>The biggest flaw I (as a materialist-reductionist-atomist blah blah)
>of logic I acknowledge is that it bites creatively. The descriptions I
Though I agree with this statement, I think it is important to realize
that this doesn't mean that creativity isn't amenable to logical
analysis, artists' objections notwithstanding. I believe this is
what Douglas Hofstadter and his students have been working on the last
few years; has anyone read his latest book?
By now, no-one will be surprised if I suggest that creativity is
essentially an evolutionary process, i.e. an interaction between
the variation and selection of new ideas. Logic certainly has a
large role in the latter process but it is less clear if it is
needed for variation. I think it is obvious that the new variants
are not logical deductions of existing ideas, but there are other
algorithmic operators (inspired by biological genetics) that may be
used: point mutations, sequence reversals, and especially crossover.
For instance the music I'm listening to as I type this is a CD called
Synaesthetic by a band called A Positive Life. It can be classified
as technorganic or ambient techno, and as the name suggests it is
sort of a crossover of ambient (with roots in bands like Brian Eno
and Tangerine Dream) and techno (which has roots in hip hop and
house).
-- David McFadzean dbm@merak.com Memetic Engineer http://www.merak.com/~dbm/ Merak Projects Ltd.