What is Creativity? (contd..)

1. Features of Creativity
   
   In a similar manner Boden points out that “if we take seriously the dictionary-definition of creation, ‘to bring into being or form out of nothing,’ creativity seems to be not only beyond any scientific understanding, but even impossible. It is hardly surprising, then, that some people have ‘explained’ it in terms of divine inspiration, and many others in terms of some romantic intuition, or insight”² What Boden is trying to show is that if the creation is ‘out of nothing’, then it is God’s creation because God alone can create something out of nothing. But we are here concerned with human creativity; this is because human creativity arises out of intuitions or out of the combinations of old ideas.

   Once the product has come into existence, we may enumerate or list the features it possesses. But these features cannot be subsumed under a law or a rule. That is, statements describing the features of the object cannot be deduced from the rules or laws along with certain antecedent conditions. Thus “creativity is a puzzle, a paradox, some say a mystery. Inventors, scientists, and artists rarely know how their original ideas arise. They mention intuition, but cannot say how it works. Most psychologists cannot tell us much about it, either. What’s more, many people assume that there will never be a scientific theory of creativity –for how could science possibly explain fundamental novelties? As if all this were not daunting enough, the apparent unpredictability of creativity seems to outlaw any systematic explanation, whether scientific or historical.”³ Thus Boden’s definition of creativity brings out the features such as novelty, uniqueness and originality, which are essential to any creativity act. If a creative product has no value, no relevance, no originality, no novelty, and no uniqueness, then it is not new in its creation because there is nothing new in its creation. Whether a creation is out of something or out of nothing, these minimum features are essential to any creative act. Now the question is: Why should we be creative? We are creative because we have to solve our day-to-day problem. That is to say, we are creative in most of our day-to-day activities of problem solving. Hence, creativity is manifested in problem solving.

   ² Boden, Margaret A., “What is Creativity?” in Dimensions of Creativity, Margaret A. Boden (ed.), p.75.

   ³ Ibid.