On a new episode of ID the Future, we’re sharing a conversation that first aired on Mind Matters News, another podcast from Discovery Institute that focuses on the intersection of artificial and natural intelligence. In this episode, guest host Pat Flynn welcomes engineer Dr. Eric Holloway and professor Robert J. Marks to discuss the information cost of creativity. The conversation is based on a chapter in the recent volume Minding the Brain, authored by Dr. Holloway and Dr. Marks. 

Holloway and Marks address the following question: Can the marvels of human creativity, like novels, speeches, and ideas, really be explained by random processes and brain chemistry alone? As the two men explain, even allowing for the computational capacity of the entire universe (and a hypothetical multiverse!), the probability of randomly generating a short, meaningful phrase is astronomically low. This suggests that human creativity cannot be fully explained by natural, random processes, and may require a non-material or external source of information and guidance. 

Join Flynn and his guests as they climb the metaphorical mountain of information to address the origins of human creativity!

Download the podcast or listen to it here. We’re grateful to the Mind Matters News team for permission to share this conversation on ID the Future. Enjoy more episodes of Mind Matters News here or wherever you enjoy podcasts.

Dig Deeper

• Get a free download of Minding the Brain when you pre-order the forthcoming book The Immortal Mind, by Michael Egnor and Denyse O’Leary. The deadline is May 31.
• Learn more about the connection between human creativity and intelligent design.