Transformational Creativity in Science: A Graphical Theory

Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Computational Creativity

paper
A graphical theory of transformational scientific creativity that synthesizes the work of Boden and Kuhn.
Authors

Samuel Schapiro

Jonah Black

Lav R. Varshney

Published

April 18, 2025

Abstract

Creative processes are typically divided into three types: combinatorial, exploratory, and transformational. Here, we provide a graphical theory of transformational scientific creativity, synthesizing Boden’s insight that transformational creativity arises from changes in the “enabling constraints” of a conceptual space and Kuhn’s structure of scientific revolutions as resulting from paradigm shifts. We prove that modifications made to axioms of our graphical model have the most transformative potential and then illustrate how several historical instances of transformational creativity can be captured by our framework.

Citation

BibTeX citation:
@article{schapiro2025,
  author = {Schapiro, Samuel and Black, Jonah and R. Varshney, Lav},
  title = {Transformational {Creativity} in {Science:} {A} {Graphical}
    {Theory}},
  journal = {Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on
    Computational Creativity},
  date = {2025-04-18},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.18687},
  langid = {en}
}
For attribution, please cite this work as:
Schapiro, Samuel, Jonah Black, and Lav R. Varshney. 2025. “Transformational Creativity in Science: A Graphical Theory.” Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Computational Creativity, April. https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.18687.