From: tfpayn01@ulkyvx.louisville.edu
Subject: Re: Mechanization of creativity
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 19:44:00 GMT
Organization: University of Louisville

In article <Bz0rD4.66p@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>, chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) writes:
> In article <1g5mjiINNejv@flop.ENGR.ORST.EDU> tgd@research.CS.ORST.EDU (Tom Dietterich) writes:
> 
>>I suggest the following distinction between creative systems and
>>discovery systems.
>>
>>A discovery is something that is new to all of humankind:  
>>the discovery of the electron, of pluto, of deep sea vent life
>>of a theorem, of a polynomial-time algorithm for linear programming
>>Hence, a discovery system is a system that discovers new things.
>>A discovery is a thing or a result.
> 
> This surely can't be the full story.  The Desmoiselles d'Avignon were
> a new thing to all humankind, but they weren't a *discovery*.  They
> were a creation.
> 
> It follows that there is some aspect of discovery vs. creation that this
> is missing.  Perhaps this is because you are concentrating on the
> somewhat disanalogous notions of "discovery" and "creativity", rather
> than on the analogous notion "discovery" and "creation".  Roughly, one
> thinks of a discovery as "uncovering" something that was floating out
> there already, whereas a creation brings something new into the world.
> Of course this distinction is vague, and largely dependent on our
> psychology, but that's nothing unusual.
> 
> "Creativity", perhaps, can be construed as "the kind of process generally
> used in creation".  Those processes can also be used in some instances
> of discovery, hence the cross-classification that you mention.  It
> might even be the case that some creations are made by non-creative
> methods.  (If this seems paradoxical, think of gold as being defined as
> "that yellowy metal"; but it turns out that some yellowy metal, namely
> fool's gold, turns out not to be gold, because it is too dissimilar
> to the dominant kind).
> 
> -- 
> Dave Chalmers                            (dave@cogsci.indiana.edu)      
> Center for Research on Concepts and Cognition, Indiana University.
> "It is not the least charm of a theory that it is refutable."
-- 

	Am I incorrect, but is not creation the process, the PLANNED process of
'creating that which is not?'.

	Discovery is as you've said, the stumbling around in the dark and
tripping on a lantern, shedding light on a dark area of human knowledge. 
ALTHOUGH, creation plays an important part in this.  It takes the act of
creating something, of planning something from known or unknown parts
(hypothesis) to establish some form of order (method).

	Please correct me if I'm wrong.

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