Pattern Language: Media for Overcoming Double Contingency

Last class, the students in Social Systems Theory class learned scenario planning, which is media for communicating in communities or organizations based on future plans.

On the other hand, Prof. Iba introduced pattern language as media for verbalizing the tacit knowledge and sharing it among people in an organization in order to take over double contingent situations.

He explained what pattern language is, and how we write pattern language with recent examples in our laboratory.

The example was English pattern writing pattern which he discovered recently on the generative beauty project. We firstly wrote the pattern in Japanese, yet we needed to write the patterns in English in order to submit the paper for the international conference.

On that process, we tend to have difficulties with writing patterns in English, the process does not go smoothly. Then, Prof. Iba realized that we need to learn vocabularies related to topics of the patterns, in this case beauty, so he bought variety of books about cosmetic, fashion and beauty written in English. His intention of it was to write patterns while learning vocabularies and phrases at the same time.

Even though he shared this knowledge with the current members on the project, he will need to explain that consecutively when he encounters the same situations on the different occasions or people. Therefore, it is effective to organize and write this knowledge in order to make easier to tell it to other people.

Then, he decided to write the pattern on that. Basically, pattern language consists of three main parts: context, problem, and solution.

Pattern Name: Writing with Learning

Context: You write in English, which is not your mother tongue.

Problem: Because you have no idea how you should write ideas in proper and comprehensive English, you cannot write patterns smoothly.

Solution: Write patterns with learning and referencing vocabularies and phrased related to the topic of the pattern that you are writing.

The reason why we give names to each pattern is to make us remember the contents of the pattern easily, and help our communication on the topic as a vocabulary.

In other words, Christopher Alexander, an architect who established the concept of pattern language, explains in The Production of Houses that pattern language is a language for writing design knowledge including problem finding and problem solving.

After the lecture, students have Q&A session about pattern language for deeper understanding on that. Although they acquired better understanding on it, they have never talked with patterns.

So, we are having the workshop on patterns in Fearless Change, and having dialogues based on their experiences with vocabularies in the book.

◆ C. Alexander, The Production of Houses, Oxford University Press, 1985

◆ M. Manns & L. Rising, Fearless Change, Addison-Wesley, 2005

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.

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.

Puzzle 3. The Difference of Creativity between Individual and Group

The third puzzle in creativity is the difference of creativity between individual and group.

3. The Difference of Creativity between Individual and Group

Collaboration is the affair by more than one person that brings added value that cannot be achieved by one. In organizations and teams that successfully operate the process of creation through collaboration, communication in the organizations and teams gains "momentum," and it sympathizes and amplifies in a nexus. Along with this effect, connecting the path of communication one by one, it is possible to bring up unexpected remarkable idea and innovation.

The creation through collaboration is a matter of emergence, that unable individual to understand with existing theories, and is often taken as suspicious and mysterious thing. While a number of scientists have studied this kind of collective phenomena at group level, they merely reach to understand the effectiveness of collaboration. Collaboration is something that drives creativity by encouraging generating a long sequence of sparks beyond individual minds.

After all, is there any difference between individual creativity and group creativity? If there is the difference, it means that there are two types of creativity. Otherwise, a feature called "creativity" can be realized in the different bases: mind inside an individual and group made of individuals. In order to resolve the problem, both of psychological approach and sociological approach seem be insufficient, just because the problem lied over these disciplines.

Puzzle 2. The Contingent Nature of Creative Processes

As I mentioned in the last post, puzzles in creativity are (1) the intrinsic nature of creativity, (2) the contingent nature of creative processes, and (3) the difference of creativity between individual and group.

Today, I shall explain the second puzzle, that is the contingent nature of creative process.

2. The Contingent Nature of Creative Processes

During the last several decades, scientists have tried to make a measurement for creativity, however it turns out the difficulty due to the contingent nature of creativity. Sources of discoveries are quite diverse and depends on circumstances, for example, logical deduction, induction, abduction, analogy, metaphor, inspiration, and just by accident. Even if investigating into the detail of creative processes from the viewpoint of sources, one cannot succeed to get anything universal. In other words, creative processes do not follow deterministic laws, but also not happen at random.

In addition, creative processes often are built on several discoveries, and they contain not only good ideas, but also finally wrong or useless ideas. As Keith Sawyer pointed out about successful innovators as follows:

"They succeed by way of many small sparks, and by drawing on collaboration over time to build those sparks into something tremendous. Many of the idea turn out to be wildly off the mark, but it turns out many not-so-good ideas are needed on the way to that rare great idea." (Sawyer 2007: p.105).

Indeed, for example Charles Darwin produced many ideas that are not only weird but also wrong in hindsight. As Sawyer said, however, these ideas also played an important role that contributes to his “creative” outcome.

"Even Darwin's dead ends provided critical links in the chain; the monad theory was wrong, but it led to Darwin's branching model of evolution. His work on hybridization led nowhere, but as a side-effect he learned about artificial selection, which he later realized was a man-made version of natural selection. His theory of coral reef formation, developed years before he'd even thought about evolution, had the same formal structure as the theory of evolution. Darwin had many key ideas before he realized how they would all fit together." (Sawyer 2007: p.107)

Consequently, it is necessary to take the contingent nature into account, if one intends to build a theory to explain the nature of creative processes. I think, for the purpose, describing a sequence of discoveries as autonomous and historical process is an appropriate way.

References

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

Sawyer, R.K. (2007). Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration, Basic Books.

Puzzle 1. The Intrinsic Nature of Creativity

What is creativity? ––– This question has been made from time immemorial, scientific approaches to understand creativity started just in the middle of the 20th century. Psychologist studied creativity focusing on personality and cognition at first, and then broadened their horizons to social and cultural aspects (Boden 1994, Sternberg 1999, Sawyer 2006). Moreover, social psychologist and sociologist also have studied creative collaborations done by two or more people, which are realizing everywhere in the world today.

Although considerable effort has been spent on the studies to figure out the nature of creativity, we regret to say that these psychological and sociological approaches have its limitations as well as any approaches. There, in my view, remain following three puzzles related each other: (1) the intrinsic nature of creativity, (2) the contingent nature of creative processes, and (3) the difference of creativity between individual and group.

First of all, here, I would like to look at the first puzzle in more details.

1. The intrinsic nature of creativity

Creativity is often defined by referring to others' evaluations about the novelty of product. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a leading psychologist of creativity studies, pointed out the importance of social and cultural dimension as follows: "[...] creativity cannot be recognized except as it operates within a system of cultural rules, and it cannot bring forth any thing new unless it can enlist the support of peers" (Csikszentmihalyi 1999).

I agree that the reference to the difference from the existing ideas, products, or outcomes, is necessary to evaluate the social value of creative output, however, in this standpoint one cannot understand the intrinsic nature of creative process. Let me explain why with some examples.

Imagine a scientist lived in isolated island. He invented a new theory about a certain phenomena, deliberating with series of his experiments. Then he wrote the paper about the theory and travelled to give a presentation in an academic conference. After the presentation, he was getting to know the fact that a quite similar theory was already presented years ago. He actually did not know the fact before his invention, however he was never credited with the theory because it is merely "re-invention". He is, therefore, hardly considered "creative" in terms of the invention of the theory. This consequence is ordinary, and I agree that it is meaningful criteria from social viewpoint. Nevertheless, isn’t there really any creativity at all? Can we say with assurance that the invention itself by the unlucky scientist is not "creative", if the process to invent the theory is improbable in the ordinary way?

Let me tell one more example. A child is playing with blocks in the room, and she is getting to feels bored. She realizes that the reason is there is no sound. Then she thinks out a new way of playing blocks with the empty boxes. Drums! With using two bar blocks, she becomes to make loud sounds by beating the boxes as drums. Needless to say, she is not a first person to do so, therefore it is unable to say that she is "creative". Is it really adequate?

The question above can be summarized as follows: Can’t one really call a process "creative" without the evaluation of novelty by others? My standpoint, that is the standpoint of the creative systems theory, is that one can consider a process as "creative" without reference to others' evaluation of the product. In other word, there is an intrinsically creative process. I will re-define the term "creative" to fit such a usage, shifting the focus from abilities to processes. Furthermore, I offer to distinguish "creative" events in a (creative) process from "creative" evaluation in social context. Consequently, we can consider a certain processes as "creative" even if they are mere re-inventions as a result.

References

Boden, M. A. (ed.) (1994). "Dimensions of Creativity": MIT Press

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1999). Implications of a Systems Perspective for the Study of Creativity, Handbook of Creativity, Sternberg, R. J. (ed.), Cambridge University Press.

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

Sawyer, R.K. (2006). Explaining Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation, Oxford University Press.

Sternberg, R. J. (ed.) (1999), Handbook of Creativity, Cambridge University Press.