The Death (& Math) of Creativity

[@velkb228]

As a physicist this is the kind of overly intellectualized pot head academic bullshit i wanna watch while eating pasta over my keyboards at 11:50pm with a bunch of code open in a second screen. Great content. Hugs from Brazil. Subscribed.

[@ChuckleLoves4arting]

I’m confused your saying any book I write has already been written before? I feel like that’s just simply false

[@LostPentimento]

The library of babel contains all letter combinations, including every book that has ever been written or will be written. But that's only true for books shorter than 1,312,000 characters. The problem is, that its too large of a library, and most of the books in the library are full of nonsense letters, so you will almost certainly never find them. I talk more about it in my previous video, but if you would like to know more about it. I linked the website in the description :)

[@Italianjedi7]

You are correct with the final example. Just because something has been repurposed or has a new audience doesn’t change the fact that it has already been done. Question: Is this limit also applying to abstract ideas and concepts?

[@LostPentimento]

@@Italianjedi7 ooooh good question! It depends on your perspective! On some level, yes, and on another no. The mind is a fickle thing, sometimes you lose your thoughts, whereas it's pretty rare for words in a text to just disappear 🤔 Does an idea belong to you if you thought it? Sometimes our minds can trick us into thinking things we've heard are our own thoughts 🤔 Is the recollection of a single person's prior thoughts enough evidence to constitute originality? It's hard to say 😉

[@rodrigoenriquez7259]

Great work my dood!

[@LostPentimento]

Thank you! Cheers!

[@zallia_]

First of all, great video. Second, and I'm not implying that that's your opinion, but the example of the criticism of Basile's perspective fundamentally misunderstands the concept of "context" I believe he implied. It is quite literally "repetition," not "iteration," as it is not the context in which you present a work (eg. on a website vs. as an assignment in school/uni, like in your example), but the context thru which you examine and interpret a work. If we consider that, an essay or speech solely focused on reading and showing Basile's book thru the perspective of the writer/speaker would be creative and original, as it recontextualises the work from Basile's perspective into a different one. Personally, I tend to lean more towards a free will/absurdist point of view, whereas I feel that this video was made from a deterministic one, hence why you try to put a number on creativity, something I find to be impossible, because, as I and many others see it, any thought we have is inherently original, despite possibly already existing and being recorded as well as being influenced by many things, because every human experience is unique, and it is thru our experience that we perceive and think of the world. Anyways, I hope I made my point at least slightly understandable. Again, good video, I'll be looking forward to your new content.

[@LostPentimento]

That's more than fair, but in my example it is supposed to represent both-- since Tar for Mortar is not specifically about the "philosophy of art," it's more about the nature of language, meaning and totality. It is supposed to represent both a change in context in the sense of conceptual framework, and context in the sense of presentation. But I certainly could have been more clear about that, making these videos takes a tooooon of time, and I regularly have to pull all-nighters to complete them. At the time that I contacted Jonathan, I hadn't even developed a criticism yet, I wrote that into my script very last minute. I appreciate having critical thinkers like you that are willing to criticize my work! So thank you :)

[@KarlMarcus8468]

I think the Library is a deeply interesting piece of work, I also wasn't aware of the image section which is also pretty interesting. However, if I'm hearing you correctly, I don't know if it's existence has any effect on the idea of creativity at all. Not anymore than if we just write out the alphabet and smise that we've now done the same thing as the Library because all combinations of text exist within that set of letters. The creation of the Library doesn't itself do anything to kill creativity anymore than the creation of writing would have. And what is it to be or to have creativity, simply to create? What then, could a conscious mind do that was outside of creativity? Where would an act stop being creative and become something else? We all likely agree that plagiarism isnt creativity in a literary context as it is unoriginal, as you mentioned. However, is creativity contingent on only it's origin? If yes, than creativity as a concept has little material function as, much like the Library, if the product of the mind is given either a pass or fail determined by whether it has existed or not in that exact arrangement seem to divorce anything from any value or insight. Perhaps I would ask what you feel the nature of creativity is, do you believe it had some either subjective or objective use or value at some point and no longer does? Do you feel the ability to create has been taken away? What is your understanding of what creativity is and do you think it has value as a concept?

[@LostPentimento]

You're not wrong to have this perspective! It's perfectly valid, and well thought out! The first half of the video (roughly) is all about creativity in the sense of being "objectively novel" but Jonathan Basile (the creator of the library of babel) has a different perspective, which I summarize in the second half of the video (roughly). If you'd like to know more about his perspective, I'd recommend his book "Tar for Mortar" where he provides a more detailed account and outlines the philosophical tradition of the perspective in more detail :)

[@KarlMarcus8468]

@@LostPentimento I think I'll add it to the reading list, it sounds right up my ally. I do remember your summery because on top of it being interesting on it's own, I felt you did an exceedingly great job at presenting Basile's perceptive accurately while highlighting how it differed from yours in a way that was easy to understand and informative. That being said, thanks for clarifying a more succinct description of your idea of creative objectivity. I'm glad to see that I had the right idea about how you interpreted the concept. I suppose my first comment wasn't as clear with what I was asking as it seems I was rambling a little lol. In any case I'll try to ask again more clearly. So I understand what you mean by an objective creativity as something being objectively novel, absent of the context in which it appears. I wonder however, what could be our personal or the larger societal use for making such a distinction? What could be the material value in knowing whether something was objectively creative as apposed to subjectively so? If we assume that there is some kind of creativity that exists in the sense that math does, and then determine through your formula that this painting I'm drawing is, in fact, not objectively creative, how does that information affect my, or anyone else's, relationship to it?

[@natebenfield4115]

I disagree with almost everything you said, creativity cannot be quantified or calculated.

[@LostPentimento]

That's fair! You have a valid perspective, I don't truly know what the answer is, but I do try to lay out both perspectives. The goal of my channel is to present ideas in order to make you think, not tell you what to think

[@calofc01s]

No. No. Both of these sentences have different meanings, interpretations and contexts yet they’re the same word

[@LostPentimento]

This is sort of what Jonathan's perspective is ;) He gives a thorough account and cites philosophical tradition in his book "Tar For Mortar." I summarize his perspective in the video, but if you want to know more, you should check it out :)

[@Antwon1]

did you make the thumbnail with ai?

[@LostPentimento]

Yep! Not all of my thumbnails are AI Generated, and all of them receive some manual edits, but this one was AI generated. Though I do hope to eventually pay a certain artist to do them. Right now, I have to get to a point where I'm actually making money (not consistently losing it) on each video, before I start scaling up my operation.

[@Antwon1]

@@LostPentimento okay that’s fine