Photo opportunity: 5.15pm, Friday 28 November, Conference Room, 1st Floor, Tower Building, University of Dundee.
Humans' ability to generate ideas and explore what is new and unfamiliar is a defining characteristic of the species - yet many aspects of the creative process are still shrouded in mystery.
Professor Margaret Boden, a distinguished scholar in the philosophy of the mind, will shed light on that process at a public lecture at the University of Dundee on how science can help explain how the mind creates and develops ideas.
Margaret Boden is a leading researcher in intelligence and the mechanisms underlying it. Her most recent work is an up-dated edition of The Creative Mind: Myths and Mechanisms. She has lectured in countries across the world and her work has been translated into 17 different languages.Now based at the University of Sussex, she has examined the nature of intentions and purpose, how creativity is possible, and the biological aspects of psychology.
Ahead of the lecture, Professor Boden said, "Many people think that creativity could never be understood by science. It is true that science can't predict creative ideas, or even often explain them in full detail after they've arisen. But a scientific psychology can help us understand how it's possible for people to have new ideas.
There are three ways in which in this can happen: by combining familiar ideas in unfamiliar ways; by exploring accepted styles of thinking, or 'conceptual spaces'; and by transforming those styles of thinking so that ideas which were previously impossible become possible. All of these can be modelled in computers.
Creativity is often wonderful - but it isn't magic. The greatest theoretical problem is not understanding how new ideas can arise, but specifying their evaluation clearly."
Mike Wheeler of the University of Dundee's Department of Philosophy said, "When it comes to understanding the human mind, Margaret Boden, with her philosophical reflection and scientific knowledge, remains one of the most exciting and influential thinkers in the world.
Her public lectures are delivered in an accessible, engaging style which enables her to illuminate issues for general audiences. I have no doubt that her lecture on creativity will be a fitting finale to this year's Royal Institute of Philosophy Dundee Lecture Series."
The Royal Institute of Philosophy, one of the UK's most prestigious learned societies in philosophy, recently awarded Dundee University's Philosophy Department £1000 per annum to fund a new series of annual public lectures. This event is the last in this year's series. Next year's series starting autumn 2004 will be on European receptions of British philosophy.
Margaret Boden's lecture will take place at 5.30pm, Friday 28 November, in the Conference Room, 1st Floor, Tower Building, University of Dundee.
By Esther Black, Press Officer 01382 344768 e.z.black@dundee.ac.uk