Generativity

Generativity in essence describes a self-contained system from which its user draws an independent ability to create, generate, or produce new content unique to that system without additional help or input from the system's original creators. In semiotics or epistemology, generativity refers to a form of communication that possesses compositionality and the ability to construct complex messages. The philosopher Daniel Dennett has argued that animals cannot have wants or desires in the sense that humans do because they lack a language with compositionality and generativity. Gordon Brittan disagrees with this evaluation.