I think you're too hung up on the mind part. I don't understand this as saying the mind synthesizes knowledge from nothing. That's why I said, there is no funda

I think you're too hung up on the mind part. I don't understand this as saying the mind synthesizes knowledge from nothing. That's why I said, there is no fundamental difference for me - whether the mind conceives of something new, or synthesizes knowledge from outside information is not very interesting a difference, since a mind is required to grasp this knowledge. Maybe a better term would be information vs. knowledge.