Introduction to Creative Synthesis
Course co-101
Last Revised November 17th, 2007
Web: http://www.creativesynthesis.net/blog/education/introduction-to-creative-synthesis/

Introduction to Creative Synthesis
Abstract & Introduction
Abstract: The ideal of creative synthesis is that the process of creation is intellectually, mechanically, and socially a
synthetic collaboration, frames our work. Humans are users of tools and, philosophically, the perceived uniqueness of this
trait has defined our understanding of ourselves since the beginning of time. Tools have become increasingly complex,
from a chipped stone ax to a web programming interface shared across millions. With rare exceptions everything we do,
and everything we do it with, has been constructed by the collaboration and synthesis of thousands of others working
before us.
This class will attempt to understanding the social, technological, and philosophical implications of creative synthesis and
the current trends of synthetic collaboration on the web. We will survey technology (and seeming untechnology) as
examples of the acts and artifacts of creative synthesis. Coupled with this we will focus on understanding web programming
as a medium for creative synthesis, and collaboratively construct a web application by focusing on what and why, with a
little bit of how.
Instructor: Matthew Hockenberry
Matthew Hockenberry is the director of the Creative Synthesis Collaborative, a nonprofit research
group exploring the role of synthesis in human creativity. He has been involved in Academic
Research for the past seven years, he's worked in Computer Science, Design, Psychology, Social
Software, Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Web Application Development. He previously
served as an affiliate researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Matthew has been
published in such conferences as CHI (Computer Human Interaction) ITSC (Intelligent Tutoring
Systems Conference) Interact, and ICSC (The International Conference on Spatial Cognition).
Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide 2

Introduction to Creative Synthesis
Defining Creative Synthesis
cre!a!tive syn!the!sis [kree-ey-tiv sin-thuh-sis]
creative synthesis: the process of creation that is intellectually,
mechanically, and socially a synthetic collaboration.
Creative Synthesis acknowledges synthesis, the combination of smaller
constituent elements forming a more complex whole, as the driving force
of modern creation, innovation, and intelligence.
We identify creative synthesis a modern solution for solving
problems and expanding knowledge.
Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide 3

Introduction to Creative Synthesis
Defining Creative Synthesis
In other words:
We want to think about the collage, rather than the sculpture.
Left, Picasso's Compotier avec
fruits, violon et verre
Right, Michelangelo's David
Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide 4

Introduction to Creative Synthesis
Why Creative Synthesis
Creative Synthesis is an approach to solving problems.
What kind of problems?
Important problems with no solutions. Solved problems with bad
solutions.
Simple Problem
Problem: How can I store my photos so I always have access to them?
Solution: Flickr is created to let you host your photos online.
Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide 5

Introduction to Creative Synthesis
Why Creative Synthesis
Creative Synthesis is an approach to solving problems.
What kind of problems?
Important problems with no solutions. Solved problems with bad solutions.
Complex Problem
Main Problem: How can I store my photos so I always have access to
them?
Secondary Problem: How can I share these with my friends?
Tertiary Problem: How can I share these with people in general?
Secondary Problem: How can I remember things about my photos?
Tertiary Problem: How can I remember where I took a photo?
Solution: Flickr is created to let you host your photos online, share them
in different ways with different people, and add meta information about
the photo.
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Spiral Solutions
Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide 7

The Act of Creation
Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide 8

Creation requires Creativity?
Defining Creative Synthesis
What kind of creativity do we care about?
Problem solving. It’s always about
problem solving.
What does it mean to be ‘creative’? What is
creativity?
Where is creativity going? Are we more or
less creativity than we used to be?
Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide 9

Is Creativity only in
Creation? (positive)
See Process (later)
Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide10

Creative Thought
In Education and Learning
Do Schools Kill Creativity?
Sir Ken Robinson, TED
Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining
(and profoundly moving) case for creating
an education system that nurtures
creativity, rather than undermining it.
With ample anecdotes and witty asides,
Robinson points out the many ways our
schools fail to recognize -- much less
cultivate -- the talents of many brilliant
people. \"We are educating people out of
their creativity,\" Robinson says.
http://www.ted.com
Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide11

Knowledge, know-how,
intelligence & Innovation
Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide12

Knowledge
What is knowledge anyway?
What does knowledge require?
To know something is to believe something, to be justified in
that belief and (ultimately) for that belief to be true.
The Baryshnikov Problem (Gettier Problems)
You see that Baryshnikov is going to be in town next week.
So you believe that he will be.
Because you read it on a promotional sign,
it seems like your belief is justified.
The next week, unbeknownst to you, the performance is
cancelled because Baryshnikov has broken his leg. He goes to
visit his doctor (who happens to be in the same town).
So he was in town, your belief was true.
BUT - it wasn’t true for the reasons you thought. Even though
you had a belief that was true and justified, it doesn’t seem like
you really knew that he was in town. Does it?
Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide13

How do we get
Knowledge?
Research?
Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide14

Evaluation and Experimentation
One Approach: Thought Experiments
Galileo's balls
Contrary to what your teachers told you, Galileo
Galilei likely did not drop balls from the Tower of
Pisa; he conducted the gravity experiment in the
laboratory of his mind. His 16th-century peers
believed heavier objects fell faster than light
ones. So Galileo imagined a heavy ball attached
by a string to a light ball. Would the light ball
create drag and slow the heavy one down? Nope,
he concluded, they would hit the ground
simultaneously.
Schrödinger's cat
A cat is trapped in a box with radioactive material, a Geiger counter, and a mechanism rigged to
release poison if particle decay is detected. According to Erwin Schrödinger, the cat exists in two
probable states. But that doesn't track with reality (cats are not both alive and dead). Proposed in
1935, the postulate illustrates that some quantum concepts just don't work at nonquantum scales.
Also that Schrödinger was a dog person.
Borel's monkeys
Variations go back to Aristotle, but the modern version of the infinite-monkey theorem was
introduced in 1913 by French mathematician Émile Borel. You know the deal: An infinite number
of monkeys pecking at typewriters for an infinite length of time will \"almost surely\" produce the
complete works of Shakespeare. Seems unlikely, because our minds have a hard time grasping the
infinite. Mathematically, it's true.
Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide15

Evaluation and Experimentation
The Approach: The Scientific Method
?
!
Sharing through lecture and publication
Question based on observation My global research has indicated that ravens are always black,
Every raven I've ever seen is black. Are all ravens black? wherever they are observed.
Hypothesis we think is true. Verification by the scientific community
All ravens must be black. Every raven any other scientist has ever observed in any country has
always been black.
Testing by observation or experimentation. Theory is formed regarding the hypothesis
A random sampling of ravens from each continent where ravens are All ravens are black.
indigenous produces only black ravens.
The scientific method gives us a way to acquire knowledge that is focused on synthesis. Why? To
understand the impact of creation.
Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide16

Evaluation and Experimentation
You were born to do research.
Piaget likens a child to a ‘little scientist’ who must experiment with his/her world in order to understand
its aspects and limitations.
Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide17

Evaluation and Experimentation
Let!s have a three evaluation lunch.
Shaken not Stirred: Taste tests remain one of the most public examples of a casual evaluation outside of
the scientific method.
If you think about it we’re all constantly experimenting and evaluating things - it’s just part of life.
Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide18

Alternative Approaches to Research
Recycling your Research
Traits of Recycled Research projects
Viral Propagation
Structuring Community Research Progression
Rich Data Collection
Organic Experimental Conditions
Participatory Cost Model
Implementation Details
Target Installation
Embedded (passive) information collection
Local Data Collection
Harvesting and Aggregation
Analytic Tools
Human Interpretation
This produces a model that is closer to casual evaluation than to the scientific method. What are the
problems of this approach?
Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide19

Pilot: Recycled Canvas
Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide20

Understanding Knowledge
New growth in old forests.
This Map of Science was constructed by sorting roughly 800,000 scientific papers into 776 different
scientific paradigms based on how often the papers were cited together by authors of other papers.
Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide21

Our Goals
Knowledge Trees
Knowledge Markets
Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide22

Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide23

Technology and Un-technology
Social Impact of Technology
Caffeine Tech
In the 1500s Catholic bishops demonised
coffee as \"Satan's drink\" and urged a ban.
It was competing with wine. In its defence,
Pope Clement VIII proclaimed:
“Why, this ‘Satan's
drink’ is so delicious
it would be a pity to
let the infidels have
exclusive use of it.
We shall fool Satan
by baptising it and
making it a truly
Christian beverage.”
Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide24

Technology Targets
Where does it go and why is it going there?
The Target of Intervention is a
psychology term, but its a good one.
Why are we using certain technology?
What does it say about who we are
targeting, when, why.
The how is important too, but later.
Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide25

Technology as Tool
Free Software and Open Culture
Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide26

Web Software
Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide27

Web Software
Models of web apps
Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide28

Web 2.0
Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide29

Social Software
What software isn!t social?
Software that gets you a hug firm
handshake
Software inherently should be about
connecting people. The web is pretty good
at this.
You know social software
Facebook, myspace, blogs, wikis, voting
sites, bookmarking photos, videos, friends,
family, history, connection.
Other concepts you might not
Foaf, social graph, intertextuality
Does social only involve humans?
Left - Flickr Graph
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Connecting Software See also: computer to human, computer
Social is just human to human to computer, information to information
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Connecting Software
Other connections for humans and machines
Creative Commons for whom?
See Also:
Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide32

Ye old Bloggers
Professional Synthesists
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Web Revisited
Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide34

Alternatives
Web as Vanity Fair
Selfish Genes
Personal Branding
Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide35

Process before Product
Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide36

Process oriented
Approaches
and Data
Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide37

Decision Making
What tools, what problems, what answers?
As we find ourselves with more and more powerful tools, we have more and more problems on how to
choose what tools. The only problem we have to solve, however, is what problem to solve.
Understanding Process as a decision making informer, allows us to get a better sense of what’s going
on. Sometimes a transparency of process is all we need to solve a problem.
Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide38

Looking at the Data
Interpretation, Visualization, Relation
What’s your computer made of, and where does it come from? Do you know? Should you know?
Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide39

Interpreting and Communicating Data
Animation as Data Visualization
Animating Understanding
Just drawing things can be incredibly
helpful.
Data Visualization
Kinds of Data
Exhaust Data
Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide40

New Process
Neat Techniques
Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide41

Human Computation
To Quote Amazon, Artificial Artificial Intelligence
The Sheep Market
A collection of 10000 sheep created by
workers on Amazon's Mechanical Turk.
Each work was paid two centers to 'draw a
sheep facing left.'
White Glove Tracking
Internet users were asked to help isolate
Michael Jackson's white glove in all 10,060
frames of his nationally televised landmark
performance of Billy Jean. 72 hours later
125,000 gloves had been located.
Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide42

Viral Propagation
Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide43

Commodity Components
Cheap, powerful, flexible tools for everyone
The wii-mote comes complete with bluetooth connectivity, accelerometers, a microphone, a speaker, the
ability to store data, buttons, and force feedback. It’s a complete tangible toolkit.
Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide44

Commodity Components
Cheap, powerful, flexible tools for every someone
Chumby is a something that targets itself more toward a developer do-it-yourself community. Linux +
flash + wifi = widgets in the real world.
Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide45

Computational Evolution
and Genetic Algorithms
Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide46

Computational Evolution
and Genetic Algorithms
Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide47

Innovation
Findingnew problems come from?
Where do
new Problems
Introduction to Creative Synthesis Slide48

creative synthesis
llaborative
Introduction to Creative Synthesis
Project proj-101
Last Revised November 17th, 2007
Web: http://www.creativesynthesis.net/blog/education/introduction-to-creative-synthesis/