A conference on “Creativity” is being held in Berlin from 26 to 30 September. The programme includes discussions which relate philosophy and creativity to the digital media:

• Can computers be creative? About the computer model of human intelligence.
• Creativity and art – using art as a paradigm of creativity

• creativity and brain research
• the virtual worlds of maths, natural science and other arts
• the role of creativity in the construction of meaning
• creativity in perception processes
• and the historical development of ideas related to the concept of creativity.

In an interview with Prof Günter Abel of the Technical University of Berlin (Telepolis – German), the limits of the computer model of human intelligence and creativity were outlined:

• creativity cannot be programmed
• computer research cannot explain creativity because it involves more than combining what already exists but generates completely new things.
• Creative processes cannot be captured in algorithms and formalisation

Abel sees the role of philosophy to develop a concept which goes beyond the intelligence model based on computers. It needs to explain how we build analogies, change systems of description, and bring together distant thoughts, as well as how we connect pictures and thoughts and create metaphors.

Abel defined the concept of creativity:

• In normal conversation we are creative in a banal way, but radical creativity breaks established rules and standards. He gives examples from music (Schönberg), art (Picasso, Braque), and physics (Einstein) of creativity casting aside the established norms which each of them had been schooled in, to reach a new stage of intellectual practice with new rules.
• The idea of creativity comes from the field of art and can be applied to other sciences. However, he does not believe in digital aesthetics. (With this term he means algorithms which can generate creativity. This is not the aesthetic application of programming where the creativity comes from the programmer rather than the program. He does not raise this issue).
• Creativity brings about changes and should serve life. Therefore it raises ethical questions about the changes it can effect.
• New rules become established as creativity makes breakthroughs. They establish a style. However creativity is “strange”. It follows no defined meta-rules.
• Although creativity cannot be programmed and follows no rules, is unpredictable and not derivative, the conditions for it can be facilitated and promoted. Through practising analogous thinking, thought experiments and problem solving, creativity can be trained. There is however a great deficit in this area.
• Creativity is individual and collective. The future of the individual and the knowledge-society depend on it.