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Objects and links / relations between them seems to be the very basis for humans to organize their experience:

The most abstract branch of mathematics: category theory takes the same attitude: the basic elements are objects and their relations (morphisms).

Out of objects / nodes and links, one can build arbitrary abstract schemes:

If one wishes to endow these schemes with a dynamics, one can introduce some elementary operations: erasing and creating objects and links.

A special operation in category theory is related with the property of transitivity: given that there is a link between two nodes A and B and a link between B and C, one can postulate a link between A and C. Schemes in which the diagrams are transitive are richer and are usually perceived as more meaningful.

In fact, in his attempt to formalize all creation (and Creator) on an axiomatic basis, Spinoza [Etica III] in his "Ethics" explains that new relationships take place in the child's mind by this transitive mechanisms: (s)he will grow attached to things which are connected to his basics necessities, food, heat, soft support. It is no wander that (s)he gets attached the mother:

and then, by iteration to things associated with her

This kind of mechanism was found very effective in creating artificially ideas that are perceived by humans as creative.

In fact when presented double blind to a group of human judges, the ideas generated mechanically received higher creativity grades than the ideas generated by (another group of) humans.

To obtain this result a simple program was used.

The program was asked to generate creative advertisements given a product and the quality to be advertised:

In the first stage, the program associated to the product P one of its parts P1, or one of the objects on which it acts. In the second stage it associated to the quality Q an object that is routinely associated with that quality Q1. In the third stage, the program suggested an advertisement that connected P1 with Q1.

In fact it was found that a large percentage of the top prized advertisements over the years fall in this scheme. For instance, a famous series advertising Bally shoes as giving a feeling of freedom showed clouds, tropical islands, forests all in the shape of a foot. Some of the computer-generated ads were: a coo-coo clock with the coo-coo in the shape of a plane (belonging to the right company), a computer terminal (belonging to the right producer) offering flowers, etc.

By representing the parts and properties a product and their relationships and applying similar simple operations one can invent new products or service procedures. For instance one can save time in pizza delivery and insure it is fresh by using the motorcycle engine to cook it. Usually the "creative" results are obtained by forcing the scheme through intermediate phases, which would have been rejected as inconsistent by humans.

For instance by taking the scheme of a propeller plane

Body-Wings-Air-Propeller

and eliminating the wings one is lead to the scheme of a Helicopter: Body- -Air-Propeller

While by doing the same to a jet plane

Body-Wings-Jet Engine

one is lead to the scheme of a missile.

Body-Jet Engine

Making full tour, one can analyze creation stories in terms of the appearance of diagonal links. It is found that indeed they are related to the moments in the story, which were considered as salient by the experts. Moreover, their density was double in significant stories as opposed to similar popular stories with ostensibly the same plot.

Next: Some Directions for the Future
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