The Science of Creativity

In this episode, Keith Sawyer speaks with cognitive scientist Liane Gabora. Her work spans creativity research, artificial intelligence, cultural evolution, and complex systems. Dr. Gabora has spent decades developing computational and mathematical models to understand how ideas emerge, evolve, and spread—both within individual minds and across societies.
The conversation centers on Gabora's research showing that creativity is a self-organizing process in the mind that reshapes a person's entire worldview. Rather than seeing creativity as confined to specific domains, her "honing theory" explains how creative thinking draws on experiences across a person's life. When you're thinking creatively, you are transforming ideas, and your mindset is one of openness and potentiality.
She also talks about why creativity is deeply therapeutic, how cultural change depends on a balance between novelty and continuity, and what recent advances in AI reveal about the human mind. 
Five Key Takeaways
1. Creativity reorganizes the mind. It's not just about having ideas. Creative work helps resolve internal tensions and brings greater coherence to how we understand ourselves and the world.
2. Creative inspiration is cross-domain. The sources that fuel creative ideas usually come from many areas of life, even when the final output appears in a single domain.
3. Creative thinking depends on potentiality. Creativity involves holding ideas in flexible, unfinished states where meanings can shift depending on context.
4. Cultural evolution mirrors creative processes. Human culture advances through cycles of invention and imitation, with the same process as individual creativity.
5. Transformational creativity is "problem finding." The most powerful creative ideas come from stepping outside the choices we're given and redefining the problem itself. 
For additional information 
Web site: https://gabora-psych.ok.ubc.ca/
Her research group is called "Art and Science of Creative Change" 
Music by license from SoundStripe:
"Uptown Lovers Instrumental" by AFTERNOONZ
"Miss Missy" by AFTERNOONZ
"What's the Big Deal" by Ryan Saranich
 
Copyright (c) 2026 Keith Sawyer

In this conversation, Professor Arthur I. Miller discusses artificial intelligence and creativity, including his book The Artist in the Machine. We discuss the essence of creativity, exploring its interdisciplinary nature and the connections between art and science. Dr. Miller emphasizes the importance of visual imagery in both science and art, and he identifies the key characteristics of highly creative individuals. We talk about the role of AI in creativity, the future of human-machine collaboration, and we end with practical advice for enhancing your own creativity.
Takeaways
Breakthrough creativity comes from interdisciplinary connections.
Visual imagery underlies creativity in both art and science.
The future of creativity will be in the collaboration between humans and machines.
Creativity can be cultivated through practice and new experiences.
For further information:
Arthur I. Miller's web site
Professor Miller's book The Artist in the Machine: The World of AI-Powered Creativity
Music by license from SoundStripe:
"Uptown Lovers Instrumental" by AFTERNOONZ
"Miss Missy" by AFTERNOONZ
"What's the Big Deal" by Ryan Saranich
 
Copyright (c) 2026 Keith Sawyer

Every January, millions of people make New Year's resolutions—and just as many abandon them weeks later. But where did this ritual come from? In this episode, Dr. Keith Sawyer traces the surprising 4,000-year history of New Year's resolutions, from ancient Babylonian vows to Roman civic promises, Christian moral reflection, early American self-engineering, and modern consumer culture. Along the way, he shows that resolutions were never inevitable or instinctive. They're a powerful example of collective creativity: a social tradition that slowly emerged as each generation added something new. Even when resolutions fail, we still grow from reflecting on our past and thinking about the future. 
Five Key Takeaways
New Year's resolutions are a tradition that emerged over thousands of years. 
The earliest resolutions were about social trust, not self-improvement. In ancient Babylon, people made public vows to repay debts and keep promises to maintain social order.
Christianity turned resolutions inward. Over time, public civic vows evolved into private moral commitments focused on personal character and self-examination.
Modern resolutions were shaped by early American self-tracking--a science of the self. Figures like Jonathan Edwards and Benjamin Franklin treated the self as something that could be systematically improved through intention and measurement.
Failure doesn't mean resolutions are pointless. Even when resolutions aren't fully kept, the act of reflection helps people clarify values, imagine future selves, and move toward personal growth.
Chapters 
Intro
Why do we make resolutions? Reflection and self-improvement. 
The First Resolutions: Babylon, 2000 BCE. Vows to the gods as public tools for social trust and stability. 
Rome Invents January 1. How Julius Caesar, Janus, and Roman vota reshaped the calendar and the meaning of promises. 
Christianity Turns Resolutions Inward. From public ritual to private moral self-examination. 
Jonathan Edwards Invents the Modern Resolution. Seventy intense resolutions and the birth of systematic self-engineering. 
Benjamin Franklin Tracks His Failures. Virtue charts, black dots, and the idea that character can be optimized. 
Newspapers Start Making Fun of Resolutions. By the 1800s, some people were already making fun of how often they failed. 
Radio and Psychology Take Over. How 20th-century media transformed resolutions into intimate self-help. 
Advertising Discovers Resolutions. When self-improvement became a January sales strategy for gym memberships and Weight Watchers. 
How to Make Resolutions that Stick. Research on resolutions: when they fail and what you can do to be more likely to succeed.
Collective Creativity. Resolutions are a social innovation that emerged over the centuries.
Outro
Closer
Music by license from SoundStripe:
"Sparkling Eyes" by AFTERNOONZ
"Uptown Lovers Instrumental" by AFTERNOONZ
"Velvet" by AFTERNOONZ
"Miss Missy" by AFTERNOONZ
"Blue Molasses" by Renderings
"Corner Trio" by Renderings
"What's the Big Deal" by Ryan Saranich
 
Copyright (c) 2025 Keith Sawyer

You've heard about Steve Jobs, the Wizard of Cupertino. They say he invented the iPhone.  Some people called him the iGod. But the iPhone was not created by a single genius, not Jobs and not anyone else. The real story is more surprising, and more interesting, than a myth about a single man. In this episode, Dr. Keith Sawyer reveals the true history behind Apple's groundbreaking invention. It was years of secret teams, failed prototypes, competing visions, and the collective creativity of hundreds of people. 
Before the iPhone, cutting-edge techies carried all sorts of devices--phones, PDAs, and music players. If your device had a screen, it was tiny. If you could touch that screen, you had to use a plastic pointer. Touching on glass with your finger seemed impossible. Top executives in the business thought that a phone without a keyboard was a ridiculous idea.
In 2007, Apple introduced a device that changed everything. It was more than a technological innovation; it changed entertainment, travel, and social life. Steve Jobs stood on stage at MacWorld, and said "We are calling it iPhone," but he wasn't the inventor. You'll hear that clip in this episode--he didn't say the iPhone, he said simply "iPhone." 
This is the creation story of the iPhone. Not the myth, but what really happened. It's a wonderful example of group genius.
Five Key Takeaways 
The iPhone wasn't invented by one person—its creation emerged from years of ideas, prototypes, failures, and contributions from thousands of people.
The breakthrough wasn't the hardware—it was the ecosystem: multitouch, iTunes, the App Store, cloud services, and developers all working together.
Apple's first attempt at a phone, the Motorola ROKR, was a failure—and that failure was essential fuel for the true iPhone project.
Cultural impact matters as much as technological innovation—smartphones fundamentally changed how humans navigate, create, communicate, and even remember.
The iPhone is one of the most powerful examples of social innovation: a collective, emergent creation shaped by engineers, designers, users, markets, and culture.
Music by license from SoundStripe: 
"Uptown Lovers Instrumental" by AFTERNOONZ
"Miss Missy" by AFTERNOONZ
"What's the Big Deal" by Ryan Saranich
 
Copyright (c) 2025 Keith Sawyer

This is a special Christmas episode of The Science of Creativity. The creation of Christmas is an example of social innovation, a kind of collective creativity where everyone plays a role. Five hundred years ago, Christmas was a wild party, where young men got drunk and roamed in packs around town. Children didn't start getting gifts until about 200 years ago. The Santa Claus myth was invented, along with the elves and the workshop at the North Pole, in the late 1800s. This episode gives you the history of the secular, non-religious traditions that we celebrate at Christmas. It started two thousand years ago, in Ancient Rome, it picked up steam in the 1800s, and we're still creating new Christmas traditions today. The creation of Christmas is a story of social innovation and group genius.
This is a special encore of one of my favorite episodes, originally published as season 1, episode 15, on December 1, 2024
Chapters
Intro
Traditions and Change
Wassailing and Twelfth Night
Toys and Gift-Giving
Santa Claus and the Elves
The War on Christmas
The Holiday for Everyone
Outro
Music by license from Soundstripe
Blues for Oliver - Cast of Characters
Christmas Tree Jazz Trio
Silent Night – Cast of Characters
Just Walkin' – Ryan Saranich
Uptown Lovers - What's the Big Deal
References
The Pagan Origins of Christmas: Saturnalia, Yule, and Other Pre-Christian Traditions | History Cooperative
Wikipedia on "The war on Christmas" and "Wassailing" and "Syncretism" - ChatGPT
Copyright (c) 2025 Keith Sawyer