Phil/Psych 447

Seminar in Cognitive Science

Note additional, optional, further readings: Miscellaneous further readings.

Week 2: Mysteries

Boden Chapter 1

Discussion Questions

1. What did you find confusing or hard to understand in this chapter?
2. Is creativity desirable or dangerous? Political, religious, and technological arguments.
3. What is an "adversarial croissant"?
4. Is it desirable or possible to define creativity? Novelty, surprise, value.
5. Would the value of creativity be diminished by a scientific explanation of it? Or should it be kept mysterious?
6. Do attempts to understand creativity computationally advance or retard it?
7. What reasons (e.g. Lovelace objections) are there for doubting whether computers could be creative?
8. Does human embodiment enhance creativity, or limit it?

Boden Chapter 2

Discussion Questions

1. What did you find confusing or hard to understand in this chapter?
2. What is intuition?
3. How can imagery contribute to creativity?
4. Is creativity a matter of chance or luck?
5. Could creativity have a mechanistic explanation?
6. What is insight?
7. Does creativity occur in stages? Preparation, incubation, illumination, verification.
8. How is creativity allied with madness?

Phil/Psych 447

Paul Thagard

Computational Epistemology Laboratory.

This page updated Sept. 21, 2009