Eureka! The Myths of Creativity

Abstract

The origins and manifestations of creativity are viewed from a complexity-based evolutionary perspective. The development of complexity, myths of creativity, and the nature of organization are discussed, as is the nature of creative insight.

KEYWORDS:

• Complexity
• creativity
• emergence
• evolution
• learning
• systems theory

Notes

¹For further details, see the glossary under “complex system.”

²Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) was an American palaeontologist, geologist, biologist and historical scientist. Together with Niles Eldredge he elaborated, in 1972, the theory of punctuated equilibrium, giving a new interpretation to the theory of evolution by proposing that evolution progressed in “jumps,” characterized by long periods of relative stability, “punctuated” by intense, sometimes catastrophic, moments of activity. He is highly considered by contemporary scientific thinkers (see Gould 1980, 1985, 2002, 2007).

³Ilya Prigogine (1917–2003) was a physicist, chemist, and epistemologist. Awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1977 for his studies into thermodynamics applied to complex systems and those far from equilibrium. Central to his thought were the concepts of entropy, irreversibility, dissipative structures, and self-organizing systems. From this starting point, together with other researchers like Francisco Varela and Isabelle Stengers, he began to reflect on the connections existing between very different sectors, such as physics, chemistry, ecology and the social sciences, considering them as integrated systems of knowledge. For this reason he is considered one of the Fathers of complexity (see Prigogine and Stengers 1979).

⁴Stuart Kauffman (1939). Is a biophysicist and biochemist, and researcher into complex systems. For many years Kauffman collaborated with the Santa Fe Institute (1986–1997), following various lines of research; in particular, into biological systems and their modeling, for example, the role of self-organization in systems far from equilibrium, the role played by autocatalytic systems in the origins of life, the role played by genetic regulatory networks in the genetic expression and biology of growth (see Kauffman 2000).

⁵Francisco Varela (1946–2001) was a biologist, philosopher, neuroscientist, and epistemologist. Together with Maturana (Humberto Maturana, Santiago del Cile, September 14, 1928, biologist and Chilean philosopher) he elaborated the concept of autopoiesis (from the Greek “auto” [self] and “poiesis” [creation] to indicate the fundamental characteristic of living systems (see Varela, Thompson, and Rosch 1991; Maturana and Varela 1980, 1984).

⁶The Cambrian is one of the most important divisions of the geological timescale, from around 542 to 490 million years ago. Life had not yet started to develop on land during the Cambrian.

⁷Thomas S. Kuhn (1922–1996) was a scientific historian, philosopher, and epistemologist. One of the fathers of the historicist perspective, the post-positivist philosophical perspective, he proposed studying science by starting from the routes it has taken through history, rather than following more general logic. To this end, he formulated an epistemology that emphasized the various stages (immature science, normal science, crisis, revolutionary science, resolution) that the scientific disciplines went through during their historical development (see Kuhn 1957, 1962/1970).

⁸Niles Eldredge (1943) is a palaeontologist and evolutionary biologist. In 1972, together with Stephen J. Gould, he elaborated the theory of punctuated equilibrium, giving a new interpretation of the theory of evolution by proposing that evolution progressed in “jumps,” characterized by long periods of relative stability, punctuated by intense, sometimes catastrophic, moments of activity. Since 1969, he has been curator of the Department of Invertebrates at the American Museum of Natural History (see Eldredge and Tattersall 1982; Eldredge 2005).

⁹Heinz Von Foerster (1911–2002) was a scientist, scientific anthropologist, and physicist. Von Foerster dedicated his life to analyzing various arguments: starting with the analysis of memorization processes, analyzed as recursive dynamics, and learning and forgetting processes, he crossed these sectors of analysis with cybernetic studies. He was responsible for second order cybernetics, which, unlike the first order, elaborated by Norbert Wiener and John von Neumann, shifts the attention from observed systems to observing systems. In 1956 he founded the Biological Computer Laboratory at the University of Illinois (see Von Foerster 1982).

¹⁰Edgar Morin (1921) is a philosopher and French sociologist. Known for his transdisciplinary approach, Morin's prolific output has covered topics ranging from the philosophy of science to cinema, ecology to politics. Central to his work is the development of what he calls “complex thought,” a way of thinking and of being in the world that acknowledges interconnectedness, uncertainty, and creativity. We refer mostly to his major six-volume theoretical work, La Méthode (1977). In English, we recommend Morin and Kern (1999) and Morin (2008).

¹¹Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749–1827), was a major scientist of the Napoleonic era. He believed firmly in causal determinism, which is well summed up in the following extract from the introduction to Essai: “We can consider the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. Should an intellect at a determined instant come to know all the forces operating in nature, and all the positions of all the objects of which nature is composed, if this intellect were, furthermore, sufficiently broad as to subject these data to analysis, it could encapsulate in one single formula the movements of the greatest bodies in the universe and the smallest atoms; for such an intellect, nothing would be uncertain and the future, just like the past, would be evident to his eyes” (1814, 2).

¹²Jean Piaget (1896–1980) was a naturalist and epistemologist. He studied nature, the origin and growth of knowledge, and is the father of genetic epistemology. Convinced that we cannot “know knowledge,” leaving aside what the various sciences say on the subject, he elaborated an experimental epistemology, with the aim of coordinating the methods and results of different sciences, without being reduced to any of them, and genetic, because attentive to the historical and evolutionary processes that enable science to undergo a continuous self-application and reflection upon itself. In 1955 he founded and directed until his death the Centre International d’Epistémologie Génétique (see Piaget, 1967).

¹³John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946). Economist and founder of modern macroeconomics, his studies gave rise to what many thinkers define as the Keynesian revolution. In disagreement with the neoclassic economic theory prevalent at the time, he sustained the need for government intervention, via increased public expenditure, even through public debt, to encourage the acquisition of goods and services and favor employment (see Keynes 1984).

¹⁴Albert Einstein (1879–1955) was a German physicist, particularly known for the formulation of the principles of relativity. In 1905 Einstein formulated the principle of special relativity, in which he added the principle of the constant speed of light to Galileo's earlier principle of relativity. General relativity, formulated in 1916, however, was founded on the equivalence principle, which expresses the identity between inertial and gravitational mass, that is, it states that two bodies are attracted gravitationally with the same mass with which they react to any force, of whatever nature. From the point of view of general relativity, the gravitational field, that is, a non-inertial system, is indistinguishable from any other non-inertial system. Since bodies have mass and generate gravitational fields, all environments are non-inertial. The greatest implication of general relativity is that space loses its most typical and absolute characteristics. Space–time is constantly modified by the presence of bodies, which alter it, bend it, and transform it. Space–time acquires those properties of non-Euclidean geometries, in which, for example, the sum of the angles of a triangle is no longer 180 degrees, and two parallel lines can meet. Euclidean space, as we know it, remains a valid instrument for describing nature, if it is thought of as a local phenomenon.

¹⁵Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834) was an English economist. Malthus's idea of man's “struggle for survival,” whereby the population tends to grow geometrically, so more quickly than food supplies, which grow arithmetically, had a decisive influence on Darwin for the formulation of his theory of evolution.

¹⁶Nicholas Copernicus (1473–1543) was a Polish astronomer, universally known for his heliocentric theory, which, contrary to the geocentric theory, placed the Sun rather than the Earth at the center of the orbit of the other planets. Copernicus was the first to demonstrate that the Sun's movement is only apparent and is the effect of the Earth's daily rotation around its own axis, laying the foundations of modern astronomic theory; indicating, for example, the precession of the equinoxes and the correct order of the planets in the solar system. His fundamental work, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, was published in 1543, shortly before his death.

¹⁷Charles Darwin (1809–1882) was a biologist, geologist, zoologist, and botanist, universally recognized as the father of evolutionism. His studies and investigations in various fields furnished extensive proof for the transformation of organisms and he elaborated the hypothesis that all species, however different today, in reality, descended from a single common ancestor. He went on to describe the factors that led to the evolution of species, elaborating his theory of natural selection (see Darwin 1859a, 1859b).

¹⁸The discovery of DNA (Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid) occurred in 1953 thanks to the work of the biologist James Watson, the physicist Francis Crick, together with the biophysicists Maurice Wilkins and his assistant, Rosalind Franklin. Nicknamed the double spiral, it is the chemical substance that enables genetic transmission. For further information see Watson and Crick (1953).

¹⁹Giuseppe O. Longo is an Italian information theorist, novelist and author of several plays whose work has focused on the relationship between human beings and technology.

²⁰Lynn Margulis (1938) is a biologist. She is known particularly for her theory on the origin of eukaryotic organelles, now generally accepted as the explanation for the formation of mitochondria. According to this theory, the mitochondrion presents certain characteristics typical of bacteria: the presence of cardiolipin molecules and absence of cholesterol in the internal membrane, the presence of circular double spiral DNA and the presence of its own ribosomes and a double membrane. Like bacteria, the mitochondria have no histones and their ribosomes respond to certain antibiotics. What is more, mitochondria are semi-autonomous organelles that replicate, by binary fission, independently of the cell. Considering these similarities, the endo-symbiotic theory sustains that the mitochondria derive from ancestral bacteria, equipped with an oxidizing metabolism, which were absorbed by the eukaryotic cells, to their mutual benefit. Subsequently, the bacteria transferred most of their genetic material to the cell, becoming, thereby, mitochondria.

²¹The gamelan is an orchestra of musical instruments, originating in Indonesia and consisting of metallophones, xylophones, drums, and gongs, which may also include bamboo flutes, stringed instruments, and voice. Traditionally, the term “gamelan” is used to refer more to the group of instruments of which it is composed than the musicians themselves. A gamelan is an entity in which the instruments are designed and tuned to play together.