What are Creative Systems?

I proposed a new theory for creativity, which I call "Creative Systems Theory," two years ago. In the theory, creative systems are defined as autopoietic systems whose elements are discoveries, and a discovery emerges from the synthesis of the three-part selection: "idea," "association," and "finding."

Creative processes are autopoietic systems that are operationally closed and consequently human and society are considered as factors belonging to its environment. My intention to introduce the concept of autopoiesis is to understand creation itself, separated from psychic and social aspects of creativity. Only this distinction can allow us to consider the relation among creation (creative system), mind (psychic system), and communication (social system).

The details of the creative systems theory is explained in the following paper.

Takashi Iba,  "An Autopoietic Systems Theory for Creativity", Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, Vol.2, Issue 4, 2010, pp.6610-6625
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042810011298
* You can download the PDF file of this paper.

Abstract

In this paper, a new, non-psychological and non-sociological approach to understanding creativity is proposed. The approach is based on autopoietic system theory, where an autopoietic system is defined as a unity whose organization is defined by a particular network of production processes of elements. While the theory was originally proposed in biology and then applied to sociology, I have applied it to understand the nature of creation, and called it “Creative Systems Theory”. A creative system is an autopoietic system whose element is "discovery," which emerges only when a synthesis of three selections has occurred: "idea," "association," and "finding." With using these concepts, we open the way to understand creation itself separated from psychic and social aspects of creativity. On this basis, the coupling between creative, psychic, and social systems is discussed. I suggest, in this paper, the future of creativity studies, re-defining a discipline "Creatology" for inquiring creative systems and propose an interdisciplinary field as "Creative Sciences" for interdisciplinary connections among creatology, psychology, and so on.

Proposing the Creative Systems Diagram at COINs2010

Today, I gave a presentation about a new diagram for describing creative process at the Second International Conference on Collaborative Innovation Networks (COINs2010).

"Autopoietic Systems Diagram for Describing Creative Processes"
Takashi Iba, The 2nd International Conference on Collaborative Innovation Networks (COINs2010), Oct, 2010.

Presentation Slides (PDF)


How creative processes are possible? In order to answer the question, our previous study (Iba 2009) proposed a new theory for creativity based on the autopoietic systems theory (Maturana & Varela 1980; Luhmann 1984). In the theory, a creative process is defined as an autopoietic system whose elements are “discoveries.” In other words, creative process is a re-production network of discoveries. Each discovery is emerged only when a synthesis of the following three selection occurs: “idea,” “association,” and “finding”. While we cannot predict the direction of any creative processes due to the nature of contingency, we can retrodict the process with the terms of the theory. However, the way to comprehend the creative process remains unclear, since our previous study only suggested a framework. Here we propose a method to describe creative processes in a diagram, which we call “autopoietic systems diagram.” Furthermore, we also show some examples from our own experiences of creative processes. We anticipate that the proposed method and diagram will be useful toolkits like the ones of System Dynamics (Forrester, 1961; Sterman 2000) and Soft Systems Methodology (Checkland 1981; Wilson 1984).

Checkland, P.B. (1981) Systems Thinking, Systems Practice, John Wiley & Sons.
Forrester, J.W. (1961) Industrial Dynamics. Pegasus Communications.
Iba, T. (2009) “An Autopoietic Systems Theory for Creativity”, 1st Collaborative Innovation Network Conference.
Luhmann, N. (1984) Soziale Systeme: Grundriß einer allgemeinen Theorie, Suhrkamp. (English translation: Social Systems, Stanford University Press, 1995)
Maturana, H.R. & Varela, F.J. (1980). Autopoiesis and Cognition: The realization of The Living, Springer.
Sterman, J.D. (2000) Business Dynamics: Systems Thinking and Modeling for a Complex World. McGraw Hill.
Wilson, B. (1984) Systems: Concepts, Methodologies and Applications, John Wiley & Sons.

Element Constitution in Creative Systems

As I mentioned in the previous post, creative systems theory suggests that creative processes are "autopoietic systems" whose elements are discoveries emerged by a synthesis of three selections: idea, association, and consequence. Here, I shall explain the details about the element constitution, namely the definition of the term "discovery" in this context.

From the viewpoint of element constitution, discovery is emerged from the synthesis of three-part selection: selections of "idea", "association", and "consequence". It is required for the emergence of discovery that all of these selections are occurred.

What I should emphasize here is that idea exists only inside the system. It other words, idea is meaningful only for ongoing creation. Outside the creation, one can no longer call it "idea". In this sense, idea cannot exist "out there" alone. In the same way, association can exist meaningfully only inside the system. It is just association to ongoing creation. Consequence occurs only as the combination of idea and association, therefore it also can exist only inside the system.

Using words of the abstract framework of autopoieitc systems, idea is hetero-reference to the environment; association is self-reference to the system itself; and consequence is combination of the hetero-reference and the self-reference. Thus, creative systems are recursively-closed systems with respect to discoveries.

Note that, exactly speaking, the selection just means the reduction of complexity in contingent situation, therefore without the reference to social status or psychic status. On one hand, discovery does not imply the novelty in society. Each discovery is independent on the status of the society.

In this sense, even re-invention is considered as also creation in this theory. On the other hand, the feeling of surprising is not necessary to discovery, because it is not a problem in the creation, but a problem of the mind. In other word, the creation is creative even if the participants do not feel, so-called, "Eureka!".

What I just wrote is the detail description of creative processes as "autopoietic systems" whose elements are discoveries emerged by a synthesis of three selections: idea, association, and consequence.

References

Iba, T. (2009). "An Autopoietic Systems Theory for Creativity", This first conference on Collaborative Innovation Networks (COINs).

Iba, T. (2009). "Media Design for Spontaneous Order: For What and How Pattern Languages Support?" (in Japanese), 10+1 web site, INAX.

Focusing on Creative Process rather than Creative Ability

In the previous posts, I pointed out three puzzles, namely (1) the intrinsic nature of creativity, (2) the contingent nature of creative processes, and (3) the difference of creativity between individual and group.

Considering these problems, I think we need to look at the relation between creative ability and creative process from the reverse angle, it means, from the view that “people who have creative ability can conduct creative process” to the view that “people who conduct creative process is creative”.

For the purpose, I suggest an alternative approach to creativity rather than psychological and social ones. In my view, the theory that describes such a process appropriately is, currently, systems theory, which enables us to think in transdisciplinary ways.

What is proposed here is a new viewpoint to describe what goes on in a creative process as a system, to be exact an autopoietic system. Applying the latest systems theory to understand the nature of creative process will reveal what goes on in the creative process.

The fundamental question to be answered is as follows:

how creative process is at all possible?

Moreover, the whole relations will be redrawn as couplings between creative, psychic, and social systems.

In the next post, I shall start to explain the theory.

My Talk at COINs2009 Conference

Last week, I gave a talk about the Creative Systems Theory at the first conference on Collaborative Innovation Networks 2009 (COINs 2009), which was held in Savannah, GA.

The conference was so exciting that I enjoyed learning from lots of interdisciplinary studies about creative collaboration and also several practical workshops. The venue of the conference , Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), was great and adequate for the theme of COINs conference. I would like to thank organizers, Chris Miller, Ken Riopelle, Julia Gluesing, and Peter Gloor; keynote speakers; workshop leaders; presenters; and all participants.

It was first time of talk about the Creative Systems Theory. I have no idea whether I could explain it well, but it seems be a good start since some audiences told me they were interested in the theory :-)

Summary: "An Autopoietic Systems Theory for Creativity"

In this talk, an alternative approach to understanding creativity rather than psychological and sociological ones is proposed. The approach is based on autopoietic system theory, where an autopoietic system is defined as a unity whose organization is defined by a particular network of production processes of elements. While the theory was originally proposed in biology and then applied to sociology, I apply it to understand the nature of creation, and call it "Creative Systems Theory".

Creative system is an autopoietic system whose element is "discovery", which is emerged only when a synthesis of three selections is occurred: "idea", "association", and "consequence". Creative system is historical system, because its element, that is discovery, is produced based on the ongoing system itself in a circular fashion. Intrinsically, nexus of discovery is hardly to happen, hence any kinds of "media", namely "discovery media", are necessary to emerge discoveries over time. Thus, with using these concepts, we open the way to understand creation itself separated from psychic and social aspect of creativity. On the basis, the coupling between creative, psychic, and social systems is discussed.

I suggest, in this talk, the future of creativity studies. I re-define a discipline "Creatology" that is a discipline for studying creativity which focuses on creative systems. I propose a new name of interdisciplinary field as "Creative Sciences", which provide an interdisciplinary connections among creatology, psychology, and so on.

Here is the presentation slides for my talk. It may give you a brief overview of the theory, although there are only figures rather than sentences for explanation. In this blog, I will write all topics introduced in this slides.

• Presentation Slides "An Autopoietic Systems Theory for Creativity" (PDF, 1MB)