In this paper, comparative philosophy from the point of view, accusing both the freedom of human existence is related to: human freedom is the freedom in the relationship, human relationship is the relationship in freedom. Today, however, are in a rapidly changing technology and globalization are shaping the technology products and among the diverse network of his freedom and development of their relationship. For me, if not free then there is no leisure at all, even the Bliss half a (...) day, lazy nothing, if not the hearts of freedom, can not be relaxed. This paper attempts to analyze the relationship between work and leisure, beyond the ancient Greek society and the modern discipline of social work and leisure are assumed binary opposition, and inquire for a more balanced point of view, to redefine humanity. I will be free, easy to create with pleasure and delight as the four leisure in the state of existence. Accordingly, we will discuss today are due to inhibition of the free course of commercialization and mechanization brought leisure life crisis. This will re-interpretation of Taoism into the spirit of art and technology in the Road and Freedom, by Taoist philosophy, some ideas to inspire today's humans, how the dynamic relationship among the ontology freedom to think and inquire, and practice the art of life through to achieve free life. From my philosophy of contrast, I understand human being today as both free and related, in the networks of multiple others and technical objects developed by science / technology and the process of globalization. For me, without freedom there is no leisure. By the mediation of technical objects today, human desire tends to develop in various networks of multiple others in order to gain its own freedom. This paper will analyse the relation between work and leisure, attempting to go beyond the presupposed dichotomy of work / leisure in both modern " disciplined society "and ancient Greek society, and to look for a more balanced view of their relation in redefining the nature of human being. This understanding will allow us to proceed to characterize the state of being in leisure as freedom, being-at-ease , creativity and joyfulness. An attempt will be made ​​to characterize the crisis of today's leisure life in reference to its commercialization and mechanicalization. Also, we will try to obtain some inspirations from Daoist philosophy as to the idea of freedom in the dynamic ontology of relationship with the Daoist art of life-praxis. (shrink)

Nous exposons dans cet article les différentes interrogations posées par les réseaux socionumériques au sein de dispositifs de formation. Nous tentons de montrer qu’il est envisageable de repenser leur intégration au sein des systèmes éducatifs notamment pour montrer autant leur potentiels que leurs dangers. Nous montrons également les intérêts d’autres types de réseaux comme les plateformes de signets sociaux et les réseaux numériques thématiques comme ceux des loisirs créatifs pour envisager de nouvelles méthodes de formation.This article discusses the different issues (...) raised by social networking sites in the field of education. We try to show how their use in educational systems could be reconsidered, in particular to highlight both their potential and their dangers. We also show the potential contributions of other types of networks, such as social bookmarking sites and online thematic networks, on creative leisure activities for example, to ideas for new educational methods. (shrink)

The shaping of creative economy is particularly important for development of cities and regions. This process can be analyzed in conjunction with changes in work and leisure time and their place in the human life cycle. This article aims to approximate the main features of: contemporary position of elderly people, creative ageing policy, benefits from seniors creativity and controversies linked to this concept. This essay also indicates the patterns of recommendations and activities in development of services for (...) older people which may be the subject of further in-depth research. These examples exist in: documents and strategic programs, the activities of network organizations and the activities of urban cultural and artistic institutions. (shrink)

The role of emotional creativity in practicing creative leisure activities and in the preference of college majors remains unknown. The present study aims to explore how emotional creativity measured by the Emotional Creativity Inventory (ECI; Averill, 1999) is interrelated with the real-life involvement in different types of specific creative leisure activities and with four categories of college majors. Data were collected from 251 university students, university graduates and young adults (156 women and 95 men). Art students (...) and graduates scored significantly higher on the ECI than other majors. Humanities scored significantly higher than technical/economic majors. Five creative leisure activities were significantly correlated with the ECI, specifically, writing, painting, composing music, performing drama, and do-it-yourself home improvement. Keywords: Creativity, Emotional Creativity, Emotions, Creativeness, Affect, Feelings, Leisure Activities, Creative Ability, Artistic Creativity, Creative Thinking, Creativeness, Aging, Cognitive Deficits, Performance. MeSH Headings: Emotions, Creativity, Leisure, Leisure Activities, Hobbies, Recreation, Affect Affective Symptoms, Creativeness. (shrink)

Increase in popularity of games like "Second Life" has contributed not only to significant changes in the development of the electronic entertainment industry. Promoting Games 2.0, the new trend of video game production that are assumed to be the virtual worlds that contain user-generated content makes both measured with a specific technological innovation, as well as a serious change in the organization of socio-cultural heritage. The article presents problems of the existing difficulties of terminology, the implications of the availability of (...) Games 2.0 for social life, the concept of leisure as work in the new economy and creative non-material and the characteristics of "Generation C". Work stresses the need for discussion on trends in the development of video games - defined as a choice between the projects’ of "socio-cultural ideology of perpetual motion" and "utopia of universal creativity". These approaches allow to identify the methodological basis for analysis of relations between the operators and users of Games 2.0, taking into account the wider social environment. ** Wzrost popularności gier typu „Second Life” przyczynił siȩ nie tylko do znacznych przemian w rozwoju branży rozrywki elektronicznej. Upowszechnianie Games 2.0, nowego nurtu produkcji gier wideo które z założenia maj¸a} stanowić wirtualne światy zawieraj¸a}ce treści tworzone przez użytkowników sprawia, że mierzymy siȩ zarówno z określon¸a} innowacj¸a} technologiczn¸a}, jak też z poważn¸a} zmian¸a} organizacji życia społeczno-kulturowego. Artykuł przedstawia problematykȩ istniej¸acych trudności terminologicznych, konsekwencje dostȩpności Games 2.0 dla życia społecznego, pojȩcie rozrywki jako pracy w nowej gospodarce niematerialnej i twórczej oraz charakterystykȩ „generacji C”. Praca podkreśla potrzebȩ dyskusji nad kierunkami rozwoju gier wideo - określanymi jako wybór miȩdzy projektami „ideologii społeczno-kulturowego perpetuum mobile” i „utopii powszechnej twórczości”. Podejścia te pozwalaj¸a na wskazanie podstaw metodologicznych do prowadzenia analiz relacji miȩdzy operatorami, a użytkownikami Games 2.0 przy uwzglȩdnieniu szerszego otoczenia społecznego. (shrink)

According to Mednick’s (1962) theory of individual differences in creativity, creative individuals appear to have a richer and more flexible associative network than less creative individuals. Thus, creative individuals are characterized by “flat” (broader associations) instead of “steep” (few, common associations) associational hierarchies. To study these differences, we implement a novel computational approach to the study of semantic networks, through the analysis of free associations. The core notion of our method is that concepts in the network (...) are related to each other by their association correlations - overlap of similar associative responses (“association clouds”). We began by collecting a large sample of participants who underwent several creativity measurements and used a decision tree approach to divide the sample into low and high creative groups. Next, each group underwent a free association generation paradigm which allowed us to construct and analyze the semantic networks of both groups. Comparison of the semantic memory networks of persons with low creative ability and persons with high creative ability revealed differences between the two networks. The semantic memory network of persons with low creative ability seems to be more rigid, compared to the network of persons with high creative ability, in the sense that it is more spread out and breaks apart into more sub-parts. We discuss how our findings are in accord and extend Mednick’s (1962) theory and the feasibility of using network science paradigms to investigate high level cognition. (shrink)

Many kinds of creativity result from combination of mental representations. This paper provides a computational account of how creative thinking can arise from combining neural patterns into ones that are potentially novel and useful. We defend the hypothesis that such combinations arise from mechanisms that bind together neural activity by a process of convolution, a mathematical operation that interweaves structures. We describe computer simulations that show the feasibility of using convolution to produce emergent patterns of neural activity that can (...) support cognitive and emotional processes underlying human creativity. (shrink)

If artificial neural networks are ever to form the foundation for higher level cognitive behaviors in machines or to realize their full potential as explanatory devices for human cognition, they must show signs of autonomy, multifunction operation, and intersystem integration that are absent in most existing models. This model begins to address these issues by integrating predictive learning, sequence interleaving, and sequence creation components to simulate a spectrum of higher-order cognitive behaviors which have eluded the grasp of simpler systems. (...) Its capabilities are described based on simulations calling for increasing levels of functionality and are used to show how the model can progress from fundamental sequence learning and recall tasks to sophisticated behaviors such as an ability to solve simple mathematical expressions and a creative capacity for the formation and application of inductive rules. (shrink)

If connectionist computational models explain the acquisition of complex cognitive skills, errors in such models would also help explain unusual brain activity such as in creativity – as well as in mental illness, including childhood onset problems with social behaviors in autism, the inability to maintain focus in attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and the lack of motivation of depression disorders.

The associative theory of creativity states that creativity is associated with differences in the structure of semantic memory, whereas the executive theory of creativity emphasises the role of top-down control for creative thought. For a powerful test of these accounts, individual semantic memory structure was modelled with a novel method based on semantic relatedness judgements and different criteria for network filtering were compared. The executive account was supported by a correlation between creative ability and broad retrieval ability. The (...) associative account was independently supported, when network filtering was based on a relatedness threshold, but not when it was based on a fixed edge number or on the analysis of weighted networks. In the former case, creative ability was associated with shorter average path lengths and higher clustering of the network, suggesting that the semantic networks of creative people show higher small-worldness. (shrink)

The scope of this paper is to conceptualise a data-based research framework for the role of creative networks in cultural exchange. Participation in culture measured as audience per 1000 residents and expenditures on culture-related activities were analysed in relation to such territorial assets as accessibility to creative infrastructure, the economic status of residents, the governance networks of civil society, and cultural capital. The results indicate how accessibility, governance networks, and cultural capital contribute to participation measured (...) via audience indicators while a low poverty rate has explanatory value with respect to expenditures on culture. (shrink)

Ivancovsky et al. argue that the neurocognitive mechanisms of creativity and curiosity both rely on the interplay among brain networks. Research to date demonstrates that such inter-network dynamics are further complicated by functional fractionation within networks. Investigating how networks subdivide and reconfigure in service of a task offers insights about the precise anatomy that underpins creative and curious behaviour.

This article discusses three dimensions of creativity: metaphorical thinking; social interaction; and going beyond extrapolation in predictions. An overview of applications of neural networks in these three areas is offered. It is argued that the current reliance on the apparatus of statistical regression limits the scope of possibilities for neural networks in general, and in moving towards artificial creativity in particular. Artificial creativity may require revising some foundational principles on which neural networks are currently built.

The article explores the conditions enabling the celebration within the context of philosophical, enlightening, and educational activities. The authors contemplate the role of leisure in human life, referencing Plato’s view of leisure as a prerequisite for philosophical discussion, Aristotle’s concept of intellectual leisure for the free citizen, Josef Pieper’s understanding of leisure as a means for personal and spiritual development, and Sebastian de Grazia’s perspective on the interconnection between leisure and creativity, culture, individual freedom, and (...) society. It is argued that leisure as an intellectual activity has not become customary in society since Aristotle’s time and, in the modern world, the definition of this concept is confined merely to the realm of entertainment. This limitation necessitates the search for new forms of intellectual leisure that are relevant in the context of contemporary mass culture. The authors analyze the philosophical ball as a form of intellectual leisure, particularly focusing on the years of experience in organizing annual festive events by the family philosophical club “School of Socrates” at the Central House of Artists in Moscow. The external, attributive form of the philosophical ball is linked with Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of the carnivalization of culture: its spectacles, theatricality, the presence of masks and costumes, and the involvement of all participants in a unified action. The internal content of the philosophical ball is determined by philosophical concepts, historical figures, or artistic images relevant to the specific era and culture, facilitating the perception and discussion of the proposed philosophical ideas. The narrative is further enriched by a case study detailing the methodological orchestration of a philosophical ball themed around Russian Symbolism. The authors conclude that the philosophical ball, as a form of intellectual leisure, addresses epistemological tasks and serves enlightening and educational functions: it engenders an authentic milieu of philosophical festivity, nurturing the creative impetus of its participants and facilitating a profound and universally accessible experiential odyssey into the realms of worldview and cognition. (shrink)

_Purpose. _The article is aimed at considering the concept of leisure in the daily practice of Ukrainian refugees in Poland and identifying the main trends in its development. _Theoretical basis._ The author used the quantitative method, the method of online search for respondents, the method of monitoring social networks, and the comparative method. The study was conducted in Poland from 01.08.2022 to 31.01. 2023 as part of grant support from the Polish Institute of Advanced Studies. The study is (...) based on the results of a qualitative and quantitative survey, the analysis of groups and chats of Ukrainian refugees in Poland, and the comparative analysis with the results of other studies. The comparison of these results leads to the assumption that a different understanding of the category of leisure in Polish and Ukrainian culture can result in the violation of intergroup relations. _Originality. _The author deduced the concept of refugees’ leisure beyond the concepts of adaptation, assimilation, and integration. Leisure is proposed to be considered as a connecting link between the past and present life of refugees and determine its place in the structure of national consciousness. _Conclusions._ The modern scientific discourse experiences a certain gap in the study of the leisure sector of Ukrainian refugees, the problematic areas in the leisure anthropology of Ukrainian refugees in Poland were identified, and a working hypothesis was put forward for further research. The misunderstanding in the organization of leisure activities of representatives of two cultures arises at the level of national self-consciousness (codes, traditions, attitudes). Therefore, external communication does not always reach its ultimate objective and leads to misunderstanding. To determine the mechanism of misunderstanding, the place of leisure in the structure of national consciousness should be determined. (shrink)

Many studies about organizational experiences and theories converge today in the idea that the economic factor, most competitive now in the production of value, is the de-materialization of the economical and organizational processes. Immaterial factors (like knowledge, services, information, relationships, virtual transactions, etc.) are the competitive and crucial innovations for future competition and, at the same time, the most important criteria to rethinking and understanding the future organization. If this is true, we can realize that every person in organizations, every (...) personal history in organizations, or better the evolutionary uniqueness of every person in organizations, is the real depositary and bearer of this de-materialization. (shrink)

Comparatively easy questions we might ask about creativity are distinguished from the hard question of explaining transformative creativity. Many have focused on the easy questions, offering no reason to think that the imagining relied upon in creative cognition cannot be reduced to more basic folk psychological states. The relevance of associative thought processes to songwriting is then explored as a means for understanding the nature of transformative creativity. Productive artificial neural networks—known as generative antagonistic networks (GANs)—are a (...) recent example of how a system’s ability to generate novel products can both be finely tuned by prior experience and grounded in strategies that cannot be articulated by the system itself. Further, the kinds of processes exploited by GANs need not be seen as incorporating something akin to sui generis imaginative states. The chapter concludes with reflection on the added relevance of personal character to explanations of creativity. [This is Chapter 12 of the book Explaining Imagination.]. (shrink)

This chapter summarizes the conceptual foundations and research on emotional creativity. Emotional creativity is defined as a pattern of cognitive abilities and personality traits related to originality and appropriateness in emotional experience. This construct pervades human creative performance and represents an important link between emotional experience and cognitive processes. Empirical research in this field has revealed various links of emotional creativity to personality variables (e.g., openness to experience), positive affect, fantasy proneness, coping strategies, post-traumatic growth, better self-understanding, and one’s (...) engagement in practicing creative leisure activities. In the applied settings, emotional creativity has been found to be positively related to the intrinsic motivation of employees, the innovative performance of employees, teaching efficacy, and an increased awareness of professional roles. Interestingly, the available meta-analysis of past studies revealed that women showed significantly higher emotional creativity than men. Emotional creativity has also been found to be lower in older adulthood compared to younger age. Because the levels of emotional creativity were found to be sensitive to the decline of cognitive functions in older adults, their decrease can be considered as one of the indicators of cognitive aging. Recent research in clinical neuropsychology has also revealed that older adults in the early stages of Parkinson’s disease showed decreased emotional creativity compared to healthy older adults. (shrink)

Various economic, social and technological developmental trends have induced new challenges to intra- and inter-organisational cooperation. The facilitator, defined as a process guide of creative cooperation, is becoming more and more in focus to assist groups, teams and networks to meet these challenges. The author defines and exemplifies different levels of creative cooperation. Core capabilities of facilitation are defined and explained at each level. Finally, possible societal and ethical aspects of facilitation are discussed as well as future (...) perspectives of disseminating facilitative values and methods. (shrink)

The transformations that have affected the character of paid work for at least the last three decades under the impact of the “third industrial revolution,” along with the associated processes of globalization, demand that we rethink both the idea of work and the idea of leisure. It is necessary to move beyond the specific opposition between work time and time “free” of work as it was defined and established by the character of work in the twentieth century. The post-Fordist (...) form of work allows us to glimpse a previously unsuspected degree of freedom, responsability, and personal creativity that can be related in a positive and reciprocal manner with the notion of leisure, here understood in terms of intellectual and cultural enhancement rather than simply in terms of diversion, entertainment or mass consumption. In this sense, leisure can become one of the purposes of work and not merely a flight from the sphere of work. (shrink)

In this essay we collect and put together a number of ideas relevant to the under- standing of the phenomenon of creativity, confining our considerations mostly to the domain of cognitive psychology while we will, on a few occasions, hint at neuropsy- chological underpinnings as well. In this, we will mostly focus on creativity in science, since creativity in other domains of human endeavor have common links with scientific creativity while differing in numerous other specific respects. We begin by briefly (...) introducing a few basic notions relating to cognition, among which the notion of ‘concepts’ is of basic relevance. The myriads of concepts lodged in our mind constitute a ‘conceptual space’ of an enormously complex structure, where con- cepts are correlated by beliefs that are themselves made up of concepts and are as- sociated with emotions. The conceptual space, moreover, is perpetually in a state of dynamic evolution that is once again of a complex nature. A major component of the dynamic evolution is made up of incessant acts of inference, where an inference occurs essentially by means of a succession of correlations among concepts set up with beliefs and heuristics, the latter being beliefs of a special kind, namely, ones relatively free of emotional associations and possessed of a relatively greater degree of justification. Beliefs, along with heuristics, have been described as the ‘mind’s software’, and con- stitute important cognitive components of the self-linked psychological resources of an individual. The self is the psychological engine driving all our mental and physical activity, and is in a state of ceaseless dynamics resulting from one’s most intimate ex- periences of the world accumulating in the course of one’s journey through life. Many of our psychological resources are of a dual character, having both a self-linked and a shared character, the latter being held in common with larger groups of people and imbibed from cultural inputs. We focus on the privately held self-linked beliefs of an individual, since these are presumably of central relevance in making possible inductive inferences – ones in which there arises a fundamental need of adopting a choice or making a decision. Beliefs, decisions, and inferences, all have the common link to the self of an individual and, in this, are fundamentally analogous to free will, where all of these have an aspect of non-determinism inherent in them. Creativity involves a major restructuring of the conceptual space where a sustained inferential process eventually links remote conceptual domains, thereby opening up the possibility of a large number of new correlations between remote concepts by a cascading process. Since the process of inductive inference depends crucially on de- cisions at critical junctures of the inferential chain, it becomes necessary to examine the basic mechanism underlying the making of decisions. In the framework that we attempt to build up for the understanding of scientific creativity, this role of decision making in the inferential process assumes central relevance. With this background in place, we briefly sketch the affect theory of decisions. Affect is an innate system of response to perceptual inputs received either from the exter- nal world or from the internal physiological and psychological environment whereby a positive or negative valence gets associated with a perceptual input. Almost every sit- uation faced by an individual, even one experienced tacitly, i.e., without overt aware-ness, elicits an affective response from him, carrying a positive or negative valence that underlies all sorts of decision making, including ones carried out unconsciously in inferential processes. Referring to the process of inferential exploration of the conceptual space that gener- ates the possibility of correlations being established between remote conceptual do- mains, such exploration is guided and steered at every stage by the affect system, analogous to the way a complex computer program proceeds through junctures where the program ascertains whether specified conditions are met with by way of generating appropriate numerical values – for instance, the program takes different routes, depending on whether some particular numerical value turns out to be positive or negative. The valence generated by the affect system in the process of adoption of a choice plays a similar role which therefore is of crucial relevance in inferential processes, especially in the exploration of the conceptual space where remote domains need to be linked up – the affect system produces a response along a single value dimension, resembling a number with a sign and a magnitude. While the affect system plays a guiding role in the exploration of the conceptual space, the process of exploration itself consists of the establishment of correlations between concepts by means of beliefs and heuristics, the self-linked ones among the latter having a special role in making possible the inferential journey along alternative routes whenever the shared rules of inference become inadequate. A successful access to a remote conceptual domain, necessary for the creative solution of a standing problem or anomaly – one that could not be solved within the limited domain hitherto accessed – requires a phase of relatively slow cumulative search and then, at some stage, a rapid cascading process when a solution is in sight. Representing the conceptual space in the form of a complex network, the overall process can be likened to one of self-organized criticality commonly observed in the dynamical evolution of complex systems. In order that inferential access to remote domains may actually be possible, it is necessary that restrictions on the exploration process – necessary for setting the context in ordinary instances of inductive inference – be relaxed and a relatively free exploration in a larger conceptual terrain be made possible. This is achieved by the mind going into the default mode, where external constraints – ones imposed by shared beliefs and modes of exploration – are made inoperative. While explaining all these various aspects of the creative process, we underline the supremely important role that analogy plays in it. Broadly speaking, analogy is in the nature of a heuristic, establishing correlations between concepts. However, analo- gies are very special in that these are particularly effective in establishing correlations among remote concepts, since analogy works without regard to the contiguity of the concepts in the conceptual space. In establishing links between concepts, analogies have the power to light up entire terrains in the conceptual space when a rapid cas- cading of fresh correlations becomes possible. The creative process occurs within the mind of a single individual or of a few closely collaborating individuals, but is then continued by an entire epistemic community, eventually resulting in a conceptual revolution. Such conceptual revolutions make pos- sible the radical revision of scientific theories whereby the scope of an extant theory is broadened and a new theoretical framework makes its appearance. The emerging theory is characterized by a certain degree of incommensurability when compared with the earlier one – a feature that may appear strange at first sight. But incommen- surability does not mean incompatibility and the apparently contrary features of the relation between the successive theories may be traced to the multi-layered structureof the conceptual space where concepts are correlated not by means of single links but by multiple ones, thereby generating multiple layers of correlation, among which some are retained and some created afresh in a conceptual restructuring. We conclude with the observation that creativity occurs on all scales. Analogous to correlations being set up across domains in the conceptual space and new domains being generated, processes with similar features can occur within the confines of a domain where a new layer of inferential links may be generated, connecting up sub- domains. In this context, insight can be looked upon as an instance of creativity within the confines of a domain of a relatively limited extent. (shrink)

Over the last two decades, we have begun to gain traction on the neural systems that support creative cognition. Specifically, a converging body of evidence from various domains has demonstrated that creativity arises from the interaction of two large-scale systems in the brain: Whereas the default network (DN) is involved in internally-oriented generation of novel concepts, the executive control network (ECN) exerts top-down control over that generative process to select task-appropriate output. In addition, the salience network (SN) regulates switching (...) between those networks in the course of creative cognition. In contrast, we know much less about the workings of these large-scale systems in support of creativity under extreme conditions, although that is beginning to change. Specifically, there is growing evidence from systems neuroscience to demonstrate that the functioning and connectivity of DN, ECN and SN are influenced by stress—findings that can be used to improve our understanding of the behavioural effects of stress on creativity. Toward that end, we review findings from the neuroscience of creativity, behavioural research on the impact of stress on creativity, and the systems-level view of the brain under stress to suggest ways in which creativity might be affected under extreme conditions. Although our focus is largely on acute stress, we also touch on the possible impact of chronic stress on creative cognition. (shrink)

Evidence suggests divergent thinking is the cognitive basis of creative thoughts. Neuroimaging literature using resting-state functional connectivity has revealed network reorganizations during divergent thinking. Recent studies have revealed the changes of network organizations when performing creativity tasks, but such brain reconfigurations may be prolonged after task and be modulated by the trait of creativity. To investigate the dynamic reconfiguration, 40 young participants were recruited to perform consecutive Alternative Uses Tasks for divergent thinking and two resting-state scans were used for (...) mapping the brain reorganizations after AUT. We split participants into high- and low-creative groups based on creative achievement questionnaire and targeted on reconfigurations of the two brain networks: default-mode network and the network seeded at the left inferior frontal gyrus because the between-group difference of AUT-induced brain activation located at the left IFG. The changes of post-AUT RSFCs indicated the prolonged effect of divergent thinking. More specifically, the alterations of RSFCIFG−AG and RSFCIFG−IPL in the high-creative group had positive relationship with their AUT performances, but not found in the low-creative group. Furthermore, the RSFC changes of DMN did not present significant relationships with AUT performances. The findings not only confirmed the possibility of brain dynamic reconfiguration following divergent thinking, but also suggested the distinct IFGN reconfiguration between individuals with different creativity levels. (shrink)

Human creativity generates novel ideas to solve real-world problems. This thereby grants us the power to transform the surrounding world and extend our human attributes beyond what is currently possible. Creative ideas are not just new and unexpected, but are also successful in providing solutions that are useful, efficient and valuable. Thus, creativity optimizes the use of available resources and increases wealth. The origin of human creativity, however, is poorly understood, and semantic measures that could predict the success of (...) generated ideas are currently unknown. Here, we analyze a dataset of design problem-solving conversations in real-world settings by using 49 semantic measures based on WordNet 3.1 and demonstrate that a divergence of semantic similarity, an increased information content, and a decreased polysemy predict the success of generated ideas. The first feedback from clients also enhances information content and leads to a divergence of successful ideas in creative problem solving. These results advance cognitive science by identifying real-world processes in human problem solving that are relevant to the success of produced solutions and provide tools for real-time monitoring of problem solving, student training and skill acquisition. A selected subset of information content (IC Sánchez–Batet) and semantic similarity (Lin/Sánchez–Batet) measures, which are both statistically powerful and computationally fast, could support the development of technologies for computer-assisted enhancements of human creativity or for the implementation of creativity in machines endowed with general artificial intelligence. (shrink)

This article reviews claims for creativity in the economy and in education distinguishing two accounts: 'personal anarcho-aesthetics' and 'the design principle'. The first emerges in the psychological literature from sources in the Romantic Movement emphasizing the creative genius and the way in which creativity emerges from deep subconscious processes, involves the imagination, is anchored in the passions, cannot be directed and is beyond the rational control of the individual. This account has a close fit to business as a form (...) of 'brainstorming', 'mind-mapping' or 'strategic planning', and is closely associated with the figure of the risk-taking entrepreneur. By contrast, 'the design principle' is both relational and social and surfaces in related ideas of 'social capital', 'situated learning', and 'P2P' (peer-to-peer) accounts of commons-based peer production. It is seen to be a product of social and networked environments — rich semiotic and intelligent environments in which everything speaks. The article traces the genealogies of these two contrasting accounts of creativity and their significance for educational practice before showing how both notions are strongly connected in accounts of new forms of capitalism that require a rethinking of the notion of creativity and its place in schools and institutions of higher education. The article begins by providing a context in terms of a history of the knowledge economy and the historical tendency toward aesthetic or designer capitalism. (shrink)

Everything you have been told about creativity is wrong. From line managers, corporate CEOs, urban designers, teachers, politicians, mayors, advertisers and even our friends and family, the message is 'be creative'. Creativity is heralded as the driving force of our contemporary society; celebrated as agile, progressive and liberating. It is the spring of the knowledge economy and shapes the cities we inhabit. It even defines our politics. What could possibly be wrong with this? In this brilliant, counter intuitive blast (...) Oli Mould demands that we rethink the story we are being sold. Behind the novelty, he shows that creativity is a barely hidden form of neoliberal appropriation. It is a regime that prioritizes individual success over collective flourishing. It refuses to recognise anything - job, place, person - that is not profitable. And it impacts on everything around us: the places where we work, the way we are managed, how we spend our leisure time. Is there an alternative? Mould offers a radical redefinition of creativity, one embedded in the idea of collective flourishing, outside the tyranny of profit. Bold, passionate and refreshing, Against Creativity, is a timely correction to the doctrine of our times. (shrink)

: Creativity, mostly ignored in Western philosophy due to its supposed mysteriousness, has recently become a respected research topic in psychology, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence. We discuss how in science the approach has mainly been to describe creativity as an information-based process, coherently with a computational view of the human mind started with the cognitive revolution. This view has produced progressively convincing models of creativity, up to current artificial neural network systems, vaguely inspired by biological neural processing, but already competing (...) with human creativity in several fields. These successes suggest that creativity might not be an exclusively human function, but actually a way of functioning of any natural or artificial system implementing the creative process. We conclude by acknowledging that the information-based view of creativity has tremendous explanatory and generative power, but we propose a thought experiment to start discussing how it actually leaves out the experiential side of being creative. Keywords: Creative Cognition; Cognitive Neuroscience; Computational Creativity; Generative Algorithms; Cognitive Science La creatività come processo basato sull’informazione Riassunto: La creatività, spesso ignorata dalla filosofia occidentale per la sua presunta oscurità, in tempi recenti è diventata un rispettabile oggetto di ricerca per la psicologia, la neuroscienza e l’intelligenza artificiale. Vogliamo illustrare il modo in cui lo sguardo scientifico sia rivolto prevalentemente a considerare la creatività come processo information-based, coerentemente con la prospettiva computazionale sulla mente umana aperta dalla rivoluzione cognitiva. Questa prospettiva ha prodotto modelli della creatività sempre più convincenti, fino agli attuali sistemi di reti neurali artificiali, vagamente inspirati al processamento biologico neurale, ma già competitivi rispetto alla creatività umana in molti ambiti. Questi successi suggeriscono che la creatività possa non essere una funzione esclusivamente umana ma in effetti un modo di funzionare di un sistema naturale o artificiale capace di implementare il processo creativo. In conclusione, pur riconoscendo come il considerare la creatività come processo information-based possieda grande potere esplicativo e generativo, proporremo un esperimento mentale per aprire una discussione sul come questa prospettiva non copra in effetti il lato esperienziale dell’essere creativo. Parole chiave: Cognizione creativa; Neuroscienza cognitiva; Creatività computazionale; Algoritmi generativi; Scienza cognitiva. (shrink)

Behavioural Network Science provides a comprehensive introduction to network science for social and behavioral researchers and students. It is a self-contained guide to the fundamentals of network science, beginning with principles of representing and making networks, network metrics, and network evolution. It then delves into specific applications of network science to behavioral research including language evolution, learning, memory, aging, creativity, conspiracies, group problem-solving, opinion polarization, and social conflict. Within each application, theoretical aspects surrounding a core problem are discussed, providing (...) readers with an intuitive understanding of how network science can be employed to quantify and generate behavioural phenomena. Accompanying online R code allows readers to replicate simulations and generate figures. This book is an essential reference for graduate students and researchers in cognitive sciences, behavioural economics, and health and social policy seeking a nuanced understanding of the intersection between network science and behavioural research. (shrink)

Some properties of cognitive networks are discussed in the article in the context of the modern achievements of the network science. It is the study in network structures and their surprising properties that gives a new impetus to the development of the theory of complex systems. The analysis of cognitive processes from the point of view of the network structures that arise in them not only fits with such concepts already existing in cognitive science and epistemology, as cognitive niches, (...) cognitive maps, cognitive coherence, etc.), but also brings some new aspects to the understanding of interactivity, intersubjectivity, synergy in cognition and creative activities, empathy. (shrink)

Introduction. Non-institutional humanities, philosophical practice, and informal education are “a family like” phenomena that are outside the social institution of science and education and are adjacent to socio-cultural activities and social work. The purpose of the article is to outline the contours of the informal educational creative industry in the postmodern society, which combines non-institutional humanities, philosophical practice, and informal education. Methods. The author uses the methods of autobiographical reflection, comparative analysis, empirical observation and analysis of the primary sources (...) of non-institutional humanities. Scientific novelty of the research. The transition to nonmaterial work of the postmodern era is the reason for the relevance of the area under study. The growing demand of a contemporary for such issues as the meaning of life, happiness, the growth of the precariat, the ousting of philosophy from formal education constitute a new social reality that determines the novelty of the research in the informal educational creative industry. Results. The author classifies non-institutional humanities according to the spheres of its existence and the strategies of subject genesis presented in the teachings. The concept of dedifferentiation is considered as an explanation of the area under study in postmodernism. The specificity of the philosophical approach in the work of a practicing philosopher is considered. Conclusions. The author connects the prospects of the informal educational creative industry with institutionalization in the way of leisure, entertainment, and other personal services. The author makes conclusions about the differences between formal and informal education, and indicates the risks and opportunities for the development of the informal philosophical sector. (shrink)

Whilst the field of contemporary art has been impeded until recently by Saudi Arabia’s blasphemy laws and heavy censorship, the last decade has seen a rapid growth of art networks and institutions. Incidents such as the conviction of internationally lauded artist and curator Ashraf Fayadh in 2015 on charges of apostasy show that Islamic authorities still claim to define what is acceptable and not acceptable in the field of cultural production, but several renowned Saudi artists have started to question (...) the hegemony of the Islamic field. This article discusses these processes in the context of radical economic reform led by the Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. Why do state actors see an investment in art and creativity as a necessity for economic renewal? What role does contemporary art play in strategies to rebrand the negative image of Saudi Arabia? How do artists relate to Islamic narratives and material culture to claim authority in Islamic debates and provide legitimacy for their concerns? By focusing on the interactions between economic reform and new spaces of Islamic critique, the paper aims to shed light on the way in which the drive for economic transformation is remapping the social boundaries between Islamic authorities, the creative economy and the state. (shrink)

[A revised and updated version of an earlier article 'Understanding Creativity: Affect Decision and Inference' (unpublished), posted at PhilArchive in 2021.] -/- This book looks at the creative process in the human mind. -/- Creativity involves a major restructuring of the conceptual space where a sustained inferential process eventually links remote conceptual domains, thereby opening up the possibility of a large number of new correlations between remote concepts by a cascading process. Since the process of inductive inference depends crucially (...) on decisions at critical junctures of the inferential chain, it becomes necessary to examine the basic mechanism underlying the making of decisions. In the framework that we attempt to build up for the understanding of scientific creativity, this role of decision making in the inferential process assumes central relevance. -/- Referring to the process of inferential exploration of the conceptual space that generates the possibility of correlations being established between remote conceptual domains, such exploration is guided and steered at every stage by the affect system, -/- While the affect system plays a guiding role in the exploration of the conceptual space, the process of exploration itself consists of the establishment of correlations between concepts by means of beliefs and heuristics, the self-linked ones among the latter having a special role in making possible the inferential journey along alternative routes whenever the shared rules of inference become inadequate. -/- Representing the conceptual space in the form of a complex network, the overall process can be likened to one of self-organised criticality commonly observed in the dynamical evolution of complex systems. An instance of self-organised criticality is found in the avalanche set up in a slowly growing sand-pile. (shrink)

In popular imagination creativity requires us to surrender control. Yet, attention is at the heart of control, and many studies show attention to play a key role in the creative process. This is partly due to the selective nature of attention—creative cognition consists of two phases, idea generation and idea evaluation, and selective processes are essential for both phases. Here, we investigate attentional (i.e., selective) mechanisms underlying each phase, using the framework of two major attention taxonomies: top-down/bottom-up and (...) internal/external attention. We argue that creative cognition is supported by a dynamic interplay between the typically opposing sides of each taxonomy. Further, we argue that this dynamic relationship is reflected in interactions across three large-scale brain networks: the default mode (DMN), frontoparietal control (FPN), and salience (SN) networks. Our review of the evidence suggests that creative cognition is best achieved through the flexible use of multiple forms of attention, rather than through reduced attention. We thus propose a two-dimensional space, including one dimension for top-down/bottom-up and another for internal/external attention, which can sufficiently capture the flexibility and diversity of attentional mechanisms underlying different stages and components of creative cognition. (shrink)

The author presents an historical account of scientific work conducted at a commercial biotech firm in San Diego called Hybritech. It tells of disruptions in research programs following the acquisition of the company by the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly in 1986. The story centers on responses to an organizational challenge that research managers and scientists in any setting, academic or industrial, must confront—how to create and sustain an organizational culture that is conducive to creativity and innovation. The case provides an (...) occasion for evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of two leading theoretical accounts of innovation in social studies of science and technology—sociological network analysis and actor-network theory. (shrink)

This study is intended to provide in-depth insights into how design thinking and creativity issues are understood and possibly evolve in the course of design discussions in a company context. For that purpose, we use the seminar transcripts of the Design Thinking Research Symposium 12 (DTRS12) dataset “Tech-centred Design Thinking: Perspectives from a Rising Asia,” which are primarily concerned with how Korean companies implement design thinking and what role designers currently play. We employed a novel method of information processing based (...) on constructed dynamic semantic networks to investigate the seminar discussions according to company representatives and company size. We compared the quantitative dynamics in two seminars: the first involved managerial representatives of four companies, and the second involved specialized designers and management of a design center of single company. On the basis of dynamic semantic networks, we quantified the changes in four semantic measures—abstraction, polysemy, information content, and pairwise word similarity—in chronologically reconstructed individual design-thinking processes. Statistical analyses show that design thinking in the seminar with four companies, exhibits significant differences in the dynamics of abstraction, polysemy, and information content, compared to the seminar with the design center of single company. Both the decrease in polysemy and abstraction and the increase in information content in the individual design-thinking processes in the seminar with four companies indicate that design managers are focused on more concrete design issues, with more information and less ambiguous content to the final design product. By contrast, specialized designers manifest more abstract thinking and appear to exhibit a slightly higher level of divergence in their design processes. The results suggest that design thinking and creativity issues are articulated differently depending on designer roles and the company size. (shrink)

Although visual long-term memory (VLTM) and visual short-term memory (VSTM) can be distinguished from each other (and from visual sensory storage [SS]), they are embodied within the same modality-specific brain regions, but in very different ways: VLTM as patterns of connectivity and VSTM as patterns of activity. Perception and VSTM do not “activate” VLTM. They use VLTM to create novel patterns of activity relevant to novel circumstances.

TA builds on the state of mind (SoM) framework to offer the novelty-seeking model (NSM). The model relates curiosity to creativity but this commentary focuses on creativity: (i) It assesses the SoM + NSM model of creativity-in-the-lab, showing that the focus on semantic networks is inadequate. (ii) It discusses architectural design to sketch ideas for a theory of “big C” creativity.

The search for new ideas often frustratingly cycles back to old ones, a phenomenon known as fixation. Recent research has shown ways to kick‐start finding new uses for familiar objects, a prototypical creativity task: wandering in the mind or the world or working on a messy desk. Those techniques seem to succeed by helping break fixation, but do not guide the search for new ideas. The perspective‐taking or human‐centric or empathic mindset championed by many in HCI and in design firms (...) does provide a search strategy. We compared the mind‐wandering mindset to a perspective‐taking mindset, the latter priming thinking of ways that people in different roles (gardener, artist, etc.) might use the objects. In two studies, the Perspective‐Taking mindset yielded more ideas and more original ideas than Mind‐Wandering, which did not differ from a No‐Mindset control. Original ideas came late, rewarding persistence. The perspective‐taking mindset is productive for problem‐solving, forecasting, and social interactions as well as innovation. (shrink)

Autocatalytic networks have been used to model the emergence of self‐organizing structure capable of sustaining life and undergoing biological evolution. Here, we model the emergence of cognitive structure capable of undergoing cultural evolution. Mental representations (MRs) of knowledge and experiences play the role of catalytic molecules, and interactions among them (e.g., the forging of new associations) play the role of reactions and result in representational redescription. The approach tags MRs with their source, that is, whether they were acquired through (...) social learning, individual learning (of pre‐existing information), or creative thought (resulting in the generation of new information). This makes it possible to model how cognitive structure emerges and to trace lineages of cumulative culture step by step. We develop a formal representation of the cultural transition from Oldowan to Acheulean tool technology using Reflexively Autocatalytic and Food set generated (RAF) networks. Unlike more primitive Oldowan stone tools, the Acheulean hand axe required not only the capacity to envision and bring into being something that did not yet exist, but hierarchically structured thought and action, and the generation of new MRs: the concepts EDGING, THINNING, SHAPING, and a meta‐concept, HAND AXE. We show how this constituted a key transition toward the emergence of semantic networks that were self‐organizing, self‐sustaining, and autocatalytic, and we discuss how such networks replicated through social interaction. The model provides a promising approach to unraveling one of the greatest anthropological mysteries: that of why development of the Acheulean hand axe was followed by over a million years of cultural stasis. (shrink)

Many traditional theories of creativity put heavy emphasis on an incubation stage in creative cognitive processes. The basic phenomenon is a familiar one: we are working on a task or problem, we leave it aside for some period of time, and when we return attention to the task we have some new insight that services completion of the task. This feature, combined with other ostensibly mysterious features of creativity, has discouraged naturalists from theorizing creativity. This avoidance is misguided: we (...) can maintain unconscious incubated cognition as (sometimes) part of the creative process and we can explain it in scientifically responsible ways. This paper, focusing on the effects of attention on the functional networking of the brain, attempts just such an explanation. It also serves to assuage the naturalist's scepticism about other features of creative cognition. The broad upshot, one would hope, is that philosophers of mind and cognitive scientists return some attention to the long neglected topic of creativity. (shrink)

This paper explores the intersection of art history and AI technology. Special attention is paid to Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), a machine learning technology widely used in AI art. This technology is particularly interesting to art history and the philosophy of art because it raises enduring questions about the creative process of artmaking, especially what constitutes a new and original work of art. While this is a relatively new area, it is possible to discern emerging directions where art (...) and AI intersect. One pressing issue concerns the use (or misuse) of algorithmically enabled technologies and datasets to perpetuate longstanding art-historical biases. The critical position adopted in this paper shares this concern. I examine a notable example of GAN technology that claims to create original art styles. While such experiments in computational creativity are technically interesting, their artistic aims can be questionable. I argue a mechanical model of artistic development based solely on the autonomy of style is problematic for at least two reasons: 1) it uncritically reinstates a formalist view of art history; 2) it recreates a narrow style-centric ‘historical modernism.’ However, despite voicing these reservations, I also discuss the potential of this technology to engage with topics of critical relevance to art history and the philosophy of art. (shrink)

Topics in Cognitive Science, Volume 14, Issue 1, Page 163-188, January 2022.