State-of-the-art of theoretical creativity models: three epistemological effects of a constructivist approach in systems thinking

Abstract

This paper presents a brief state-of-the-art of the most influential theoretical attempts to model the creativity. Incorporating constructivist epistemology, systems thinking considers the relationship between the observer and the observed system. This dynamic loop explains that we do not discover reality, but rather construct it, and that what we observe is not the real world itself, but the real world exposed to the effects of our method of questioning. This approach has at least three epistemological consequences. First, the systems approach itself is intrinsically creative as a modelling method and the models created are capable of generating original solutions. Second, the possibility of parallelism exists between the evolution of theoretical models of creativity and the socio-cultural evolution of the scientific view from which researchers model them. Third, it is impossible to establish a perfect theoretical model of creativity because human beings’ natural creativity comes from the dynamic distance between the real world and the augmented real world, and the gap it imposes can never be totally modelized. Finally, these three epistemological effects being defined, the systemic approach is relevant to the study of contemporary creativity because it integrates in particular the complexity of eco-social systems and the digitalization of the real world. Among other possibilities, we propose nevertheless to integrate more human imagination and non-human creativity in future models.