Creativity as an implementation of the idea of the integrity of the world

Gribkov Andrei Armovich ORCID: 0000-0002-9734-105X Doctor of Technical Science Leading researcher, Scientific and Production Complex "Technological Center" 124498, Russia, Moscow, Zelenograd, Shokin Square, 1, building 7 andarmo@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Introduction. One of the most significant tools for the formation of the knowledge system and culture of mankind as a whole is creativity – the process of activity, as a result of which qualitatively new values are created: material (technical creativity), intellectual (in the form of new knowledge; scientific creativity), spiritual (artistic creativity) or social (social creativity – the ability to create a situation, establish highly effective relationships that encourage a person to realize himself as a value in the eyes of another person ^{[1, p. 279]}).

Creativity is based on creative thinking, a type of thinking characterized by the creation of a subjectively new product and new formations in the cognitive activity of its creation. It is necessary to distinguish creative thinking from reproductive thinking based on the use of exclusively ready-made knowledge and skills ^{[1, p. 66]}.

Creative thinking can also be defined as solving creative problems. In the scientific and technical field, a creative task is one "for which there are still no generally accepted rules and regulations defining the exact program for its solution" ^{[2, pp. 39-40]}.

How does one manage to create something qualitatively new in the creative process, something that has not been done yet, for which there are no ready-made recipes? There are only two possible answers to this question, which this article is devoted to, the choice of which depends on whether the world is rational (deterministic) or irrational.

There are areas of worldview that are inaccessible to the mind, which determines the ability to systematize and use existing knowledge, i.e. based on reproductive thinking. These areas of worldview are achieved by the mind in the process of creativity through intuition, manifested in the form of insight ^[3] and epiphany. Within the framework of determinism, an attempt is made to give a logical explanation of intuition, within the framework of irrationalism, it is given an irrational content and no explanation is assumed.

The choice of a deterministic or irrational representation of the world can be argued within the framework of two methodological approaches.

The first approach is based on a critical understanding of irrationalism: "Why can the world be unknowable by scientific methods?" In the context of the materialistic conception of existence, there can be only one reason for unknowability – the infinite qualitative complexity of the world. However, the infinite qualitative complexity of the world requires its infinite quantitative complexity within the local domain of being (local, because the quantitative infinity of being (the universe) above a certain scale can be reduced to a "bad" infinity, in which the expansion of the cognizable system does not entail the appearance of new qualities). Infinite quantitative complexity within the local domain of being means the infinite divisibility of matter (the continuum of material existence). Meanwhile, the author's research ^[4] has unequivocally shown that the only possible answer to the question of the calculability of material existence is the existence of a limit to the divisibility of matter. In other cases (indivisibility or infinite divisibility of matter), the movement of matter is impossible due to the absence of parts of being that could move relative to each other.

The final qualitative (and, therefore, local quantitative) complexity of being also follows from the existence of isomorphisms – the phenomenon of similarity of forms and laws in various subject areas, at different levels of the organization of matter. Moreover, the existence of isomorphisms shows that the complexity of the world is not only not infinite, but also limited, covered by a relatively small set of patterns (patterns of shapes and relationships of objects) ^[5] and secondary laws and properties established by the results of generalization of observations of the real world without determining their underlying internal mechanisms and genesis ^{[6, 7]}.

So, thinking has led us to the fact that the world has finite complexity and is knowable. Consequently, the inaccessibility of certain areas of the understanding of the world to the mind is not a confirmation of irrationalism, but only indicates the limitations of available knowledge in any historical period, i.e. the historicism of knowledge. At the same time, it is always possible to have a more or less reliable deterministic representation of the world, and therefore to identify the mechanism of intuition.

The second approach to choosing a deterministic or irrational representation of the world is based on the fact that irrationalism does not offer (and does not assume) any explanation of intuition. As a result, if an adequate explanation is found within the framework of the determinism of intuition, then the correct answer to the question of the productivity of creativity will be an explanation within the framework of the idea of a deterministic world.

Intuition, creativity and the integrity of the world. Intuition is a phenomenon of sudden (in the form of insight), sufficiently complete and distinct comprehension of the desired result with unconsciousness and uncontrollability of the paths leading to this decision ^[8]. A special case of insight is epiphany – a sudden enlightenment of thought; insight into the essence of something, foresight.

"The objects of thought are in sensually comprehended forms," wrote Aristotle ^{[9, vol. 1, p. 405]}. According to John Locke, "All ideas come from sensation or reflection" ^{[10, volume 1, p. 154]}, "By reflection ... I mean the observation to which the mind exposes its activity and the ways of its manifestation, as a result of which ideas of this activity arise in the mind" ^{[10, volume 3, p. 155]}. If Aristotle and Locke are right, then this means that intuition must also be born from sensory experience. Since intuition goes beyond the capabilities of the mind, this experience probably does not belong to the field of intuition (for example, any field of knowledge or art), which means that its application is based on the use of the principle of similarity.  J. Relay wrote: "I am often surprised at the little attention paid to the great principle of "similarity" even by major scientists… It often happens that the results of painstaking research are presented as newly discovered "laws", which, nevertheless, could be obtained a priori within a few minutes" ^[11]. Depending on the degree of similarity, there are: analogy (similarity of individual features, manifestations of objects of knowledge), homomorphism (similarity of forms and laws) and isomorphism (identity of forms and laws).

The ability to detect and use isomorphism and other degrees of similarity is a natural ability of people, externally manifested in the form of intuition. The origin of this ability, which all people possess to a greater or lesser extent, is associated with the multisystem integration ^[12] of a person into many systems: the physical and biological world, the social and cultural environment, the system of professional knowledge and relationships, etc. In each of these systems, there are patterns that can be translated into other systems in the process of (traditional) thinking, as well as systematized (consciously or unconsciously) in human consciousness into patterns and secondary laws.

The mechanism of multi-system integration unites various subject areas, spheres of activity, levels of the universe in human consciousness, i.e. it forms some probably incomplete and not always reliable, but integral model of the universe. Possession of this model gives a person a generalized knowledge of the structure of the world, a meaningful or sensual understanding of how objects and phenomena in the world can be connected, what is possible (because it has some kind of, albeit separated analogue), and what does not fit into the logic of the universe, traced in the practice of cognition.

Creativity (scientific, technical, social), which solves the task of generalizing and formalizing the connections of objects of knowledge, certainly requires the widespread use of deduction – conclusions in which premises and conclusions are judgments of the same degree of generality. The most important special case of tradition for cognition is the analogy generated by the isomorphism of the forms and laws of the universe, which in turn is a confirmation of the possibility of its holistic representation.  Therefore, it can be stated that in the process of creativity associated with the knowledge of the world, the idea of its integrity is implemented (reproduced and used as a tool).

Artistic creativity ^[13] is also largely devoted to the knowledge of the world. Painting, sculpture and music serve to sensually comprehend all the components of the universe – from the physical world and the world of wildlife to the entire spectrum of human emotions: love, compassion, passion, pacification, etc. Literature and related types of artistic creativity (theater, cinema, etc.) serve to describe and reveal the mechanisms of social and interpersonal relations.

The role of artistic creativity, however, is not limited to exclusively cognitive. Artistic creativity is also capable of giving birth to new forms and connections, new objects that did not exist before. These objects can be both virtual, i.e. existing only in consciousness, and material, embodied in the form of artistic products: paintings, sculptures, buildings, etc. It should be noted that the ability to create new, previously non-existent objects is inherent not only in artistic creation, but also scientific, technical and social, however it is most pronounced in the case of artistic creation. Therefore, let's consider this creative ability in relation to artistic creation.

The genesis and value of creativity. In the context of the practice of artistic creativity, fundamental questions arise that determine the genesis and value of creativity: "Are there any restrictions on the result of creativity?", "Are there objective criteria for determining a creative product with artistic value?".

There are undoubtedly objective limitations to the results of creativity. In particular, these limitations may be related to the context of creativity: "When developing theories and hypotheses, a scientist cannot ignore physical laws, a philosopher cannot ignore the laws of the development of human society and the dynamics of the relationship between its members, a writer cannot ignore the ethical norms of human behavior at this historical stage and the peculiarities of the evolution of mankind..." ^[14].

More generally, these limitations boil down to the need to correlate the results of creativity with the logic of the universe, which finds its expression in patterns of forms and relationships of objects, as well as the laws and properties of objects revealed in practice. This correlation is not due to any prohibitions, but is related to the impossibility of human perception of other forms, connections and dependencies (absent in the world around us) – they are unnatural and alien to humans. Attempts to impose them on a person are like force-feeding products containing substances that are not digested by the human body. On the other hand, when we encounter echoes of familiar forms and laws of the world in an artistic creation (perhaps from completely different, remote fields of knowledge), we feel an unconscious trust. In this case, we see the artistic truth as a result of creativity.

A person's ability to fix the similarity of forms, laws, and logic of an organization goes far beyond the limits of currently available analytical knowledge. In some cases, for example, in the field of architecture and music, we perceive on a sensory level the harmonious correspondence of the results of creativity to the forms and laws of the universe. Sometimes mathematics (coupled with psychology) She is able to explain this harmony, but we do not need explanations to feel the artistic truth (including architectural creations and musical works).  

The second of the questions we have raised (about the degree of artistic value of the result of creativity) is no less difficult. On the one hand, unambiguous determination of the degree of artistic value of the result of creativity is a task that obviously does not have an adequate solution, since subjective preferences, alternative approaches to determining the purpose of creativity and other selected evaluation criteria would play an essential role in solving such a task. On the other hand, the concept of value, including the artistic value of the result of creativity, cannot be considered in isolation from its usefulness. Usefulness, in turn, is the ability to satisfy any human need. The usefulness of the result of artistic creation lies in satisfying the spiritual (intellectual) needs of a person.

Should creativity always bring only goodness and beauty? Not necessarily, because our life includes all the diversity of the world, including pain, disgust, destruction and ugliness. However, as we have already stated, speaking about the existing limitations of creativity, everything that we consume must be usable, i.e. be formed according to forms and laws acceptable in the world and exist within the logic of the universe. Human culture does not contain explicit examples of the results of creativity, which gives rise to "unformatted", unusable creations. And not because they disgust us. They are not disgusting, they are not interesting to us, they are like fake fruits, which may be bright and colorful, but inedible. Therefore, such creations, even if they are born, disappear without a trace, without attracting any attention to themselves.

The validity of the above argument, however, does not always seem to be indisputable, in particular, in relation to fantastic and mystical works, and therefore requires additional explanations. Ideas actively exploited in artistic creation (in particular, literature and cinema) include time travel, parallel worlds, teleportation, various kinds of mysticism, etc. These ideas are incompatible with our reality, but at the same time they attract considerable attention and are accepted by readers and viewers. The fact is that creative products using these ideas are not interesting at all. These ideas are just a method of artistic cognition of the world, revealing reality through impossible initial conditions. As you know, to create a fantastic or mystical work, it is necessary that only one or a small number of initial conditions be fictional. They are called "fantastic assumption" ^[15] or "element of the extraordinary" ^{[16, pp. 3-12]}. If too much is fictional, then the work will cease to be interesting. This will happen because it will be impossible to correlate the fictional world with the real one, and as a result, the empathy necessary for the perception of art will be destroyed.

So, artistic creativity, as well as creativity related exclusively to the knowledge of the world, is based on the idea of the integrity of the world. It can be stated that any creativity is an implementation of the idea of the integrity of the world. Creative products are created from a scattering of disparate sensory and analytical knowledge, a priori and a posteriori ideas, formalized and unconscious patterns. This creation takes place according to the canons of nature and serves to deepen the holistic understanding of the universe and replenish it with new objects, harmonized with existing ones.

Implementation of the concept of integrity. We are actively using the concept of "integrity", but we have not yet voiced an unambiguous definition of this concept. In addition, in order to understand the concept of "integrity", it is necessary to conduct a joint comparative analysis with the concepts of "unity" and "quality" ^[17].

The simplest and most precise definition of the concept of "integrity" is given in the general theory of systems, where it is a key characteristic in the definition of a system: "A system is a complex of interacting elements that form some kind of integrity" ^{[18, p. 29]}. Within the framework of systems theory, the integrity of a system is determined by its stability, as well as localization, i.e. the predominance (sometimes even talk about sufficiency) in determining its state of internal processes compared with external ones.

An objective understanding of the concept of integrity is achieved when it is considered in the context of holistic concepts. In the philosophy of holism, integrity is interpreted as a property of an object consisting of elements, the union of which generates a new quality. At the same time, the object has integrity not only in relation to this new quality, but also in its other manifestations: qualitative changes generally do not indicate the appearance of additional properties while keeping all others unchanged, but a transition to a new state in which all the properties of the object are transformed (to a greater or lesser extent).

The concept of "unity" refers to the same property of cognizable objects as integrity, but focuses on their other hypostasis. Integrity is a component of the dualistic pair "whole – part" and manifests itself at the birth of a new quality when combining elements into an object (the properties of the elements of which can no longer be considered independently), and unity is part of the dualistic pair "unity (consistency) – contradiction (inconsistency)" and manifests itself in manifestations of mutual conditionality of the elements forming the object (endowed with a set of defining qualities). For most cases of cognitive practice, these concepts are interchangeable.

The concepts of "integrity" and "unity" are often mistakenly attributed to an ontological content. Meanwhile, these concepts can be productively used exclusively in the theory of knowledge, and the concept of "quality" that defines them is a category of the theory of knowledge. Qualities, isolated objects endowed with these qualities, the interrelationships of the elements that make up the objects are only components of the models of the description of being, representing it generically and simplistically. Does being have integrity and unity? Absolutely, yes. However, there is no subject for analysis here, because all we can say about the integrity and unity of being is that being possesses them. The details and mechanisms of their implementation are unknown to us and will never be known.  

When we talk about integrity, we use the expression "the idea of integrity." This means that it is not the world that should have integrity, but its model – representation in the system of our knowledge. Indeed, if we define integrity through stability and localization (i.e. in terms of the general theory of systems), then it is necessary to state that it is not the world that should have stability (it is already stable and we do not need to set ourselves the goal of ensuring its stability), but our idea of it is a model. Accordingly, localization should also be attributed to the model.  The stability and localization of the model indicate the possibility of reliably defining the model within the framework of a description limited (localized) by a finite number of elements of this model, their relationships and related laws. The reliability of the incomplete description used corresponds to stability, and the limitations of the parameters used for this complex correspond to localization. The indicated limitation of sufficient means of description is a property of completeness – one of the key requirements that any general theory of systems must meet.

Creativity is linked to the integrity of the world in two ways. On the one hand, creativity reflects (displays) the integrity of the world. The results of creativity should correspond to the current worldview ^[19], fit into the paradigm of established ideas about the universe: certain forms, relationships, laws, rules of description, etc. The means of realizing creativity are also borrowed from the outside world. Forms, relationships and laws common in the world are used for creativity. Thus, the representation of the integrity of the world is an imperative (a requirement for the form and content) of creativity. On the other hand, creativity is an indispensable tool for creating a holistic view of the world. By virtue of the internal mechanisms that define it, all that valuable that gives rise to creativity becomes part of the whole world. This may be new knowledge that fits into the paradigm of existing concepts or causes the formation of a new paradigm that generalizes or corrects the previous ones. Or they may be products of creativity – new objects that replenish the universe, but correspond to its forms and laws.

Conclusions. The reflections presented in the article can be summarized in the form of the following conclusions:

1. Creativity is one of the most important tools for the formation of the knowledge system and culture of mankind as a whole.

2. There are areas of understanding that are inaccessible to the mind. The achievement of these areas is possible in the creative process through the use of intuition by the mind.

3. If we proceed from the idea of the irrationality of the universe, then there is no explanation for intuition and it is not assumed. If the world is deterministic, then an explanation of the mechanism of intuition is possible. According to this explanation, intuition is based on the use of isomorphism, which manifests itself in the form of the possibility of using the principle of similarity for cognition.

4. The ability to detect and use isomorphism and other degrees of similarity is a natural ability of people due to the multi–system integration of a person into many systems: the physical and biological world, social and cultural environment, the system of professional knowledge and relationships, etc. In each of these systems, a person draws patterns of forms and relationships of elements within the whole, laws and properties, and then translates these patterns, laws and properties between systems.

5. In the process of creativity, two tasks are solved: generalization and formalization of connections of objects of knowledge, as well as the formation of new objects. New objects created in the creative process must fit into the universe – using existing patterns of forms and relationships of objects, as well as the laws and properties characterizing their behavior.

6. The representation of the integrity of the world is an imperative (a requirement for the form and content) of creativity. On the other hand, creativity is an indispensable tool for creating a holistic view of the world.

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