Computational Creativity: A Philosophical Approach, and an Approach to Philosophy

This paper seeks to situate computational creativity in relation to philosophy and in particular philosophy of mind. The goal is to investigate issues relevant to both how computational creativity can be used to explore philosophical questions and how philosophical positions, whether they are accepted as accurate or not, can be used as a tool for evaluating computational creativity. First, the possibility of symbol manipulating machines acting as creative agents will be examined in terms of its ramifications for historic and contemporary theories of mind. Next a philosophically motivated mechanism for evaluating creative systems will be proposed, based on the idea that an intimation of dualism, with its inherent mental representations, is a thing that typical observers seek when evaluating creativity. Two computational frameworks that might adequately satisfy this evaluative mechanism will then be described, though the implementation of such systems in a creative context is left for future work. Finally, the kind of audience required for the type of evaluation proposed will be briefly discussed.