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Cognitive Computation

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01-09-2012

The Mind’s Chorus: Creativity Before Consciousness

Author: Geraint A. Wiggins

Published in: Cognitive Computation | Issue 3/2012

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Abstract

I present a theoretical, hypothetical model of creative cognition, broadly framed within a massively parallel view of mental computation, and based on statistical simulation of aspects of memory and perception, particularly sequence. The theory is located at a level of abstraction substantively above that of neural substrate; it models function and not detailed mechanism and works over symbolic representations of percepts. I support the proposal with evidence from a range of computational work concerning learning of and generation from statistical models and argue that the perceptual grounding of the mechanisms presented here may be generalised away, to account, ultimately, for original thought itself.

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I regret that there is not enough space here to expand on Shanahan’s contribution to the Global Workspace Theory, which is tangential to the current discussion, supplying a neural mechanism by which the Global Workspace may be implemented. However, Shanahan’s Chapter 1, in particular, on the philosophy of consciousness studies is required reading.

For example, in the comic operette of Gilbert and Sullivan.

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Indeed, some humans who suffer from anxiety, in the clinical sense, report intrusive, repetitive thoughts predicting problems or worries of one sort or another, the anxiety being aroused by fear of what might happen. Their situation would be explicable in terms of a breakdown of this mechanism.

Coupled with a deficit in suppression of less likely outcomes, as above, this situation might lead to some root symptoms of schizophrenia: hallucinations, delusions, and cognitive disorganisation.

A more readily available journal presentation of the key modelling work is also available, Pearce and Wiggins [28].

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Title: The Mind’s Chorus: Creativity Before Consciousness
Author: Geraint A. Wiggins
Publication date: 01-09-2012
Publisher: Springer-Verlag
Published in: Cognitive Computation / Issue 3/2012
Print ISSN: 1866-9956
Electronic ISSN: 1866-9964
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12559-012-9151-6

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