Chapter 14 — Creativity and Dreaming

Where do new ideas come from?

A person can imagine an object that has never existed, develop an unexpected solution to a problem, or create a story that has never been told.

Dreams can also contain people, places, objects, and events that never occurred together in real life.

STLR proposes a simple explanation:

A new combination is formed from content represented by existing Tags.

The combination may be new, but the pieces used to create it already existed.

Creativity and dreaming can both produce new combinations, but they operate differently.

Creativity is generally active and voluntary.

Dreaming is generally passive and involuntary.

New Combinations Come From Existing Tags

Within STLR, a new combination does not appear from nothing.

Its content comes from Tags that already exist.

For example, imagine someone who has seen:

• a horse
• a bird
• wings

The person has never seen a real horse with wings.

However, the brain already contains content representing a horse and content representing wings. That content can be combined to form a new Tag:

Horse has wings

The exact combination is new, but its pieces came from existing Tags.

The new combination may first exist only inside the brain. A real winged horse does not need to exist before the person can imagine one.

Content from existing Tags → new combination → new Tag

The Existing Tags Remain Intact

Recombination does not require the original Tags to be merged, moved, or changed.

Their content provides information that can be used to create a new Tag. The original Tags and their Hard-Links can remain intact.

Example: A Bird with Wheels

Suppose the system already contains these stable Hard-Links:

Bird → Bird has wings

Bird → Bird has legs

and:

Car → Car has doors

Car → Car has wheels

The Bird Tag is stably connected to properties learned about birds. The Car Tag is stably connected to properties learned about cars.

The content represented by Car has wheels can influence the creation of a new Tag:

Bird has wheels

This new Tag does not come from seeing a real bird with wheels. Wheel-related content from the Car group has been recombined with content from the Bird group to create a new possibility.

The Car has wheels Tag does not move into the Bird group. The original Bird and Car groups remain unchanged. Their content supplies the information used to create the new Bird has wheels Tag.

At first, Bird has wheels may be a temporary Tag. It may become temporarily associated with the Bird Tag, but the relationship is not yet a stable Hard-Link.

If the new Tag is not activated or used again, it may fade away. The stable Hard-Links between Bird, Bird has wings, and Bird has legs remain.

If Bird has wheels is repeatedly imagined, discussed, drawn, or used, the Tag may become more stable. Its relationship with the Bird Tag may also become stronger and may eventually form a Hard-Link.

In simplified form:

Content represented by Bird + wheel-related content represented by Car → temporary Bird has wheels Tag

Then:

No continued use → the temporary Tag fades

or:

Attention and repeated use → the Tag becomes stable and a Hard-Link may form

This is creativity in STLR. Content from existing Tags influences the creation of a new Tag or relationship that was not directly learned from the original Signals.

Creativity Is Active and Voluntary

Creativity usually begins with a purpose.

A person may intentionally try to:

• solve a problem
• design an object
• write a story
• create a picture
• explain an idea
• imagine a different possibility

The person directs attention toward the task.

Relevant Tags and knowledge islands can become active. Their content can be compared and combined in different ways.

Some combinations make no sense. Some are already familiar. Some may be new but useless.

The person evaluates the results, rejects unsuccessful combinations, and continues searching.

Occasionally, a new combination is useful or interesting.

In STLR, creativity is generally the active and voluntary use of content represented by existing Tags to create and evaluate new combinations.

Unexpected Knowledge Can Create New Perspectives

One of the greatest strengths of the human brain is its ability to bring unexpected knowledge into attention.

While thinking, the brain activates existing Tags and may create temporary Tags. Through Reference matching, those Tags may activate knowledge from other areas, even when that knowledge appears unrelated to the current task.

Most unexpected connections may be ignored. Whether a connection becomes useful depends on the person's current goal and context.

For example, seeing a bird while repairing a car will usually contribute nothing. However, seeing the same bird while designing a new type of car may suggest wings or flight. If the task is creating a car advertisement, the bird may instead suggest freedom, speed, or elegance. If the task is designing a car logo, it may inspire a bird-shaped symbol.

The incoming Signal is the same, but the current task changes how the bird-related knowledge may be used.

The bird does not automatically create an idea. Attention, the current goal, and existing knowledge influence which connection is explored.

A useful idea may also appear while walking, taking a shower, resting, or working on something else. This does not mean that the idea came from nothing. Earlier attention may have activated the relevant Tags and knowledge islands. Reference matching may later bring other knowledge into attention and allow a new combination to form.

The person can then examine the idea, compare it with existing knowledge, and decide whether it is useful.

Unexpected activation + current goal and context + recombination → possible creative idea

In the STLR proposal, creativity may occur when knowledge brought into attention from different areas is selected and recombined into a useful new arrangement.

Dreaming Is Passive and Involuntary

Dreaming normally operates differently.

The dreamer does not deliberately choose:

• which Tags become active
• which memories appear
• which people enter the dream
• which events are replayed
• which content is changed
• what happens next

Existing Tags become active without the same voluntary direction used during creative work.

Dreaming is therefore generally passive and involuntary.

Dreams Can Replay Existing Experiences

Dreaming does not always produce something new.

A dream may repeat part of a daily experience without making important changes.

You may dream about the same person, in the same place, having the same conversation, performing the same actions, in the same order.

In this situation, existing Tags and groups of Tags may simply become active again.

The dream may be a replay of stored experience rather than a new combination.

No newly combined Tag is needed to explain the repeated content.

Dreams Can Also Produce New Combinations

Other dreams contain changes.

You may be:

• inside your childhood home
• talking to someone you met last week
• doing something you have never done
• while the house slowly becomes your workplace

The individual pieces came from existing Tags. Your childhood home existed. The person existed. Your workplace existed. The actions, objects, emotions, and locations were already represented in some form.

But those pieces did not occur together in that way.

Their content has been involuntarily arranged into a new combination. That new arrangement may produce temporary newly combined Tags.

Therefore, dreaming may involve either:

Passive reactivation of existing Tags without important changes

or:

Passive and involuntary combination of content represented by existing Tags

Only when a dream changes or rearranges existing content does it produce a new combination.

Creativity and Dreaming

Creativity and dreaming can both involve content represented by existing Tags, but they are not the same.

Creativity is generally active and voluntary. The person pursues a purpose, directs attention, examines combinations, and evaluates the results.

Dreaming is generally passive and involuntary. Existing content becomes active without deliberate direction. The dream may replay stored experiences or combine their content in new ways.

A waking person might think:

I need a better way to solve this problem.

The brain searches existing knowledge, activates related Tags, tries combinations, rejects some possibilities, and continues.

A dream does not require a goal. Existing content may become active and change without the dreamer deciding what should happen.

This may explain why dreams can be familiar, repetitive, strange, inconsistent, or impossible.

When Dreams Produce Creative Ideas

If a dream produces a new combination, that combination may occasionally be useful.

Most dream combinations may have little practical value.

But occasionally one might be useful.

When the person wakes up, normal reasoning can evaluate the result:

Does this actually make sense?

The dream may involuntarily produce the combination. Waking creativity and reasoning determine whether the combination has value.

Dreaming can therefore contribute to creativity, but not every dream is creative.

Nightmares

A nightmare may also replay or change existing content.

It may repeat a frightening experience with few changes. It may also combine fear-related Tags with different people, places, objects, or events.

Tags connected with recent experiences, strong emotions, fears, or unresolved problems may be more likely to become active.

If fear-related content strongly influences the dream, the dream may become frightening even when the exact event never occurred.

STLR does not require a separate storage system for nightmares. Nightmares may use the same stored Tags and Hard-Links as other dreams, with fear-related content playing a stronger role.

One System, Different Behaviors

The same Tags and knowledge islands may contribute to memory, creativity, and dreaming in different ways.

Memory consists of the Tags and Hard-Links that remain.

Creativity actively and voluntarily uses content from existing Tags to develop new combinations.

Dreaming passively and involuntarily activates existing content, which may be replayed or combined in new ways.

The outward results are different, but the same basic STLR components can participate in all of them.

STLR does not claim to identify the biological processes that produce creativity or dreams. It offers a functional interpretation of how existing mental content may be replayed or combined.

The next chapter gives additional examples of how content represented by existing Tags can be combined in imagination and mathematical problem-solving.