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an infinite variety in the ways in which one can engage in hand waving

When Pinker brings up the infinite creativity of the human mind, his reductionist way of handling it is to use the word "combinatorial": to put it in computer language (not his) it's the nearly infinite number of different combinations of 1s and 0s that accounts for our ability to invent. Such a way of describing creativity leaves out of consideration the intentionality involved therein. If so then humans are creative because they have a really good randomizer, i.e., machine for generating original combinations of 1s and 0s.

Actually, it's very easy to create something that is capable of producing an endless variety of 1s and 0s. Surely the fact that humans are creative has to do with more than that. Surely it has to do with the fact that we are turned toward the world in an exceptional way, that we thematize and question being itself, that we can seek truths applicable always and everywhere: what combination of 1s and 0s does he think are sufficient to generate such wonder, and (on a good day) such wisdom?

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