How is Technical Creativity Possible?

Abstract

The article deals with the problem of sources, possibilities and limitations of technical creativity. Technical creativity is defined in the article as the creation of objects that are qualitatively different from all previously created artifacts. The problem of impossibility, improbability and unthinkability of creativity is analyzed. The possibility of its solution in the case of technical creativity is considered. The role of the subject and the environment in the emergence of new objects is revealed. The limitations and conditions of inventive activity are considered, including the role of previously created technical devices. The methodological basis of the work is the three-act concept of P.K. Engelmeyer and the theory of affordances (possibility) by D. Gibson. It is shown that in ontological terms, technical creativity can be considered as the realization of those possibilities that are determined by the characteristics of the environment, in particular, physical laws, but due to various circumstances are not updated without the participation of the subject. At the same time, technical evolution should be considered in the unity of its own internal laws and human activity. Internal patterns are due to the fact that the emergence of new devices creates new opportunities (affordances) for constructive human activity. The role of the subject in this case is to actualize the potential, that is, the practical implementation of those opportunities that appear in the "man-environment" system. The limitations of technical creativity are logical, physical, paradigm consistency and praxeological admissibility. On the example of generative neural networks, the possibilities and limitations of machine creativity are considered.