Towards creative information exploration based on Koestler's concept of bisociation

Creative information exploration refers to a novel framework for exploring large volumes of heterogeneous information. In particular, creative information exploration seeks to discover new, surprising and valuable relationships in data that would not be revealed by conventional information retrieval, data mining and data analysis technologies. While our approach is inspired by work in the field of computational creativity, we are particularly interested in a model of creativity proposed by Arthur Koestler in the 1960s. Koestler’s model of creativity rests on the concept of bisociation. Bisociative thinking occurs when a problem, idea, event or situation is perceived simultaneously in two or more “matrices of thought” or domains. When two matrices of thought interact with each other, the result is either their fusion in a novel intellectual synthesis or their confrontation in a new aesthetic experience. This article discusses some of the foundational issues of computational creativity and bisociation in the context of creative information exploration

The development of spirituality and ethics in the work of Arthur Koestler, 1937-1959

This thesis examines the development of Arthur Koestler's spirituality and ethics, from the publication of The Gladiators in 1939 to The Sleepwalkers twenty years later, drawing upon the extensive material within Edinburgh's Koestler Archive.Where his work has often been divided into "political" and "scientific" phases, this thesis adopts a unified approach based on the single hierarchical system that arose from Koestler's analysis of human freedom. The ethical trilogy - The Gladiators, Darkness at Noon and Arrival and Departure - revealed Koestler's continuing abhorrence of the deterministic philosophy he had espoused within the Communist Party. After his abandonment of revolutionary ethics, Koestler proposed an ethical hierarchy to understand the allegorical figures of his eponymous essay, The Yogi and the Commissar.Arthur Koestler viewed society as constantly shifting between the polar opposites of Yogi and Commissar. Hierarchical ethics sought to transcend both poles. What emerged was a more optimistic, lifeenhancing ethic than has hitherto been acknowledged. The work of Richard Hillary, George Orwell and Michael Polanyi enabled Koestler to refine his theory, the outcome of which was evident in the 1946 League and the anti-hanging campaign a decade later.In his scientific writing, Koestler sought to understand the movement of individuals within the hierarchy. If scientific models could be utilised to explain moral and creative insight, he also become convinced, earlier than one might suppose, that the evolution of the human brain was the cause behind the failure of the species to ascend the ethical hierarchy.Biological factors alone do not account for the irrational ethic that survives Koestler's dystopic vision. The thesis presents evidence that this ethical system contains an essential spiritual element traceable to its author's mystical experience whilst imprisoned in Seville. Thus the principle underlying his work and aspirations for humankind, postHiroshima, is of a spiritual reality, the admission of which is necessary before a holistic working ethic can be embraced

Breaking boundaries to creatively generate value : the role of resourcefulness in entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurial resourcefulness is a concept that resonates with practitioners and scholars alike from a diverse set of theoretical and empirical backgrounds. Despite the prevalence and promise of this concept, the literature on entrepreneurial resourcefulness is fragmented and lacks cohesion in how it is labeled, conceptualized, measured, and deployed. In many cases, it appears that bringing resources to bear for entrepreneurial purposes is taken for granted, which limits theoretical development of if and how ventures emerge and grow. In this editorial, we explore the theoretical underpinnings of resourcefulness, offer a definition, and provide a roadmap for future scholarship. In addition, we introduce the six articles that comprise the Special Issue on entrepreneurial resourcefulness, discuss their contributions, and explore how they relate to our overall perspective on resources and resourcefulness. It is our hope that this Special Issue will mobilize additional scholarship to enhance our knowledge on resourcefulness, which we view as a fundamental part of entrepreneurship

The role of the artist's unconscious with regard to the creative processes in fine art

ThesisA great many individuals who have asked themselves the question, "What is the making, characteristic of the artist, which is not an illustration?" have found an answer in something like the following: "This nontechnical making is plainly not an accident making, for works of art could not be produced by accidenr' (Tomas, 1964:5). If it is not the artist's skill, proposes Collingwood (Tomas, 1964:5), then it cannot be his reason, will or consciousness and must be something else. In this regard, Collingwood makes the following proposal: "It must be either his body, in which case the production of a work of art is at bottom a physiological activity, or else it is something mental but unconscious, in which case the prodygtive force is the artist's U[?q_onsq_i_g_y_§._f!Jind" (Tomas, 1964:5). Although the creative process is not a form of condition or a sort of unconscious functioning, created artistic products have definite unconscious consequences and appeal. Rothenberg (1979:351) proposes that "work's of art ~r_esent and incorporate UflQOfJ._§CiQ_L/§_ material and they reson_~te with the u__nqpnsc_iof.!~ey_el of the vi~yver or augien_r;e". Paul Torrance defines creat!yjty as "a/most inUnite. It involves every sense-sight, smell, hearing, feeling, taste, and even perhaps the extrasensory. Much of it is UfJ_~lf!e!J! . _nonverbal, and unconsciqus" (Sternberg, 1988:43)

Reviews

The Making of a Mystic: New and Selected Letters of Evelyn Underhill. Ed. Carol Poston. Reviewed by Joe R. Christopher. From Girl to Goddess: The Heroine\u27s Journey through Myth and Legend. Valerie Estelle Frankel. Reviewed by Janet Brennan Croft. The Wizard of Oz and Philosophy: Wicked Wisdom of the West (Popular Culture and Philosophy, Vol. 37). Ed. Randall E. Auxier and Phillip S. Seng. Reviewed by Ruth Berman. C.S. Lewis\u27s Lost Aeneid: Arms and the Exile. Edited with an Introduction by A.T. Reyes. Reviewed by Richard C. West. The Ring and the Cross: Christianity and The Lord of the Rings. Edited by Paul E. Kerry. Reviewed by Harley J. Sims. Fastitocalon: Studies in Fantasticism Ancient to Modern. 1.2 (2010). Ed. Thomas Honegger and Fanfan Chen. Reviewed by Janet Brennan Croft. Journal of Inklings Studies. 1.1 (March 2011). Ed. Judith Wolfe. Reviewed by Janet Brennan Croft. VII: An Anglo-American Literary Review. 27 (2010). Ed. Marjorie Lamp Mead. Reviewed by Janet Brennan Croft. Tolkien Studies: An Annual Scholarly Review. 7 (2010). Ed. Douglas A. Anderson, Michael D.C. Drout, and Verlyn Flieger. Reviewed by Janet Brennan Croft. Tolkien and the Study of His Sources: Critical Essays. Edited by Jason Fisher. Reviewed by Mike Foster

Arthur Koestler\u27s hope in the unseen: twentieth-century efforts to retrieve the spirit of liberalism

The analysis in this dissertation connects Arthur Koestler’s nonfiction and fiction to the political circumstances that defined Europe during the early twentieth century. It draws particular attention to events in the 1930s as representing a paucity of choices that frustrated certain liberal values held by Koestler and others. It shows how after taking sides with the German Communist Party in the early 1930s, he confronted then rejected the politics of the extreme left and right, leading himself toward a dual career as social philosopher and anti-Communist. This paper will explain how Koestler’s reporting of the Spanish Civil War, combined with his description of his own attraction to and apostasy form Communism, established him as an important writer. It will look at Koestler’s writing, particularly his imaginative use of analogy and metaphor, established during his early career as a journalist, as it discloses his dedication to the liberal notion of the common man’s ability to understand complex ideas. This narrative will focus on Koestler’s plea for an open, non-determined universe in several of his works. These include his novels, The Gladiators, Darkness at Noon, and Arrival and Departure, and his autobiographical works, Scum of the Earth, Arrow in the Blue, and The Invisible Writing. Close analysis will be given to his philosophical works, The Yogi and the Commissar, Insight and Outlook, and The Act of Creation. Some space will be given to the philosophy of science revealed in Koestler’s The Ghost in the Machine. This paper will pay attention to two of Koestler’s works that portray the practice of science as a humanistic endeavor. These are The Sleepwalkers and The Case of the Mid-wife Toad. The primary goal of this investigation is to show how Arthur Koestler’s philosophical writing derived from the union of liberal political values in his musings about science and psychology. The analysis in this paper shows the central importance of Koestler’s political experiences during the 1930s but also investigates the longer time frame of his life between the 1920s and the early 1980s. Its thesis is that Arthur Koestler persisted in his optimism for the longer term in the face of dehumanizing, pessimism-creating events that he experienced in the short term. This study concludes that it was Koestler’s ties to values and optimistic attitudes established between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries by European culture that brought him to a hopeful attitude in humankind’s future. It shows how Koestler maintained a hope in things that were not always apparent in his own lifetime. This dissertation explains that, in spite of the political events that defined the first half of the twentieth century, Arthur Koestler maintained a faith in modern European culture connected to its longer traditions of humanism

Analogy and mathematical reasoning : a survey

We survey the literature of Artificial Intelligence, and other related work, pertaining to the modelling of mathematical reasoning and its relationship with the use of analogy. In particular, we discuss the contribution of Lenat's program AM to models of mathematical discovery and concept-formation. We consider the use of similarity measures to structure a knowledge space and their role in concept acquisition

A study of some of the effects on children’s creative thinking of the discovery approach to mathematics in the primary school

To consider the nature of creative thinking and its relation to mathematics teaching, and to provide some objective assessments of the effect of a discovery approach on children’s creative thinking. Also to contribute some further evidence on the nature of creativity and its relation to other modes of thinking. Procedure. Tests of intelligence, creativity and mathematics were administered to 297 fourth year children from three carefully matched Junior Schools, in one of which the children had been taught for four years by a discovery approach to mathematics. Means, standard deviations and inter correlations were calculated for all 31 test scores within each school and for the complete sample of 265. In each case a factor analysis was carried out by both Principal Components and Varimax methods. A separate analysis was also carried out for the High I.Q. population. Results. Overall analysis. Over the whole range of intelligence there was evidence of a dimension of creative thinking which, though not independent of intelligence, existed as a consistent complementary activity. Furthermore, given a minimum I.Q. of 115 the creativity dimension and that located by the academic tests were relatively independent. There was also evidence, however, that the ability to perform well on creativity tests while consistently loading a 'creativity' factor is not entirely confined to that factor. 2. Discovery Approach Effects Six hypotheses, covering attitudes, creative thinking, understanding of mathematics, concept formation, arithmetic, and flexible and logical thinking suggested results which have been thought likely to arise from following a discovery approach. Five were rejected, and the other was upheld by only one of five creative thinking tests. In many ways however the experimental school's successful performance on the one creative thinking test was of greater importance than its proportion of the hypotheses suggests. The very satisfactory results from one of the control schools gave weight to the headmaster's policy of 'keeping a balance’. The study implies that teachers should be aware of the limitations of a discovery approach and should appraise the relative values of methods they adopt