BISOCIATION of Arthur Koestler in the

ACT OF CREATION (1964)

as the foundation of

HUMAN and COMPUTER CREATIVITY

Bronislaw Czarnocha Napoli, May 13, 2014

Arthur Koestler, The Act of Creation, 1964 • “I have coined the term ‘bisociation’ in order

to make a distinction between the routine skills of thinking on a single ‘plane’ as it were, and the creative act, which…always operates on more than one plane” p. 36

• for Koestler, bisociation represents a “spontaneous flash of insight...which connects previously unconnected matrices of experience” (p.45)

!Aha! Moment Eureka Experience

Albert Einstein (1949) Autobiographical Notes. P.7

• “What exactly is thinking? When at the reception of sense impressions, a memory picture emerges, this is not yet thinking, and when such pictures form series, each member of which calls for another, this too is not yet thinking. When however, a certain picture turns up in many of such series then – precisely through such a return – it becomes an ordering element for such series, in that it connects series, which in themselves are unconnected, such an element becomes an instrument, a concept.”

Progress of Understanding and Exercise of Understanding

(Koestler, p.619) “...it is necessary to distinguish between progress

in understanding - the acquisition of new insights, and the exercise

of understanding at any given stage of development. Progress in

understanding is achieved by the formulation of new codes

through the modification and integration of existing codes by

methods of empirical induction, abstraction and discrimination,

bisociation. The exercise or application of understanding the

explanation of particular events then becomes an act of subsuming

the particular event under the codes formed by past experience.

To say that we have understood a phenomenon means that we

have recognized one or more of its relevant relational features as

particular instances of more general or familiar relations, which

have been previously abstracted and encoded”.

Associative and Bisociative Thinking and Pattern Finding

[Koestler] distinguishes

associations that work within a given domain

(called a matrix by Koestler) and are limited to

repetitiveness (here, in Computer Creativity:

finding other/new occurrences of already identified

patterns)

and

bisociations representing novel connections

crossing independent domains (matrices).

Two Aha moments of Sultan, the genius among Koehler’s chimpanzees (1914)

• (I7.2.1914) Beyond some bars, out of arm's reach, lies an objective [a banana]; on this side, in the background of the experiment room, is placed a sawn-off castor-oil bush, whose branches can be easily broken off. It is impossible to squeeze the tree through the railings, on account of its awkward shape; besides, only one of bigger apes could drag it as far as the bars. Sultan is let in, does not immediately see the objective, and, looking about him indifferendy, sucks one of the branches of the tree. But, his attention having been drawn to the objective, he approaches the bars, glances outside, the next moment turns round, goes straight to the tree, seizes a thin slender branch, breaks it off with a sharp jerk, runs back to the bars, and attains the objective. From the turning round upon the tree up to the grasping of the fruit with the broken-off branch, is one single quick chain of action, without the least 'hiatus', and without the slightest movement that does not, objectively considered, fit into the solution described.• (p.103)

• The chimpanzee Sultan first of all squats indifferently on the box which has been left standing a little back from the railings; then he gets up, picks up the two sticks, sits down again on the box and plays carelessly with them. While doing this, it happens that he finds himself holding one rod in either hand in such a way that they lie in a straight line; he pushes the thinner one a little way into the opening of the thicker, jumps up and is already on the run towards the railings, to which he has up to now half turned his back, and begins to draw a banana towards him with the double stick. I call the master: meanwhile, one of the animal's rods has fallen out of the other, as he has pushed one of them only a little way into the other; whereupon he connects them again

Had Sultan known Greek he would certainly have shouted Eureka! (p.103)

an Aha moment from 5000 years ago:The

Hymns of Humble Appar

Ero così ignorante (pieno di cecità indotta dal Malam), che non conoscevo il Chaste Tamil di versi illuminanti e non componevo poesie e testi con essi. Non sapevo come apprezzare le grandi arti e scienze portati alla perfezione attraverso riflessioni ripetute e continue su di esse. A causa di tali incompetenze non ero in grado di apprezzare la presenza dell’ ESSERE e della Sua essenza. Ma come una madre e un padre pieno di amore e di cura, l’ESSERE dischiuse su Sua spontanea volontà la Sua presenza ed essenza e continuò a stare con me durante la mia evoluzione tenendomi sempre come Suo proprio soggetto. Ora, pieno di vera comprensione dell'ESSERE, salgo su per la collina di ERunbiyuur e testimonio l’ESSERE come Luce benevola. COMMENT: Uno degli oggetti dell’Ontologia Fondamentale che è stato portato in parole dai giganti della spiritualità Tantrica come Tirumular Namazvar e così via è quella di MALAM, il Buio Metafisico che rende le anime CIECHE e quindi incapaci di vedere qualsiasi cosa. Questa nozione metafisica è antica quanto il Sumerico NeRi di Suruppak (3000 a.C.). I filosofi sumeri hanno anche notato che qualunque competenza umana, comprese le competenze tecniche come inventare un alfabeto per scrivere il linguaggio, è lì solo perché ESSENDO emerge nelle profondità dell'anima come il Sole Interiore che viola il buio interiore e lascia che ci sia la luce dell’Intelligenza (Utu ude-a aAM Uru iGanamee - 505 Enmerkar e Araata)

Appar interpreta la sua intelligenza contro una comprensione metafisica fondata da questa Ontologia Fondamentale e in questo registra anche una continuità con i filosofi Sumeri.

Examples of Eureka moment through a bisociation.

Poincare: “Then I wanted to represent these functions by the quotient

of two series; this idea was perfectly conscious and deliberate, the

analogy with elliptic functions guided me….Just at this time I left

Caen, where I was then living, to go on a geologic excursion under the

auspices of the school of mines. The changes of travel made me forget

my mathematical work. Having reached Coutances, we entered an

omnibus to go some place or other. At the moment when I put my

foot on the step the idea came to me, without anything in my former

thoughts seeming to have paved the way for it, that the

transformations I had used to define the Fuchsian functions were

identical with those of non-Euclidean geometry. I did not verify the

idea;…but I felt a perfect certainty” (p.115)

Examples of bisociation; Darwin

wherein lies Darwin's greatness, the originality of his contribution? In picking up, one might say, the disjointed threads, plaiting them into a braid, and then weaving an enormous carpet around it. The main thread was the evolutionist's credo that the various species in the animal and vegetable kingdom had not been independently created, but had descended, like varieties, from other species…but it gave no explanation of the reasons which caused the common ancestor to transform itself gradually into serpents, walruses, and giraffes. The second thread that he picked up was of almost as trivial a nature for a country-bred English gentleman as Archimedes's daily bath: domestic breeding. The improvement of domestic breeds is achieved by the selective mating of favourable variations…

He had found the third thread…In …Malthus's An Essay on the Principle of Population. When Darwin read the he saw in a flash the 'natural selector', the causative agent of evolution, for which he had been searching:…” (p.1`40)

Examples of bisociation: Guttenberg’s

Printing Press

Here, then, we have matrix or skill No. I: the printing from wood blocks by means of rubbing. It

leads Gutenberg, by way of analogy, to the seal: 'When you apply to the vellum or paper the seal

of your community, everything has been said, everything is done, everything is there. Do you not

see that you can repeat as many times as necessary the seal covered with signs and characters?'

• Yet all this is insufficient.

I took part in the wine harvest. I watched the wine flowing, and going back from the effect to the

cause, I studied the power of this press which nothing can resist....

At this moment it occurs to him that the same, steady pressure might be applied by a seal or

coin-preferably of lead, which is easy to cast on paper, and that owing to the pressure, the lead

would leave a trace on the paper - Eureka!

• A simple substitution which is a ray of light.... To work then! God has revealed to me the secret

that I demanded of Him•••. (p.123)

Bisociation: When two habitually independent matrices of perception or reasoning interact with each other the result is either: a collision ending in laughter.A Smullyan joke:

Un visitatore che vuole conoscere come vivono i carcerati viene condotto in giro dal direttore. Passano per i corridoi e guardano non visti, nelle celle attraverso certi spioncini chiamati "sportelli di Giuda". In una delle celle 4-5 prigionieri sono seduti sulle brande e ogni tanto uno dice un numero (per esempio sedici) e gli altri ridono. Dopo avere osservato per un po' la scena, il visitatore chiede al direttore che cosa accade, che cosa sono quei numeri e perché i carcerati ridono. "Semplice - risponde il direttore - raccontano barzellette. Ne hanno fatto un elenco, ognuna con il suo numero. Le hanno sentite così tante volte che le conoscono a memoria"I due continuano ad osservare mentre molti numeri vengono lanciati. A un certo punto uno dice 72, e nessuno ride. "E adesso, che sta succedendo?" chiede il visitatore. "Oh, - risponde il direttore - quel tipo le barzellette non le sa proprio raccontare!"

A fusion of intellectual synthesis. Poincare fusion:

For fifteen days I strove to prove that there could not be any functions like those I have since called Fuchsian functions. I was then very ignorant; every day I seated myself at my work table, stayed an hour or two, tried a great number of combinations, and reached no results. One evening, contrary to my custom, I drank black coffee and could not sleep. Ideas rose in crowds; I felt them collide until pairs interlocked, so to speak, making a stable combination.

confrontation in an aestetic experience Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust. (Cymbeline)

Computational Creativity, from M.R. Berthold (ed)

Bisociative Knowledge Discovery, LNAI 7250, 2012

Along with other essentially human abilities, such as intelligence, creativity has long been viewed as one of the unassailable bastions of the human condition. Since the advent of the computer age this monopoly has been challenged. A new scientific discipline called computational creativity aims to model, simulate or replicate creativity with a computer (Boden,1999;Dubitsky et al, 2012). Boden(1994) distinguishes three types of creative discoveries: Combinatorial, Exploratory and Transformational.

Computational Creativity – bases.

Essential Distinction: …bisociation can be defined as sets of concepts that bridge two otherwise not – or very sparcely – connected domains (viz progress in understanding; finding patterns across domains) whereas an association bridges concepts within a given domain (viz. exercise of understanding, finding patterns in individual domains). Definition 1 Creativity is the ability to come up with ideas or artifacts that are new, surprising, and valuable. Example: “in 1996 Akihiro invented a “digital pet” called Tamagotchi which soon became a best seller

Computational Creativity – types of bisociation

1 Bridging Concept 3.Bridging by Graph Structural Similarity

Computational Creativity/Human Creativity

2. Bridging graphs

Human Creativity: R. Catanuto, Everest Academy, Switzerland LEARNING ROUTES METHOD LEARNING ROUTES METHOD

Teaching-Research Questions

1. Given their common origin, what are the ways in which human creativity and computer creativity can mutually positively reinforce each other?

2. What are the essential parameters of difference between human and computer creativity?

My hypothesis (TRQ2):

• …Non è un quadretto ma una finestra, in cui si può mettere un numero.

• B: Come sarebbe?

• P: Due finestre sono uguali a 64, una finestra è uguale a 32. Infatti, se sottrai 12 da entrambi I lati, vedrai che le due finestre sono uguali a 64.

• B: Ma ci sono numeri nelle finestre?

• P: Due finestre sono 64, perciò una finestra è 32.

• B: Finestra!?

• P: Proprio così: una finestra. Guarda: un elefante più un elefante fa 64. Allora, a che cosa è uguale un elefante? Due elefanti sono uguali a 64. Allora, un elefante a che cosa è uguale?

• B: Un elefante? Uhm, sì. Un elefante è uguale a 32. Ora capisco… dunque l’equazione…

• P: Se due elefanti sono uguali a 60, a che cosa è uguale un elefante?

• B: Un elefante?, ok, un elefante è uguale a 30. Ora lo vedo. Ora l’equazione…………..aaaaaaa

COMMENTARY of the observer:

Riflettendo su questo dialogo, si pongono diverse domande: Perché a Przemek è venuto in mente un elefante? Perché per Bartek funziona un elefante, dove non avevano funzionato né un quadretto né un segmento? Da dove viene fuori l’elefante?

C’erano sulla mensola due statuine, un maialino e un elefante. Il maialino non può funzionare per i significati che vi si associano (almeno in lingua polacca), ma l’elefante è neutro, pronto per essere preso come simbolo di un qualche oggetto mentale. Così l’elefante è stato usato come simbolo adeguato di un oggetto mentale, che spesso viene indicato con ics ma senza che ce ne sia necessità. Non si tratta di un episodio accidentale. L’uso fatto è ciò che si chiama metonimia. Quando risolviamo problemi in matematica, specialmente in algebra, usiamo spesso metonimie

BISOCIATION-AS- EU GRANT IDEA ???PDTR in bisociation / Aha moment???

• The situation is interesting: we have one precise principle underlying

both Human and Computer creativity. Each domain is in the beginning of its development. A collaboration in the investigation of both and their mutual impact promises, in the spirit of Bisociation to bring a wealth of new results and discoveries for both. On one hand “The ability of humans to perform creative reasoning like bisociative thinking outstrips that of machines by far”, and on the other hand, the generality of computer creativity offer wealth of applications to the classroom.

• .The re-introduction of creativity into mathematics classroom might be the only way through which our students will get back interest in, and enjoyment with mathematics. Our respective tasks, facilitation of the discovery in the classroom and sensitizing computers to “habitually separate domains”, although different bear, a similarity, which could be the basis of collaboration leading to the next EU grant, the follower to the Commenius Programme grant 2005-2008 PDTR and to the Bisonet grant of EU 2009-2011.