from The Arc Of Creativity, by John Nosta
Creativity as Divine Inspiration
In the past, ideas of divinity and the mystical were closely associated with the concept of creativity. Creativity was not only a product of human imagination; it was also a gift from God, a secret that muses, gods, or other celestial beings had revealed. In this setting, creation was viewed as an outside intervention rather than the result of human effort. The source of creative insight was always found outside the human realm, whether it was the muses of Greek mythology who inspired epic poetry and music or the Vedic rishis in ancient India who received hymns by divine transmission.
These societies viewed poets, painters, and even inventors as channels through which cosmic wisdom passed rather than as unique geniuses. One notable example is the Oracle of Delphi, which was highly regarded in classical Greece and was thought to be a route for the deity Apollo, offering wisdom and prophecies that were thought to be the result of divine inspiration. In a similar vein, artistic and architectural marvels such as the pyramids were ascribed to gods or heavenly kings in numerous ancient Egyptian stories, portraying humans as the executors of divine blueprints.
Therefore, in ancient times, creativity was perceived to reside in a realm far removed from human cognition. It was an ethereal event, an extension of cosmic or divine plans and will that took temporary human forms to carry out a much bigger purpose than just artistic or intellectual expression.
The Internalization of Creative Genius
Creativity underwent a significant inward shift during the Renaissance. Artists like Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci were regarded as unique sources of unmatched creativity as well as messengers of the divine. Inside the intricate neural networks of their talented brains, they believed that the sources of their original ideas were fundamentally human.
Though it changed, the idea of God was still important during the Renaissance. Though religious themes remained prevalent, the era is best remembered for emphasizing individualism and humanism. Biblical themes were portrayed by artists who combined religious convictions with humanistic principles. Although the discoveries of scientists like Copernicus and Galileo contradicted religious beliefs, the period instead showed a complex interaction between the divine and the secular.
Creativity within Constraints
The industrial revolution saw a shift in creativity toward problem-solving within limitations, primarily due to the demands of mass production and the rapid advancement of technology. Here, inventions with direct applications to real-world problems embodied the essence of creativity. Take Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin, which revolutionized cotton processing and had a significant impact on the economy of the American South. Similar to this, James Watt’s advancements to the steam engine increased its efficiency and made it possible for it to be used in a variety of sectors, including transportation and textile manufacturing. Regarding architecture, the Eiffel Tower is yet another powerful representation of industrial pragmatism.
During this time, creative thinking was frequently reactionary, addressing pressing issues like labor efficiency, resource scarcity, or financial strains. This was different from the Renaissance idea that a person’s creative ability comes from their divine or natural genius. Rather, industrial pragmatism viewed creativity as an evolutionary tool for problem-solving and adaptation, a skill inherent in humankind’s capacity to control its surroundings in order to survive and advance.
Collaborative and Networked Creativity
Due to the internet’s unprecedented connectivity, creativity in the digital age has moved beyond the purview of individual minds and into the realm of collective endeavors. Platforms like GitHub, which represent the idea of “open source,” enable coders from all over the world to contribute to a single project, effectively decentralizing the creative process. Similarly, the rise of social media platforms like Instagram and YouTube has democratized artistic expression, allowing anyone with a smartphone to become a content creator.
Notably, Wikipedia is a prime example of creativity and knowledge crowdsourcing, with volunteers from all around the world adding to an ever-growing library of human knowledge. With the help of websites like SoundCloud and Spotify, independent musicians no longer require record labels to publish their work and reach a listenership, revolutionizing the music industry as we know it.
Collaborative tools and databases like arXiv and Google Scholar have accelerated scientific innovation in the sciences by promoting quicker research dissemination and critique. Similar to this, online communities have sprung up around data science and machine learning thanks to sites like Kaggle, where difficult tasks are posted for anyone with the knowledge to solve.
It gets harder and harder to identify the source of creative thought in our networked digital environment. Does an insightful individual create an article on Wikipedia, or does it reflect a more intricate interaction of multiple people’s intelligences? Is the original creator of a popular meme, who started it in a small online forum and then spread it around and changed it, the internet as a whole, or both?
The idea that creativity is a networked phenomenon rather than merely an individual activity is strengthened in this day and age. The digital age is a revolutionary chapter in the always-changing story of where creativity dwells, as creative thought has grown into a complex interplay of ideas moving through a worldwide, interconnected web of minds.
The Mind-Body Connection
When we accept the developments of large language models such as GPT-4 and GPT4V, we must consider what these models “think.” Is this “creativity” only the result of coded algorithms, or is it a completely new realm? The “thoughts” of artificial intelligence (AI) models originate from intricate mathematical functions and probabilistic predictions, in contrast to the singular genius or group mind.
Because of this progression, creativity now exists in a rare partnership between human intuition and computer processing. Is it accurate to state that creativity “lives” in the machine if its “thoughts” are essentially distinct from ours? Maybe a more accurate statement would be that creativity now exists at the dynamic interface between human and machine cognition—a cooperative realm where ideas collide, whether they originate from neurons or algorithms.
An Intriguing Complete Circle
However, there’s a feeling that creativity has mysteriously—almost poetically—came full circle in the setting of highly developed AI models. We began with the hallowed shrines of heavenly inspiration and progressed to the collaborative networks of our digital age, as well as the mental architecture of human creativity. We are now battling with the databases and algorithms of machine learning models, an area where it is difficult to distinguish between computation and cognition.
Surprisingly, when we investigate AI’s function in creative processes, we uncover a level of mystery akin to the era of divine creativity. Just as divine creativity was an otherworldly, beyond human comprehension, but profoundly influential phenomenon, so too does the “creativity” of AI models like GPT-4 have an element of “otherness.” Even though these models are the result of human creativity and data, their outputs frequently surprise and confound us, leaving us to wonder where their “insight” came from. Are we about to assign the machine a brand-new definition of “mysticism”? It appears as though we have descended into a realm where creativity is once again understood to be both external and incredibly complicated, similar to the divine beginnings that ancient civilizations attributed to it.
As we usher in a new era of hybrid creativity, the work ahead is clear: to continue to research, analyze, and characterize this fascinating interplay between various cognitive beginnings. This is still necessary to negotiate the moral, intellectual, and practical aspects of a world where distinctions between humans and machines and between origin and manifestation are becoming more hazy. However, the hunt for the muse continues.
Originally Authored by John Nosta
AI Paraphrased
