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From: jay@ROCHESTER.ARPA.UUCP
Newsgroups: mod.ai
Subject: Re: Creativity and Analogy
Message-ID: <8606161441.14965@ur-seneca.rochester.arpa>
Date: Mon, 16-Jun-86 10:41:48 EDT
Article-I.D.: ur-senec.8606161441.14965
Posted: Mon Jun 16 10:41:48 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 20-Jun-86 00:03:48 EDT
References: <8606120642.AA05437@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: rochester!jay (Jay Weber)
Organization: U of Rochester, CS Dept, Rochester, NY
Lines: 36
Approved: ailist@sri-ai.arpa

>   At a recent talk in Ann Arbor, Roger Schank observed/implied that 
>a distinct characteristic of many creative people is the ability to 
>analogize. My understanding of analogizing is to define transformations 
>between two domains so that entities and relationships in one domain 
>can be mapped into corresponding entities and relationships in the 
>other domain. It appears that the greater the disparity in the "physics"
>of the two domains, the higher is the creative effort demanded.

>   Not all transformations produce interesting results. Good analogies 
>must be interesting from the perspective of the particular creative 
>activity.

True.  Every pair of "things" is analogous in *some* sense, i.e. there
exists a mapping between them.  The utility of an analogy is how it
leads one to use those things more successfully.

>   Is this model of creativity--making interesting analogies--valid 
>across the spectrum of creative actvities, from the hard sciences 
>(Physics, Chemistry, etc.) to the fine arts (painting, music)? 
>Is there more to creativity than making interesting analogies? I am 
>inclined to believe that making interesting analogies is at the heart 
>of all intelligent activity that is described as creative.

I believe that one could give a reasonable definition of analogy that
encompasses all intelligent activity, or at least inductive learning
(which is a biggie as far as intelligence goes).  I question, however,
how useful it is in AI to relate a slippery word like "analogy" to an
even slipperier word like "creativity".  A formal approach with those
two terms will satisfy very few people, and an informal approach will
only give us an inflated opinion of the value of our own research,
which is largely why people make such comparisons.

Jay Weber
Department of Computer Science
University of Rochester
jay@rochester.arpa