Entropy: To Preserve or Provoke

Hoffstadter's description of the Jumble program architecture provides descriptions of many features that allow and facilitate creative solutions. The probabilistic nature allows every branch of the option-tree to be followed and a simple but rubbery control system allows for flexible fluidity. Within this lack of constraints, entropy is allowed to thrive when Jumble senses an answer is satisfactory. Like the chaotic revolt that follows a bad government, Jumbo creates entropy to react to "unhappy cytoplasm." Similarly, entropy can be preserved in light of unhappiness, changes are made with the same number of gloms.

Perhaps creativity is the introduction of a certain degree of randomness to thoughts – focus decreases and other areas of the brain can offer unrelated input which leads to new connections. To my knowledge, there are no thought transformations in creative thinking that can be compared to the transformations in Jumbo in tasks other than Jumble. Do we perform reversals, exchanges, in domains other than anagrams? It seems randomness is an element of creative thinking, but no transformations seem clear, only chance firings. There is a biological element of electricity to consider in creativity - the uninhibited sparkings that may not be classifiable into specific transformations, but still yields the unexpected insight which characterizes creativity.