are built from cells, I suppose. — Pattern-chaser

Sure. Aren't you rearranging those, then? — Terrapin Station

I'm not sure. During design, I'm arranging the compositional elements until they fit as I need them to. My organic analogy (bones) was a bad idea. Firmware design has more in common with designing (for example) cars.

Cars are built using components, built into larger and larger sub-assemblies until the car is complete.

Designing a car involves identifying some existing components/assemblies and creating others. They aren't really arranged, because they don't fit together like Lego. They aren't re-arranged because they haven't been arranged before, and because there's only one place they fit. The steering wheel can't be rearranged onto an axle.... :wink:

In the sense that I mean it, the design of a car has little to do with its colour or shape, and a lot more to do with fitting a 2 litre engine into a space that is too small for previously-designed engines of that capacity and power output. And that endeavour is surprisingly creative, if not only creative.

Smaller blocks. Like bones are built from cells, I suppose.

Setting parsimony aside would be really silly because it's one of the basic principles of deciding how likely a belief is to be true when there is no direct evidence either way. — luckswallowsall

On the contrary. Occam's Razor is not a "principle", nor is it a law or a rule. It's just a heuristic; a rule of thumb; a way of guessing that seems to deliver better-than-random results. We use it when there is no better tool to hand. In the case where there is no evidence, such as the existence of God, the Razor leads us into a logical fallacy. In this case "argument from ignorance".

We can't put a precise probability on the existence of God but that doesn't stop God from being highly improbable. — luckswallowsall

To the first part of the sentence: agreed. :up: To the second part, which directly contradicts the (correct and accurate) first part, I offer this: please suggest any valid statistical method, technique or theory that would allow you to make even the vaguest estimate of the probability of God's existence, bearing in mind that there is no evidence at all. In saying that God's existence is "highly improbable", you go beyond the evidence, in defiance of logic and reasoning.

I don't know enough about programming to mention what would make sense as parts, but it would be something similar--some sort of cache of unique command words for the coding language in question, some cache of logical statements with particular syntax, etc.

If you're needing to solve a particular problem, yeah, that also requires that you rearrange the stuff you're rearranging in a way that it has a pretty specific result . . . — Terrapin Station

Well the first thing we've learnt is that creative endeavours vary from profession to profession, to the extent that a description of one simply does not apply to the other. :smile: Your conception of program design stops after describing (part of) the very first rung of a ladder that can rise quite high, depending on the project in hand. If program 'design' is limited to the simpler aspects of coding, then your project is already in trouble. It won't seem so at first, but as time goes on.... :wink:

IME, design involves much more than rearrangement of existing building blocks. Often (usually), the building blocks themselves must be designed and implemented before they can be used in the main project.

So how can we progress from here, in our discussion of creativity, when we have discovered how different different strains of creativity can be? :chin:

This is the subject matter I hoped to discuss when I saw the title of this topic, so I hope I'm not pushing the discussion off-topic.

As someone who does creative work for a living, working with lots of other creative folks, and who has done that for decades... — Terrapin Station

I retired four years ago, but before that, I spent 37 years as a firmware designer. Not as open-endedly creative as Tracey Emin, but creative nonetheless. Perhaps we could call what I did 'constrained creativity'?

You're basically rearranging things and seeing what happens when you "put this there" and "try removing this from here" etc. — Terrapin Station

This account seems to assume that the necessary 'parts' are already available, and only their arrangement, relative to one another, remains to be done. This is much less than the creativity of taking a problem - a problem which has not previously been solved, or we'd use the existing solution - and creating a solution.

I venture to suggest there's a bit more to creativity than putting sprinkles on top of a milk shake. :smile:

what constitutes the creative animal, as it were, of todays modern age. What are it's qualities? — kudos

Are we looking to describe and discuss creativity, in humans, and maybe other animals? [This would be my main interest in this topic.]

We have opened the door to new forms of creativity, creating works without use-value. — kudos

You mean 'art'? Surely not, as art has been around for many centuries.

The creativity of today is both against monetization, but also ascribes virulently to a lottery system of value. Large web-front companies make money of the creative labours of the masses, but what drives us to do it? Are we still driven to do it? Is it a form of slavery to put creative work into something to the benefit of someone else? Does this mean that creativity must be devoid of 'work'? — kudos

Or is this topic about the use to which creative individuals are put by their employers and political masters?

I could see in your choice of wording you may not being paying attention to the process of producing art - the creative process - which is a little confusing for me. Maybe I just misunderstood the focus of your OP? — I like sushi

This goes for me too.

:up:

It's what's at dispute if we're disputing whether value judgments can be objective. — Terrapin Station

Value judgements are not objective, by definition. A value judgement is a subjective judgement.

If the law is immoral, — Terrapin Station

Who decides? — tim wood

We do, individually and collectively.

But the mind-independent framework has a lot of intractable and unsettling problems. In that framework we cannot explain how we can experience anything. We never see things as they are. Free will is very limited or inexistent. Why do these things bother us so much? Maybe because they are not an accurate representation of existence. These problems go away if we stop assuming a mind-independent reality. — leo



The problems as I see them are largely about awkward language. I don't think we can solve them. — g0d

I think it's more than just language. I think it's our recent habit of using science as the one and only tool for examining the world. To use science makes a lot of sense to me, because it has proven so helpful in the past. But to apply it where it doesn't really work is pointless. Other perspectives than the scientific one can also have merit.

From my Twitter timeline this afternoon:

So knowledge of X is subjective; personal; believer-dependent. OK, I can go with that. After all, X (whatever it is) exists externally and mind-independently, but the knowledge of X is personal. That makes some sense to me.... :chin:

Facts exist, knowledge suggests a being aware of a fact. — 3rdClassCitizen

I'm OK with the last bit, but I wonder if even facts exist in a mind-independent way? A fact is some sort of explanation about the world. I think that explanation originates with us, although the subject of the explanation exists mind-independently. :chin: But this is really a quibble. In general, I wouldn't argue against what you're saying. :smile: :up:

I think it's far more likely that scientists are unable to find causes once we get down to the quantum level than it is the case that there actually are no causes. — luckswallowsall

This bothers me. To say something is likely indicates that we have some idea of how likely it is. I.e. what the probability is of it happening or being, or whatever. Is there a way - a proper statistical way - of even estimating that probability, or is that just something we claim to bolster our own beliefs, as people often do in everyday conversation? All the way through your post, you advise the application of Occam's Razor. Fair enough. But it is just a rule of thumb, nothing more. And in this topic, we are trying to go beyond our simple everyday assumptions, to examine them more closely. So we set parsimony aside, if only temporarily. :smile:

if so far it seems that the world has explanations then it's more parsimonious to assume that that's the way the world works until there's evidence of something without an explanation. — luckswallowsall

Yes, so it is, so that's what we do. :smile: But the point here is to wonder if our axioms (assumptions) are valid, and what would it be like if they weren't? Hence I wonder if causality is always true, and what if it isn't? Just wondering, you understand. I definitely do not assert that causality is wrong (or right). :up:

the problem is that you can't have evidence of a world without explanations because that would require an explanation — luckswallowsall

It would? Why? It seems possible that there are (or could be) things that do not have or require an explanation, they just are. An explanation might tell you why things are what they are. Like those headphones you hire in an exhibition, that explain what you're seeing. Do we really think the world has built-in explanations, put there just for us? Couldn't the world just be what it is, and do what it does, without providing an explanation for curious humans? Put that way, it seems mad to expect an explanation, doesn't it? :joke: :gasp: :wink:

It is not clear whether you are laughing at my claim or at their presumptuousness. — Fooloso4

:blush: At their presumption! :up:

It is worth noting that until recently analytic philosophers all but ignored the history of philosophy, the assumption being that they had progressed to the point where the ancients could have nothing to teach them. — Fooloso4

:lol: :rofl:

But I do think that nobody knows there is a noise if nobody exists to know of the noise. — luckswallowsall

So there is no knowledge unless there's a conscious entity there to be aware of it. OK. :chin:

Every event must have an explanation [...] Everything has an explanation [...] Even if the universe is acausal then that just means that events are determined by probabilistic laws that can't be predicted. — luckswallowsall

Why "must" every event have an explanation? I can't argue that this is false, as there is no justification for that position (that I know of). But I also wonder what is your justification for saying that this is true? Is there such a justification?

Your final sentence seems to say that even events which don't seem to have a cause/explanation actually do have one, but it's too complicated for us to predict, so it might look like there's no explanation. In short, you are supporting the position that there are no causeless events, nor can there be. Is this right?

Does modern philosophy still make valuable contributions that create new knowledge, or are contemporary philosophers just busy analyzing existing knowledge?

If we assume that philosophers do create new knowledge (that cannot be found in the natural or social sciences), why is it so difficult - or even impossible - to detect progress in the philosophical debate ? My impression is that philosophers are still debating the same basic topics they were busy debating 50 or even 100 years ago, and that there is little hope that they will come to a conclusion.
Why is that so? — Matias

I think there are several answers to these questions. Philosophy often considers some of the most basic, and most important (to us) issues. Often there are no clear-cut answers, but discussion helps to grow our understanding anyway, chipping away at the main issue. This is progress, of a sort.

There is also the matter of "contemporary philosophers just busy analysing existing knowledge". I'm sure this takes place too. On this forum, it seems there is a division between those who just enjoy discussing philosophy, and who often have no familiarity with academic philosophy, and those who are academically-qualified. The two groups have aims that are a little different; I don't know enough to offer details.

I think the academic philosophers (if I may call them that) often spend time reconsidering the wisdom of the philosophers that came before us, rehashing old reasoning, and reaching the same old conclusions, as though they were/are unavoidable. It's as if they're learning by rehearsing the old arguments. And there's nothing wrong with learning!

Aside: it's worth remembering that not all philosophy is known to all philosophers. So we need to rehash old insights to learn ideas that are new to us, even though, perhaps, others learned the same things in the past. We are not born knowing Cratylus; we have to learn about him. :wink:

Non-academic philosophers, on the other hand, delve into philosophy because they enjoy it. To them, many ideas are new, as they don't have the historical background that academics have. And new ideas are always interesting! They also sometimes indulge in throwing around ideas, new and old, to see if they fit together, and how. This too is learning: progress.

Edited to add: Oh, and the point of mentioning these two groups is to observe that their aims - the reason(s) they come to philosophy - are a little different. So both groups make progress, but they measure it differently. For me, for example, progress is discovering a new idea or a new connection between ideas.

The growth of understanding and learning among philosophers (individually and collectively) is what we achieve; that is our progress.

Paul Desmond - the complete albums collection 1953-1963. Superb.

I got "Neutral Good Human Druid (7th Level)", which surprised me. I sort of expected 'true neutral', as D&D druids are (or so I thought). Fun, though. :smile:

how did you people manage to overcome the pressure of the cage that tells you what you should do and when you should do it, — virginia west

I retired. It took me my whole life to prepare, and now I can follow my own schedule, or none, as I choose. [Except when our grand-daughter needs looking after....] But in the world we've created, that's normally something one has to earn. We are idiots. :wink:

He is an outspoken leftist (not Marxist though, as he leans more towards anarchism/left wing libertarianism), a bit insecure, hence his 'contemptuously dismissive' comments and a bit autistic when it comes to social interaction. — ritikew

I am actually autistic, and flippant uses of the term, as above, are not helpful. Understanding autism is hard enough without people saying (for example) "on the spectrum" when they really mean something else. Thanks. :smile:

ethics are society's overall "right and wrong" guidelines, morality being each individual's adopted choice of "right and wrong" — THX1138

Yes, that's a worthwhile distinction to make, I think. So society's laws reflect its ethics, but morality still remains a personal thing. And I suppose we must acknowledge that it is (by definition) unethical to break a law, but not (necessarily) immoral, using the two terms as you have defined them.

↪Pattern-chaser
No, you are not misreading it. No knowledge is possible at all without consciousness. Why?

Because to be conscious is to be aware. And you can't have knowledge of X without being aware of X. Because being aware of something and having knowledge of it is the same thing. — luckswallowsall

So you think that the falling tree makes no noise, if there is no observer present to hear it? That seems to be the argument you're presenting. Is knowledge a personal possession, and not something that exists objectively (i.e. in a mind-independent way)? I don't argue one way or the other, but I wonder which fits your perspective?