Creativity and self-organization: contributions from cognitive science and semiotics Maria Eunice Quilici Gonzalez Post-graduate in Cognitive Science and Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy Department, UNESP, Av. Hygino Muzzi Filho 737, Marília, SP, 17525-900, BRAZIL gonzalez@marilia.unesp.br Willem (Pim) Ferdinand Gerardus Haselager Artificial Intelligence/Cognitive Science, Nijmegen Institute for Cognition and Informa- tion, University of Nijmegen, Montessorilaan 3, 6525 HR, Nijmegen, THE NETHERLANDS; Post-graduation Cognitive Science and Philosophy of Mind, Philoso- phy Department, UNESP, Av. Hygino Muzzi Filho 737, Marília, SP, 17525-900, BRAZIL pimb@nici.kun.nl © This paper is not for reproduction without permission of the author(s). ABSTRACT What sort of contribution has Cognitive Science to offer to the understanding of creativity? Is it ap- propriate to investigate creative processes from a mechanistic perspective or do they involve subjec- tive elements which cannot - in principle - be investigated from such a perspective? These two basic questions will guide this paper which investigates creativity focusing on the nature of abductive rea- soning. As an initial hypothesis we characterize creativity as a self-organizing process in which abduc- tive reasoning occurs allowing the expansion of well structured set of beliefs. This process is consid- ered a part of the establishment of order parameters in the flow of information available to self- organizing systems. In this sense, we argue that a deeper understanding of how self-organizing proc- esses involving abductive reasoning may take place in dynamic systems could assist Cognitive Sci- ence in its study of creativity. 1 INTRODUCTION It is our objective in this paper to investigate the contrast, as commonly perceived, be- tween mechanistic and anti-mechanistic approaches to creativity. In order to do so we will first of all address this opposition in the context of cognitive science. Then, we will present a classification of creativity proposed by Boden (1990; 1996) according to which two senses - historical and psychological - of creativity are distinguished. In both senses, as we will indicate, creativity is related to abductive reasoning, as introduced by Peirce (1931-1958). Finally, abductive reasoning is described in terms of the activity of dynamic Special Issue on Computational Intelligence and Semiotics 61 S.E.E.D. Journal (Semiotics, Evolution, Energy, and Development) Queiroz, J. and Gudwin, R. (Guest Editors)