Unconscious and Conscious Aspects of Creativity

Abstract

This article presents a philosophical and psychological analysis of the nature of creativity, conducted at the intersection of several disciplines: classical philosophy, the psychoanalytic tradition, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence theory. The study is motivated by two circumstances: first, a debate with the concept of ‘impersonal’ creativity, which derives from M. Tsvetaeva’s ideas about the poet as a ‘receiver’ of higher powers, as well as the views of G.P. Shchedrovitsky. Secondly, the creation and development of large AI language models that demonstrate abilities previously considered the exclusive prerogative of humans – generating new knowledge and creating semiotic constructs. The central problem of the article is formulated as a question of the relationship between conscious and unconscious mechanisms in creative processes, as well as the extent to which a person is a subject, and to what extent a ‘medium’ or anthropological condition of the generated meanings. To solve this problem, a methodological approach is proposed that combines the author’s concept of dreams (which is generalized and corrected) and the author’s concept of ‘schematology’ (the theory of inventing complex signs that allow for the resolution of problematic situations). Three diverse cases are chosen as an empirical base: 1) the adolescent visionary work of C.G. Jung, in which the author analyzes the mechanism of the “psyche’s response” to a latent conflict with subsequent conscious schematization;2) the religious crisis of the God-seeker Akimushka, demonstrating the cyclical shift in paradigms (“God exists” / “God does not exist”) as a means of survival in an existential vacuum; 3) the metaphysical construction of worlds by E. Swedenborg, where scientific thinking and spiritual ‘visions’ intertwine in a hybrid process of constructing a new reality. Of particular interest is the comparison of the works of Swedenborg and Kant, as well as the parallels drawn with the work of neural networks. The author concludes that creativity is not reducible to the pure spontaneity of “Nothing” (S. Neretina) nor to the compilation of data. Creativity is interpreted as a complex hybrid process, where unconscious activity (the execution of blocked programs, hallucinations, daydreams) supplies the ‘raw material’—images and visions—while consciousness (intellect, logic, cultural norms) performs the function of correction and schematization, transforming this material into generally valid knowledge or a work of art. The article essentially substantiates the hypothesis that AI innovation is structurally similar to human creativity. A neural network operates with hidden connections (‘weights’), learning from huge datasets (which can be compared to unconscious natural processes and conscious activity), but lacks the existential experience of problematic situations, which fundamentally distinguishes machine generation from the anthropological creative act.