One of twelve projects at the Minciu Sodas virtual laboratory.

Uses of Reasons for Thinking

Domains of thinking, and what in each domain is considered creative. Sculpture, surgery, music, programming, and other fields offer different understandings of what is creative.  We can develop an idea by expressing it in a variety of media, such as a poetry, photography, or music, and learning from the response of our audience.  If we place our work in the public domain, then we may also learn from our fellow creators.  Andrius Kulikauskas presented such a strategy for developing ideas at the Mannheim Film Festival Coproduction Meetings as producer for Rimas Morkunas' documentary film "Tomas".  Of special interest to: Multitalented artists, publishers for the public domain.

Share your creativity!

Here are three questions:
  1. What is an area of life where you have a definite opinion as to what is creative?
  2. What is an example of something you think is creative in that area of life?
  3. What is creative about it?
We are collecting answers to these questions, as well as other resources on creativity, especially practical creativity.  We welcome your submissions, so long as you place them in the public domain, so that others are free to copy them without asking anybody for permission.  If you would like to share your creativity in this way, please send your answers to publicdomain@ms.lt  Thank you!  Andrius Kulikauskas

General Resources

What is Considered Creative?
Analogy-Making | Repeating the Essence | Stimulating Thinking | Setting Up Environment

General Resources

Join the "Discussions of General Creativity" mailing list lead by Robert Alan Black and Charles Cave by sending an email with content SUBSCRIBE CREATIVITY to the address LISTSERV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU, and then replying to the confirmation request.  The mailing list is devoted to the recognition, encouragement, application, and development of creativity, creative thinking, and creative problem solving.  The mail load is not too heavy and there are helpful responses to questions raised.  There is a list archive.  [http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/creativity.html, 9/99, Andrius Kulikauskas]

Nanyang Technological University National Institute of Education Library lists several dozen books at Creativity and creative thinking : a select bibliography and the related list A select bibliography for the First Singapore Summer Institute.  It has an especially helpful list of websites for the program Thinking Schools, Learning Nation as well as papers from the 7th International Conference on Thinking, June 1-6, 1997, Singapore.  [http://libr21.ntu.edu.sg:8002/biblio/thinking/creativity.html#BM17, http://libr21.ntu.edu.sg:8002/biblio/sum1/inst98.htm#creative, http://libr21.ntu.edu.sg:8002/resource/misc/think.htm, http://www.nie.ac.sg:8000/~wwwnie/think/index.htmlx, Andrius Kulikauskas, 7/99]

The 8th International Conference on Thinking was held July 4-9 1999, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. [http://www.thinkingconference.com/, Andrius Kulikauskas, 7/99]

The University of Massachusetts at Boston has a graduate program in critical and creative thinking, and its website lists theses completed for the Masters of Arts degree. [http://omega.cc.umb.edu/~cct/, Andrius Kulikauskas, 7/99]

What is Considered Creative?

Analogy-Making

Douglas Hofstadter, author of Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, 1980, is the leader of the Center for Research on Concepts and Cognition at Indiana University.  They are focusing on emergent computational models of creative analogical thinking and its subcognitive substrate, fluid concepts. They have developed the computer programs Copycat and Tabletop to model the interplay between concepts and perception in the course of analogy-making. They are developing a Letter Spirit project to model the perception and creation of style in the world of letterforms.  Douglas Hofstadter and the Fluid Analogies Research describe their work with computer programs to model creativity and analogy-making in their book Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought. [http://www.cogsci.indiana.edu/, Andrius Kulikauskas, 7/99]

Repeating the Essence

Field: Cooking.  Example of creativity:  In Uzbekistan, I watched attentively as a rather good cook made pliova.  Several days later I recreated in my memory the entire sequence of this dish and with great passion took to making it.  In order to understand if I made it well, I gave it to some of my friends to taste.  They were amazed - the pliova I made was no different from that of the good cook. What was creative?  I was able to, from memory, make exactly the same dish. [8/99, Rimas Morkunas]

Field: Fashion/marketing.  Example of creativity: I created a sweater that copied part of an existing sweater.  The stitch and the button, but changed it from a peplum into a classic cardigan shape.  I was very successful in this form.  I then changed the stitch and that version with a new stitch was even more successful than the original knock-off.  What was creative? I was creative in the marketing aspect of the sweater, because I realized what made it a commercial success and repeated that in the second, third, etc. versions. [10/99, Joyce Searls]

Stimulating Thinking

Field: Film.  Example of creativity:  The film "Resurrection" affected me.  On first impression it's an ordinary film about everyday life, but the acting, their persuasiveness intrigued me, and I watched.  Suddenly the plot took an unexpected turn as the characters ride in a car and one of them dies.  The execution of the film techniques is so masterful that I can call it creative expression of the highest quality.  It would seem, that this film was about two ordinary people, but within that very ordinariness are preserved the deepest layers of a person's essence.  A film about faith. What was creative?  First, the well told story, second, the very well chosen actors, third, watching this film it does not stop with the end, but leaves you with a giant dot-dot-dot, you think about faith. It reveals the essence of man, and this essence is the search for one's nature, and one's nature is to believe. [8/99, Rimas Morkunas]

Field: Literature.  Example of creativity:  In the Old Testament, the story of Cain and Abel.  It would seem that Abel is this God fearing person, he sacrifices for God's behalf, and God sees this and rejoices.  Whereas Cain like a small child is envious of Abel, kills him.  I immediately feel an antipathy towards Cain and want God to punish him.  God, upon seeing this evil deed, does not punish Cain, but sends him off to wander through the world, and if anybody murders Cain then their descendants will suffer for seven generations.  Here for me there arises the great question, why?  Inside of me it raises discussion, inner creativity. What was creative?  It raises a question which we must answer and figure out the story. [8/99, Rimas Morkunas]

Field: I think the most creative work of all is raising children.
Example of creativity:
1.  What are this child's gifts?  Where do his interests point?
2.  What is extremely difficult for this child? Is it something we should work to remediate or is just something he just won't choose to do?
3.  If you are religious, you ask, "For what purpose did God send this child into the world? How can I best prepare this child for whatever his divine call is?
4.  How can I bring joy into my child's life?  How can I provide opportunities for development?  How can I make the best use of the limited resources at my disposal?
What was creative?  You ask yourself so many questions. [11/99, Ruth Demitroff]

Setting Up Environment

Field: I think the most creative work of all is raising children.  Example of creativity:  ...Success is when your child has enough skills and confidence to leave you and become the person he dreams of being.  What was creative? ...... And as the child grows older, you give him more and more control over his decisions and give him as safe an environment as you can in which to experience success and failure. [11/99, Ruth Demitroff]

Field: Working with animals.  Example of creativity:  Allowing older dogs to train younger dogs through positive reenforcement.  I get all the dogs together and I give the older dogs the command to stack.  The younger dogs see the older dogs stacking properly and getting the treat.  They imitate the older dogs to get the same reward that the older dogs are getting.  So I don't actually train them, the older dogs train them, they learn by example. What was creative?  Setting things up so they learn by example. Most people train dogs on an individual basis.  By forcing the dog to be trained, they are not so happy to compete. My dogs are happy to be doing it in the ring because they are doing it on their own, and pleasing me, the alpha-being. [9/99, Charleen Powell, cppugs@aol.com]