The Philosophy of Creativity

Creativity pervades human life. It is the mark of individuality, the vehicle of self-expression, and the engine of progress in every human endeavor. It also raises a wealth of neglected and yet evocative philosophical questions: What is the role of consciousness in the creative process? How does the audience for a work for art influence its creation? How can creativity emerge through childhood pretending? Do great works of literature give us insight into human nature? Can a computer program really be creative? How do we define creativity in the first place? Is it a virtue? What is the difference between creativity in science and art? Can creativity be taught? The new essays that comprise The Philosophy of Creativity take up these and other key questions and, in doing so, illustrate the value of interdisciplinary exchange. Written by leading philosophers and psychologists involved in studying creativity, the essays integrate philosophical insights with empirical research. CONTENTS I. Introduction Introducing The Philosophy of Creativity Elliot Samuel Paul and Scott Barry Kaufman II. The Concept of Creativity 1. An Experiential Account of Creativity Bence Nanay III. Aesthetics & Philosophy of Art 2. Creativity and Insight Gregory Currie 3. The Creative Audience: Some Ways in which Readers, Viewers and/or Listeners Use their Imaginations to Engage Fictional Artworks Noël Carroll 4. The Products of Musical Creativity Christopher Peacocke IV. Ethics & Value Theory 5. Performing Oneself Owen Flanagan 6. Creativity as a Virtue of Character Matthew Kieran V. Philosophy of Mind & Cognitive Science 7. Creativity and Not So Dumb Luck Simon Blackburn 8. The Role of Imagination in Creativity Dustin Stokes 9. Creativity, Consciousness, and Free Will: Evidence from Psychology Experiments Roy F. Baumeister, Brandon J. Schmeichel, and C. Nathan DeWall 10. The Origins of Creativity Elizabeth Picciuto and Peter Carruthers 11. Creativity and Artificial Intelligence: a Contradiction in Terms? Margaret Boden VI. Philosophy of Science 12. Hierarchies of Creative Domains: Disciplinary Constraints on Blind-Variation and Selective-Retention Dean Keith Simonton VII. Philosophy of Education (& Education of Philosophy) 13. Educating for Creativity Berys Gaut 14. Philosophical Heuristics Alan Háje

Norton-Thevenin Receptance Coupling (NTRC) as a Payload Design Tool

The NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) is funding a study to develop an alternate method for performing coupled loads analysis called Norton-Thevenin Receptance Coupling (NTRC). NTRC combines Receptance Coupling (RC), a frequency-domain synthesis method and Norton-Thevenin (NT) theory, an impedance based approach for simulating the interaction between dynamic systems. The goal of developing the NTRC method is to provide a tool that payload developers can use to reduce the conservatism in defining preliminary design loads, assess the impact of design changes between formal load cycles, and to perform trade studies for design optimization with a minimum amount of data required from the launch vehicle (LV) provider. NTRC also has the ability to perform parametric loads analysis where many different design configurations can be evaluated. This will result in cost and schedule benefits to the payload developer that are currently not possible under the standard coupled loads analysis (CLA) flow where typically only 2-3 official load cycles are performed by the LV provider over the life of a payload program. NTRC is not envisioned as a replacement for the official load cycles performed by the LV provider but rather as a means to address the types of design issues faced by the payload developer before and between official load cycles.The presentation provides an overview of the NTRC methodology and discusses how NTRC can be used to replicate the results from a standard LV CLA. The presentation covers the benchmarking that has been performed as part of the NESC study to demonstrate the accuracy of the technique for both frequency and time domain dynamic analyses. Future plans for benchmarking the NTRC approach against CLA results for NASAs Space Launch System (SLS) and commercial launch vehicles are discussed and the role that NTRC is envisioned to play in the payload development cycle

Ode to positive constructive daydreaming

Nearly 60 years ago, Jerome L. Singer launched a groundbreaking research program into daydreaming (Singer, 1955, 1975, 2009) that presaged and laid the foundation for virtually every major strand of mind wandering research active today (Antrobus, 1999; Klinger, 1999, 2009). Here we review Singer’s enormous contribution to the field, which includes insights, methodologies, and tools still in use today, and trace his enduring legacy as revealed in the recent proliferation of mind wandering studies. We then turn to the central theme in Singer’s work, the adaptive nature of positive constructive daydreaming, which was a revolutionary idea when Singer began his work in the 1950s and remains underreported today. Last, we propose a new approach to answering the enduring question: Why does mind wandering persist and occupy so much of our time, as much as 50% of our waking time according to some estimates, if it is as costly as most studies suggest

MemTable: An integrated system for capture and recall of shared histories in group workspaces

This paper presents the design, implementation, and evaluation of an interactive tabletop system that supports co-located meeting capture and asynchronous search and review of past meetings. The goal of the project is to evaluate the design of a conference table that augments the everyday work patterns of small collaborative groups by incorporating an integrated annotation system. We present a holistic design that values hardware ergonomics, supports heterogeneous input modalities, generates a memory of all user interactions, and provides access to historical data on and off the table. We present a user evaluation that assesses the usefulness of the input modalities and software features, and validates the effectiveness of the MemTable system as a tool for assisting memory recall

Opportunities for Public Aquariums to Increase the Sustainability of the Aquatic Animal Trade

The global aquatic pet trade encompasses a wide diversity of freshwater and marine organisms. While relying on a continual supply of healthy, vibrant aquatic animals, few sustainability initiatives exist within this sector. Public aquariums overlap this industry by acquiring many of the same species through the same sources. End users are also similar, as many aquarium visitors are home aquarists. Here we posit that this overlap with the pet trade gives aquariums significant opportunity to increase the sustainability of the trade in aquarium fishes and invertebrates. Improving the sustainability ethos and practices of the aquatic pet trade can carry a conservation benefit in terms of less waste, and protection of intact functioning ecosystems, at the same time as maintaining its economic and educational benefits and impacts. The relationship would also move forward the goal of public aquariums to advance aquatic conservation in a broad sense. For example, many public aquariums in North America have been instrumental in working with the seafood industry to enact positive change toward increased sustainability. The actions include being good consumers themselves, providing technical knowledge, and providing educational and outreach opportunities. These same opportunities exist for public aquariums to partner with the ornamental fish trade, which will serve to improve business, create new, more ethical and more dependable sources of aquatic animals for public aquariums, and perhaps most important, possibly transform the home aquarium industry from a threat, into a positive force for aquatic conservation. Zoo Biol. 32:1-12, 2013. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc

Force Measurement on the GLAST Delta II Flight

This viewgraph presentation reviews the interface force measurement at spacecraft separation of GLAST Delta II. The contents include: 1) Flight Force Measurement (FFM) Background; 2) Team Members; 3) GLAST Mission Overview; 4) Methodology Development; 5) Ground Test Validation; 6) Flight Data; 7) Coupled Loads Simulation (VCLA & Reconstruction); 8) Basedrive Simulation; 9) Findings; and 10) Summary and Conclusions

Habersham County Growth Management and Conservation Strategies

CP 6055 Studio, School of City and Regional PlanningGeorgia's land cover change over the past 50 years has been documented in an unprecedented study conducted by the Georgia Conservancy and the Georgia Tech Center for Spatial Planning and Visualization (CSPAV). This study has resulted in Georgia Now and Forever initiative, an ambitious undertaking to educate key decision-makers across Georgia as to the study's findings with a message that intentional, thoughtful decisions around the use of Georgia's remaining undeveloped land are inextricably linked to Georgia's future ecological and economic sustainability. item_description: Georgia's land cover change over the past 50 years has been documented in an unprecedented study conducted by the Georgia Conservancy and the Georgia Tech Center for Spatial Planning and Visualization (CSPAV). This study has resulted in Georgia Now and Forever initiative, an ambitious undertaking to educate key decision-makers across Georgia as to the study's findings with a message that intentional, thoughtful decisions around use of Georgia's remaining undeveloped land are inextricably linked to Georgia's future ecological and economic sustainability. Unsurprisingly, but important to have clearly documented, is the role low density development has played in the significant acreage conversion from agricultural land, forested land, and wetlands. These findings from past development patterns have allowed for the identification of plausible future landcover change trends, assuming business-as-usual development approaches. North Georgia is clearly in the path of major landcover change to low density developed land as metro Atlanta proceeds to "move" northward. This is also an area of significant ecological and carbon assets in the form of our mountain and valley forests, as well as agricultural lands. There is keen community interest in welcoming development-especially diverse and affordable housing choices-but alongside serious advancement in the conservation of the natural landscape. Representatives from the Habersham County, the City of Clarkesville and the property manager of a large conservation tract in the area that includes two riverfront miles of the Soquee River requested assistance from the Georgia Conservancy and Georgia Tech to consider how and where development and conservation can and should occur across their home county of Habersham. There is an understanding among this group that the very conditions that draw new residents to the area-the forests, mountains, streams-are at risk without a concerted effort to include conservation alongside land-efficient development. Given the larger situation in Georgia, the public and political will in the Clarkesville/Habersham area to pursue a larger joint development and conservation priority led to this planning process of identifying strategies for managing local resources in a sustainable way.Habersham CountyCity of Clarksvill

Drosophila CENP-A Mutations Cause a BubR1- Dependent Early Mitotic Delay without Normal Localization of Kinetochore Components

The centromere/kinetochore complex plays an essential role in cell and organismal viability by ensuring chromosome movements during mitosis and meiosis. The kinetochore also mediates the spindle attachment checkpoint (SAC), which delays anaphase initiation until all chromosomes have achieved bipolar attachment of kinetochores to the mitotic spindle. CENP-A proteins are centromere-specific chromatin components that provide both a structural and a functional foundation for kinetochore formation. Here we show that cells in Drosophila embryos homozygous for null mutations in CENP-A (CID) display an early mitotic delay. This mitotic delay is not suppressed by inactivation of the DNA damage checkpoint and is unlikely to be the result of DNA damage. Surprisingly, mutation of the SAC component BUBR1 partially suppresses this mitotic delay. Furthermore, cid mutants retain an intact SAC response to spindle disruption despite the inability of many kinetochore proteins, including SAC components, to target to kinetochores. We propose that SAC components are able to monitor spindle assembly and inhibit cell cycle progression in the absence of sustained kinetochore localization