Creativity is the pathway through which original thought is first brought into being. All constituents of human culture are the embodiments of either novel ideas, or copies of earlier creative products that were new at some time in the past. Creativity is, therefore, of some ontological significance as the fount of the entire artificial environment. It takes what was previously only possible (and unknown) and renders it actual.
The novelty resultant from creativity is only a subset of a much larger category because all the constituents of the cosmos, including the material universe itself, elements, stars, planets, and life, were themselves once new.
Creativity generates new properties and adds value, and thereby has something in common with Darwinian evolution by natural selection, which is likewise a source of novelty. But with human artefacts and innovation the generation of novelty seems a degree more puzzling. Creativity requires an agent. Humans are designers and have new ideas, and so where do those new ideas come from? The origination of creative thought is particularly obscure, as many have noted: ideas certainly can give the impression of having sprung out of nowhere or nothing. They may surface in dreams, or while the creative individual is engaged on something other than the problem in question.
At present there is no known (or at least, no generally acknowledged) process, no set of logical steps or stages, that lead from any antecedent state to the origination of a novel, creative, thought or product, so the genesis of creative novelty remains a mystery.
In this talk, we will focus on the creative process and on the role and influence of the agent.