Metapsychology of the Creative Process

Subtitled 'continuous novelty as the ground for creative advance', this philosophical and psychological exploration of creativity is based on the author's clinical studies of focal brain injuries that reveal subsurface lines of processing. He calls this process theory microgenetic, in contrast to mainstream computational psychology. One of his essential thoughts, indicated in the subtitle, is the continuum of novelty in nature, whereby creativity represents an intermittent accentuation of this novelty. Like evolution, microgenesis is unidirectional with branching, but it is also time cyclical and recurrent and may even be the origin of the concept of evolution as it has emerged in human brain. More generally, the book is a philosophical attempt to make room for genuine novelty and creativity that are problematic within a system of causal determinism. The discussion is relatively technical, and includes not only many aspects of creativity, but also time, dreams, self and feeling.