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CHAPTER 15 Evolutionary Approaches to Creativity

Liane Gabora and Scott Barry Kaufman

1. Introduction Studies at the intersection of creativity and evolution are not limited to investi- Many species engage in acts that could be gations into the biological evolution of a called creative (J.C. Kaufman & A.B. Kauf- highly creative species. Creative ideas them- man, 2004). However, human creativity is selves might be said to evolve through cul- unique in that it has completely transformed ture. Human creativity is distinctive because the planet we live on. We build skyscrap- of the adaptive and open-ended manner in ers, play breathtaking cello sonatas, send which change accumulates. Inventions build ourselves into space, and even decode our on previous ones in ways that enhance their own DNA. Given that the anatomy of the utility or aesthetic appeal, or make them human brain is not so different from that applicable in different situations. There is no of the great apes, what enables us to be so a priori limit to how a creative idea might creative? Recent collaborations at the fron- unfold over time. A cartoon character may tier of anthropology, archaeology, psychol- inspire the name and logo for a hockey team ogy, and cognitive science are culminating (the Mighty Ducks), which might in turn in speculative but increasingly sophisticated inspire toys, cereal shapes, cigarette lighter efforts to piece together an answer to this designs, or for that matter work its way into question. Examining the skeletons of our an academic book chapter. It is this procliv- ancestors gives cues as to the anatomical ity to take an idea and make it our own, or constraints that hindered or enabled vari- “put our own spin on it,” that makes creative ous kinds of creative expression. Relics of ideas appear to evolve. The next section of the past have much to tell us about the this chapter investigates in what sense cre- thoughts, beliefs, and creative abilities of ative ideas evolve through culture. the people who invented and used them. Finally, we address the question of why How the spectacular creativity of humans creativity evolved. What forces supported came about is the first topic addressed in this the evolution of creativity? Does being cre- chapter. ative help us live longer, or attract mates?

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Do creative projects sometimes interfere with cut-marked bones, suggesting that they with survival and reproductive fitness; are were used to sharpen wood implements and there nonbiological factors that compel us butcher small game (M.D. Leakey, 1971; to create? This is a third topic addressed in Bunn & Kroll, 1986). this chapter. These early tools were functional but sim- ple and unspecialized; by our standards they were not very creative. Feist (2008) refers 2. The Birth of Human Creativity to the minds of these early hominids as pre- representational, suggesting that hominids at Looking at an artifact that was fashioned this time were not capable of forming rep- thousands or millions of years ago is an awe- resentations that deviated from their con- inspiring experience because it gives us a crete sensory perceptions; their experience glimpse into the lives and worldviews of our was tied to the present moment. Similarly, earliest ancestors. To be sure, creative works Mithen (1996) refers to minds at this time disintegrate. The farther back in time we as possessing generalized intelligence, reflect- look for signs of creativity, the fewer creative ing his belief that domain general learning works of that time remain with us today. mechanisms, such as Pavlovian conditioning But by corroborating theory and data from and implicit learning (e.g., A.S. Reber, 1993), different fields, we are on our way toward predominated. putting together a coherent picture of how Nevertheless, the early tools of this and when the creative abilities of humans period mark a momentous breakthrough for arose. our species. Today we are accustomed to We begin this section by examining the seeing everywhere the outcomes of what archaeological evidence for the earliest indi- began as a spark of insight in someone’s cations of human creativity, and the anthro- mind, but when the world consisted solely pological evidence for concurrent changes in of naturally formed objects, the capacity to the size and shape of the cranial cavity. We imagine something and turn it into a real- then examine various hypotheses that have ity may well have seemed almost magical. been put forward to explain these data. As de Baune (2004) puts it, “the moment whenahominin...producedacuttingtool by using a thrusting percussion . . . marks a 2.1 The Earliest Evidence of Human break between our predecessors and the Creativity: Homo habilis specifically human” (p. 142). It is generally agreed that ancestral humans started diverging from ancestral apes 2.2 The Adaptive Larger-Brained approximately six million years ago. The Homo erectus first Homo lineage, Homo habilis, appeared approximately 2.4 million years ago in Homo habilis persisted from approximately the Lower Paleolithic. The earliest known 2.4 to 1.5 million years ago. Approximately human inventions, referred to as Oldowan 1.8 million years ago, Homo erectus appeared, artifacts (after Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, followed by Homo ergaster, archaic Homo where they were first found), are widely sapiens,andHomo neanderthalensis. The size attributed to Homo habilis (Semaw et al., of the Homo erectus brain was approxi- 1997), although it is possible that they were mately 1,000 cc, about 25% larger than that of also used by late australopithecines (de Homo habilis,and75% of the cranial capac- Beaune, 2004). They were simple, mostly ity of modern humans (Aiello, 1996;Ruff, single faced stone tools, pointed at one Trinkaus, & Holliday, 1997;Lewin,1999). end (M.D. Leakey, 1971). These tools were Homo erectus exhibit many indications of most likely used to split fruits and nuts (de enhanced ability to creatively adapt to the Beaune, 2004), though some of the more environment to meet the demands of sur- recent ones have sharp edges, and are found vival, including sophisticated, task-specific P1: OJL Trim: 7in × 10in Top: 0.498in Gutter: 0.871in CUUS1027-15 cuus1027/Kaufman ISBN: 978 0 521 51366 1 May 10, 2010 20:17

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stone hand axes, complex stable seasonal tal states of others (Premack & Woodruff, habitats, and long-distance hunting strate- 1978). However, other species possess a gies involving large game. By 1.6 million theory of mind (Heyes, 1998) and imitate years ago, Homo erectus had dispersed as far (Byrne & Russon, 1998; Darwin, 1871), yet as Southeast Asia, indicating the ability to they do not compare to hominids with adjust lifestyle to vastly different climates respect to creativity. Moreover, although (Anton´ & Swisher, 2004; Cachel & Harris, these hypotheses may explain how new 1995; Swisher et al., 1994; Walker & Leakey, ideas, once in place, spread from one indi- 1993). In Africa, West Asia, and Europe, by vidual to another, they are inadequate as 1.4 million years ago Homo erectus developed an explanation of the enhanced capacity for the Aschulean hand axe (Asfaw et al., 1992), coming up with new ideas in the first place. a do-it-all tool that may even have had some Yet another proposal is that Homo under- function as a social status symbol (Kohn went a transition at this time from an episodic & Mithen, 1999). These symmetrical biface mode of cognitive functioning to a mimetic stone tools probably required several stages mode (Donald, 1991). The episodic mind of production, bifacial knapping, and con- of Homo habilis was sensitive to the sig- siderable skill and spatial ability to achieve nificance of episodes, and it could encode their final form. them in memory and coordinate appropriate Though the anatomical capacity for lan- responses. But it could not voluntarily access guage was present by this time (Wynn, them independent of cues. The enlarged 1998), verbal communication is thought to cranial capacity of Homo erectus enabled have been limited to (at best) presyntacti- it to acquire a mimetic form of cognition, cal protolanguage (Dunbar, 1996). Thought characterized by possession of what Donald during this time period was most likely only (1991) refers to as a “self-triggered recall and first order; the capacity for thinking about rehearsal loop,” or SRRL. The SRRL enabled thinking (i.e., metacognition) had not yet hominids to voluntarily access memories developed. independent of cues and thereby act out events that occurred in the past, or that could occur in the future (indeed the term 2.3 Possible Explanations for the Onset mimetic is derived from the word “mime”). of Human Creativity Thus not only could the mimetic mind It has been suggested that these early archae- temporarily escape the here and now, but ological finds do not reflect any underly- through gesture it could bring about a sim- ing biological change but were simply a ilar escape in other minds. The SRRL also response to climactic change (Richerson & enabled hominids to engage in a stream of Boyd, 2000). However, given the signifi- thought, such that attention is directed away cant increase in cranial capacity, it seems from the external world toward one’s inter- parsimonious to posit that this dramatic nal model of it, and one thought or idea encephalization allowed a more sophisti- evokes another, revised version of it, which cated mode of cognitive functioning and evokes yet another, and so forth recursively. is thus at least partly responsible for the Finally, the SRRL enabled the capacity to appearance of cultural artifacts (and the evaluate and improve motor acts through beginnings of an archaeological record). repetition or rehearsal, and adapt them to There are multiple versions of the new situations, resulting in more refined hypothesis that the onset of the archaeo- artifacts and survival tactics. logical record reflects an underlying cogni- It seems reasonable that a larger brain tive transition. One suggestion is that the might be more likely to engage in self- appearance of archaeological novelty is due triggered recall and rehearsal, but Donald’s to the onset of the capacity to imitate scenario becomes even more plausible when (Dugatkin, 2001), or the onset of a theory of considered in light of the structure and mind – the capacity to reason about the men- dynamics of associative memory (Gabora, P1: OJL Trim: 7in × 10in Top: 0.498in Gutter: 0.871in CUUS1027-15 cuus1027/Kaufman ISBN: 978 0 521 51366 1 May 10, 2010 20:17

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2003, 2010). We know that neurons are sen- 1990; Mithen, 1998), to be discussed in the sitive to microfeatures – primitive attributes next section. It does correspond with the of a stimulus, such as a sound of a particu- revolutionary advancement of the Levallois lar pitch, or a line of a particular orientation flake, which came into prominence approxi- (Churchland & Sejnowski, 1992; Smolensky, mately 250,000 years ago in the Neanderthal 1988). Episodes etched in memory are dis- line. But although one sees in the artifacts tributed across a bundle or cell assembly of this time the germ of modern-day repre- of these neurons, and likewise, each neu- sentational thought, it is clear that cognitive ron participates in the encoding of many processes are still primarily first order – tied episodes. Finally, memory is content address- to concrete sensory experience – rather than able such that similar stimuli activate and get second order – derivative, or abstract. R. encoded in overlapping distributions of neu- Leakey (1984) writes of anatomically mod- rons. It seems reasonable that brain enlarge- ern human populations in the Middle East ment entails a transition from a more coarse- with little in the way of culture, and con- grained to a more fine-grained memory, such cludes that “the link between anatomy and that episodes are encoded in more detail. behavior therefore seems to break” (p. 95). This means there are more ways in which It may be that this second spurt in brain distributions can overlap, and thus more size exerted an impact on expressions of cre- routes by which one can evoke another, pro- ativity that leave little trace in the archae- viding an anatomical basis for self-triggered ological record, such as finding ways of recall and rehearsal, and the forging of cre- manipulating competitors for purposes of ative connections. The enhanced ability to survival and reproduction (Baron-Cohen, make connections would in turn have paved 1995; Byre & Whiten, 1988; Humphrey, 1976; the way for a more integrated internal model Whiten, 1991; Whiten & Byrne, 1997; Wil- of the world, or worldview. son, Near, & Miller, 1996; Dunbar, 1996). However it is possible that what we see in the archaeological record really does reflect 3. Over A Million Years of what was happening at the time, i.e. that Creative Stasis there really was a rift between anatomi- cal and behavioral modernity. We e will The hand axe persisted as the almost exclu- return to this mystery after examining how sive tool of choice for over a million years, the spectacular creativity of modern humans spreading by 500,000 years ago into Europe, came about. where was it used until about 200,000 years ago. Indeed during this period not only is there almost no change in tool design, but 4. The Creative Minds of little evidence of creative insight of any kind, Modern Humans with the exception of the first solid evidence for controlled use of fire some 800,000 years The European archaeological record indi- ago in the Levant (Goren-Inbar et al., 2004). cates that a truly unparalleled cultural transition occurred between 60,000 and 30,000 years ago at the onset of the 3.1 A Second Increase in Brain Size Upper Paleolithic (Bar-Yosef et al., 1986; Between 600,000 and 150,000 years ago there Klein, 1989a; Mellars, 1973, 1989a, 1989b; was a second spurt in brain enlargement Soffer, 1994; Stringer & Gamble, 1993). (Aiello 1996; Ruff et al., 1997). But although Considering it “evidence of the modern anatomically modern humans had arrived, human mind at work,” Richard Leakey behavioral modernity had not. It would (1984:93–94) describes the Upper Pale- make our story simple if the increase in brain olithic as “unlike previous eras, when sta- size coincided with the burst of creativity sisdominated,...[with]changebeingmea- in the Middle/Upper Paleolithic (Bickerton, sured in millennia rather than hundreds of P1: OJL Trim: 7in × 10in Top: 0.498in Gutter: 0.871in CUUS1027-15 cuus1027/Kaufman ISBN: 978 0 521 51366 1 May 10, 2010 20:17

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millennia.” Similarly, Mithen (1996) refers sition in the evolution of Homo sapiens is to the Upper Paleolithic as the “big bang” from first-order intentionality to second- of human culture, exhibiting more inno- order intentionality. A first-order intentional vation than in the previous six million system has beliefs and desires but cannot years of human evolution. At this time reflect on those beliefs and desires, whereas that we see the more-or-less simultaneous second-order intentional system has beliefs appearance of traits considered diagnostic of and desires about the beliefs and desires of behavioral modernity. It marks the begin- themselves and others. ning of a more organized, strategic, season- Whether this period was a genuine rev- specific style of hunting involving specific olution culminating in behavioral moder- animals at specific sites, elaborate burial sites nity is hotly debated because claims to this indicative of ritual and religion, evidence effect are based on the European Paleolithic of dance, magic, and totemism, the colo- record, and largely exclude the African nization of Australia, and replacement of record (McBrearty & Brooks, 2000; Hen- Levallois tool technology by blade cores in shilwood & Marean, 2003). Indeed, most the Near East. In Europe, complex hearths of the artifacts associated with a rapid and many forms of art appeared, including transition to behavioral modernity between naturalistic cave paintings of animals, deco- 40,000 and 50,000 years ago in Europe are rated tools and pottery, bone and antler tools found in the African Middle Stone Age with engraved designs, ivory statues of ani- tens of thousands of years earlier. These mals and sea shells, and personal decoration include blades and microliths, bone tools, such as beads, pendants, and perforated ani- specialized hunting, long-distance trade, mal teeth, many of which may have been art and decoration (McBrearty & Brooks, used to indicate social status (White, 1989a, 2000), the Berekhat Ram figurine from 1989b). Indeed, White (1982:176)alsowrites Israel (d’Errico & Nowell, 2000), and an of a “total restructuring of social relations.” anthropomorphic figurine of quartzite from What is perhaps most impressive about this the Middle Ascheulian (ca. 400 ka) site period is not the novelty of any particu- of Tan-tan in Morocco (Bednarik, 2003). lar artifact but that the overall pattern of Moreover, gradualist models of the evolu- cultural change is cumulative; more recent tion of behavioral modernity well before artifacts resemble older ones but have modifi- the Upper Paleolithic find some support cations that enhance their appearance or fu- in archaeological data (Bahn, 1991; Har- nctionality. This appears to be uniquely hu- rold, 1992; Henshilwood & Marean, 2003; man (Donald, 1998) and it has been referred White, 1993; White et al., 2003). If mod- to as the ratchet effect (Tomasello, 1999). ern human behaviors were indeed gradu- Despite a lack of any overall increase ally assembled as early as 250,000 to 300,000 in cranial capacity, there was a signifi- years ago, as McBrearty and Brooks (2000) cant increase in the size of the prefrontal argue, it pushes the transition into align- cortex – and particularly the orbitofrontal ment with the most recent spurt in human region (Deacon, 1997; Dunbar, 1993;Jeri- brain enlargement. However, the traditional son, 1973; Krasnegor, Lyon, & Goldman- and probably currently dominant view is Rakic, 1997; Rumbaugh, 1997), and it was that behaviorally modern humans appeared likely a time of major neural reorganiza- in Africa approximately 50,000 years ago, tion (Klein, 1999; Henshilwood, d’Errico, and spread throughout in Europe, replac- Vanhaeren, van Niekerk, & Jacobs, 2004; ing others who had not achieved behavioral Pinker, 2002). These brain changes may have modernity, including the Neanderthals (e.g., given rise to what Feist (2008) refers to as Ambrose, 1998; Gamble, 1994; Klein, 2003; “meta-representational thought,” or the abil- Stringer & Gamble, 1993). From this point ity to reflect on representations and think onward, anatomically and behaviorally about thinking. Along similar lines, Den- modern Homo sapiens were the only living nett (1976) suggests that an important tran- hominids. P1: OJL Trim: 7in × 10in Top: 0.498in Gutter: 0.871in CUUS1027-15 cuus1027/Kaufman ISBN: 978 0 521 51366 1 May 10, 2010 20:17

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bols and the causal relationships amongst 4.1 Cognitive Explanations them (Deacon, 1997). According to Dea- Whether one believes the change happened con, we shifted from iconic representation,in gradually or suddenly, it is accepted that the which the representation physically resem- Middle/Upper Paleolithic was a period of bles what it ‘stands for’, to indexical represen- unprecedented creativity. How and why did tation, in which the representation implies it occur? What kind of cognitive processes or ‘points’ to the thing it stands for, to sym- were involved? We now review the most bolic representation, in which there is no sim- popular hypotheses for what kind of biolog- ilarity or implied relationship between the ically evolved cognitive advantages gave rise representation and what it stands for. Dea- to behavioral modernity at this time. con claims that the onset of symbol use colored our existence by making us view 4.1.1 ADVENT OF SYNTACTIC LANGUAGE objects and people in terms of the roles they It has been suggested that humans under- could play in stories, and the point or mean- went at this time a transition from a predom- ing they could potentially have, or partici- inantly gestural to a vocal form of commu- pate in. nication (Corballis, 2002). Although owing to the ambiguity of the archaeological evi- 4.1.3 COGNITIVE FLUIDITY dence we may never know exactly when It is undoubtedly the case that symbolic language began (Bednarik, 1992:30;David- representation plays a fundamental role in son & Noble, 1989), most scholars agree the mental life of modern humans. Oth- that although earlier Homo and even Nean- ers however believe that the transition from derthals may have been capable of primitive iconic to indexical to symbolic representa- protolanguage, the grammatical and syntac- tion was a secondary consequence of onset tic aspects of language emerged near the of the intuitive, divergent, associative pro- beginning of the Upper Paleolithic (Aiello cesses by which we unearth relationships of & Dunbar, 1993; Bickerton, 1990, 1996;Dun- correlation (or roughly, similarity), such as bar, 1993, 1996; Tomasello, 1999). Carstairs- through the discovery of analogies. Faucon- McCarthy (1999) presents a modified version nier & Turner (2002) propose that the excep- of this proposal, suggesting that although tional creativity of the Middle/Upper Pale- some form of syntax was present in the olithic was due to the onset of the capacity earliest languages, most of the later elab- to blend concepts, which facilitated anal- oration, including recursive embedding of ogy formation and the weaving of expe- syntactic structure, emerged in the Upper riences into stories and parables. A simi- Paleolithic. Syntax enabled language to lar explanation is put forward by Mithen become general purpose and put to use (1996), drawing on the evolutionary psy- in a variety of situations. It enhanced not chologist’s notion of massive modularity just the ability to communicate with others, (Buss, 1999/2004; Cosmides & Tooby, 1992; spread ideas from one individual to the next, Dunbar et al., 1994; Rozin, 1976;foran and collaborate on creative projects (thereby extensive critique see Buller, 2005). Mithen speeding up cultural innovation), but also suggests that the creativity of the modern the ability to think things through precisely mind arose through the onset of cognitive for oneself and manipulate ideas in a con- fluidity, resulting in the connecting of what trolled, deliberate fashion (Reboul, 2007). were previously encapsulated (functionally isolated) brain modules devoted to natu- 4.1.2 SYMBOLIC REASONING ral history, technology, social processes, and Another suggestion is that the creativity of language. This he claims gave us the ability the Middle/Upper Paleolithic was due to the to map, explore, and transform conceptual emergence of an ability to internally rep- spaces, referring to Boden’s (1990) definition resent complex, abstract, internally coher- of a conceptual space as a “style of think- ent systems of meaning, including sym- ing – in music, sculpture, choreography, P1: OJL Trim: 7in × 10in Top: 0.498in Gutter: 0.871in CUUS1027-15 cuus1027/Kaufman ISBN: 978 0 521 51366 1 May 10, 2010 20:17

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chemistry, etc.” Sperber (1994) proposes aspects of cognitive modernity. Acknowl- that the connecting of modules involved edging a possible seed of truth in each a special module, the “module of meta- of them, we begin to converge toward a representation” or MMR, which contains common (if more complex) view. Concep- “concepts of concepts,” and enabled cross- tual blending is characteristic of divergent domain thinking, and particularly analogies or associative thought, which tends to be and metaphors. automatic, intuitive, and diffuse. This is Note that the notion of modules amounts quite different from convergent or analyti- to an explicit high-level compartmentaliza- cal thought, which tends to be logical, and tion of the brain for different tasks. How- controlled. It is widely believed that the ever, this kind of division of labor – and the modern mind engages in both (Arieti, 1976; ensuing creativity – would emerge unavoid- Ashby & Ell, 2002; Freud, 1949; Guilford, ably as the brain got larger without explicit 1950; James, 1890/1950; Johnson-Laird, 1983; high-level compartmentalization, owing to Kris, 1952; Neisser, 1963; Piaget, 1926;Rips, the sparse, distributed, content-addressable 2001;Sloman,1996; Stanovich & West, 2000; manner in which neurons encode informa- Werner, 1948; Wundt, 1896). This is some- tion (Gabora, 2003; 2010). As noted ear- times referred to as the dual-process the- lier, neurons are tuned to respond to dif- ory of human cognition (Chaiken & Trope, ferent microfeatures, and there is a sys- 1999; Evans & Frankish, 2009) and it is con- tematic relationship between the content sistent with current theories of creative cog- of a stimulus and the distributed set of nition (Finke, Ward, & Smith, 1992;Gab- neurons that respond to it, such that neu- ora, 2002, 2010; Smith, Ward, & Finke, 1995; rons that respond to similar microfea- Ward, Smith, & Finke, 1999). Divergent pro- tures tend to be near one another. Thus, cesses are hypothesized to occur during idea as the brain got larger, the number of generation, whereas convergent processes neurons increased, and the brain accord- predominate during the refinement, imple- ingly responded to more microfeatures, so mentation, and testing of an idea. It has items could be encoded in more detail. been proposed that the Paleolithic tran- Neighboring neurons tended to respond to sition reflects a mutation to the gene(s) microfeatures that were more similar, and involved in the fine-tuning of the biochem- distant neurons tended to respond to micro- ical mechanisms underlying the capacity to features that were more different. Therefore shift between these modes, depending on there were more ways in which distributed the situation, by varying the specificity of representations could overlap and creative the activated cognitive receptive field (Gab- connections could be made. Thus a weak ora, 2003, 2010; for similar ideas see Howard- modularity of sorts emerges naturally at the Jones & Murray, 2003; Martindale, 1995). neuronal level without any explicit high- This is referred to as contextual focus1 because level compartmentalization going on, and it requires the ability to focus or defocus it need not necessarily correspond to how attention in response to the context or sit- humans carve up the world, that is, to cat- uation one is in. Defocused attention, by egories such as natural history, technology, diffusely activating a broad region of mem- and so forth. Moreover, explicit connecting ory, is conducive to divergent thought; it of modules is not necessary for creative con- enables obscure (but potentially relevant) nections to be made; all that is necessary is aspects of the situation to come into play. that the relevant domains be simultaneously Focused attention is conducive to conver- accessible. gent thought; memory activation is con- strained enough to hone in and perform 4.1.4 CONTEXTUAL FOCUS The above proposals for what kind of 1 In neural net terms, contextual focus amounts to the capacity to spontaneously and subconsciously cognitive change could have led to the vary the shape of the activation function, flat for Upper Paleolithic transition stress different divergent thought and spiky for analytical. P1: OJL Trim: 7in × 10in Top: 0.498in Gutter: 0.871in CUUS1027-15 cuus1027/Kaufman ISBN: 978 0 521 51366 1 May 10, 2010 20:17

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logical mental operations on the most clearly a significant role in structuring our per- relevant aspects. Thus in an analytic mode ceptions and behavior (Berry & Broadbent, of thought the concept giant might only acti- 1988; Cleeremans & Jimenez,´ 2002; Hassin, vate the notion of large size, whereas in Uleman, & Bargh, 2005; Lewicki & Hill, an associative mode the giants of fairytales 1987; Lewicki, Czyzewska, & Hoffman, 1987; might come to mind. Once it was possible S.B. Kaufman, 2007; McGeorge & Burton, to shrink or expand the field of attention, 1990; A.S. Reber, 1967, 1993; P.J. Reber & and thereby tailor one’s mode of thought Kotovsky, 1997; Squire & Frambach, 1990). to the demands of the current situation, It is thought to be useful for making broad tasks requiring either convergent thought associations and arriving at creative ideas, (e.g., mathematical derivation), divergent and believed to be a fundamental aspect of thought (e.g., poetry), or both (e.g., techno- our humanness (Bowers, Farvolden, & Mer- logical invention) could be carried out more migis, 1995;S.B.Kaufman,2008, in press). effectively. When the individual is fixated or It may be that the fruits of associative or stuck, and progress is not forthcoming, defo- implicit processes come to awareness only cusing attention enables the individual to once they have been honed into a form enter a more divergent mode of thought, and that is sufficiently well-defined that we can working memory expands to include periph- mentally operate on them, or on symbolic erally related elements of the situation. representations of them. Then the execu- This continues until a potential solution is tive functions associated with explicit cogni- glimpsed, at which point attention becomes tion use this information to produce thought more focused and thought becomes more and behavior that is more complex than convergent, as befits the fine-tuning and could have resulted from either associa- manifestation of the creative work. tive/implicit or analytic/explicit processes Thus the onset of contextual focus would alone. A contributing factor to the emer- have enabled the hominid to adapt ideas to gence of the ability to shift between these new contexts or combine them in new ways modes of thought may have been the expan- through divergent thought, and to fine-tune sion of the prefrontal cortex, and the asso- these strange new combinations through ciated executive functions and enhanced convergent thought. In this way the fruits working memory2 capacity that came with of one mode of thought provide the ingre- the expansion. Enhanced working memory dients for the other, culminating in a more allowed humans more control over their fine-grained internal model of the world. focus of attention so as to maintain task goals in the presence of interference. Indeed, indi- 4.1.1 SHIFTING BETWEEN IMPLICIT vidual differences in working memory are AND EXPLICIT THOUGHT strongly related to fluid intelligence among In a similar vein, it has been proposed that modern humans (Conway, Jarrold, Kane, cognitive fluidity enabled hominids to move Miyake, & Towse, 2007; Engle, Tuholski, not just ‘horizontally’ between domains (as Laughlin, & Conway, 1999; Kane, Hambrick, Mithen [1996] suggests), but also ‘verti- & Conway, 2005; S.B. Kaufman, DeYoung, cally’ between implicit and explicit modes Gray, Brown, & Mackintosh, 2009). of thought (Feist, 2008). Implicit and explicit cognition map roughly onto divergent and 4 2 The Multi-Layered Mind and a Return convergent modes of thought. While explicit . to the Lag between Anatomical cognition is equated with advanced abilities and Behavioral Modernity such as planning, reasoning, and hypothesis- guided deduction, implicit cognition is asso- Several researchers emphasize that the mod- ciated with the ability to automatically ern human mind consists of various “kinds of detect complex regularities, contingencies, and covariances in our environment (e.g., 2 Working memory is the ability to maintain, update, A.S. Reber, 1993). Implicit cognition plays and manipulate information in an active state. P1: OJL Trim: 7in × 10in Top: 0.498in Gutter: 0.871in CUUS1027-15 cuus1027/Kaufman ISBN: 978 0 521 51366 1 May 10, 2010 20:17

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minds” layered on top of one another (A.S. the memory already available, through con- Reber, 1989, 1993; A.S. Reber & Allen, 2000; textual focus, or shifting between implicit Dennett, 1995, 1996). According to these and explicit thought. It is worth noting that accounts, these multiple minds are continu- other periods of revolutionary innovation, ously operative, giving rise to many internal such as the Holocene transition to agricul- and external conflicts amongst members of ture and the modern Industrial Revolution, our species, as well as contributing to our occurred long after the biological changes most distinctly human intellectual and cre- that made them cognitively possible. ative accomplishments. Arthur Reber pro- poses that implicit cognition is evolution- 4.3 “Recent” Creative Breakthroughs arily older than explicit cognition. It may stem from the oldest parts of the brain and Of course the story of how human creativ- in its crudest form be involved in the execu- ity evolved does not end with the arrival of tion of behavior patterns that are prewired, anatomical and behavioral modernity. The reflexive, and tied to survival-related goals, end of the ice age approximately 10,000 while our later-evolving explicit capacities to 12,000 years ago witnessed the begin- for reflection and deliberate reasoning may nings of agriculture and the invention of the allow us to override strictly survival-related wheel. Written languages developed around goals (Stanovich, 2005). 5,000 to 6,000 years ago, and approximately Alternatively, it may be that more brain 4,000 years ago astronomy and mathematics tissue simultaneously allowed for not just appear on the scene. We see the expression the onset of explicit reasoning but also a of philosophical ideas around 2,500 years qualitatively different kind of implicit pro- ago, invention of the printing press 1,000 cessing, one in which the detection of gra- years ago, and the modern scientific method dations of similarity paves the way for cog- about 500 years ago. And the past 100 years nitive flexibility. Let us return briefly to have yielded a technological explosion that the question of why the burst of creativ- has completely altered the daily routines of ity in the Upper Paleolithic occurred well humans (as well as other species), the con- after the second rapid increase in brain size sequences of which remain to be seen. approximately 500,000 years ago. A larger brain provided more room for episodes to be encoded, and particularly more association 5. Creativity and Cultural Evolution cortex for connections between episodes to be made, but it is not necessarily the We have examined how the capacity for cre- case that this increased brain mass could ativity evolved over millions of years. In this straightaway be optimally navigated. There section we explore the possibility that cre- is no reason to expect that information from ative ideas themselves evolve through cul- different domains (whether strongly mod- ture, in the sense that they exhibit “descent ular or weakly modular) would immedi- with modification,” or incremental adapta- ately be compatible enough to coexist in tion to the constraints of their environment. a stream of thought, as in the production (A related idea is that the creative process of a metaphor. It is reasonable that it took not at the cultural level but within the mind time for the anatomically modern brain to of one individual is Darwinian; this is dis- fine-tune how its components “talk” to each cussed in Chapter 9, this volume.) other such that different items could be blended together or recursively revised and 5.1 Creative Cultural Change recoded in a coordinated manner (Gabora, as a Darwinian Process 2003). Only then could the full potential of the large brain be realized. Thus the bot- It has been proposed that the process tleneck may not have been sufficient brain by which creative ideas change over time size but sufficient sophistication in the use of as they pass from person to person can P1: OJL Trim: 7in × 10in Top: 0.498in Gutter: 0.871in CUUS1027-15 cuus1027/Kaufman ISBN: 978 0 521 51366 1 May 10, 2010 20:17

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be described in Darwinian terms (Aunger, In order to see how Darwinian theory 2000; Blackmore, 1999; Boyd & Rich- might be applied to the evolution of creativ- erson, 1985; Cavalli-Sforza & Feldman, ity ideas in culture, let us examine what kind 1981; Dawkins, 1975; Durham, 1991). This of process natural selection can describe, and approach is sometimes referred to as “dual how it works. The paradox faced by Dar- inheritance theory,” the idea being that we win and his contemporaries was the follow- inherit cultural as well as biological infor- ing: How does biological change accumu- mation, and the units of cultural informa- late when traits acquired over an organism’s tion are sometimes referred to as “memes.” lifetime are obliterated? For example, a rat The rationale is clear; since natural selec- whose tail is cut off does not give birth to tion is useful for explaining the astonishing rats with cut-off tails; the rat lineage loses creativity of nature, perhaps it is also use- this trait. Note that this kind of continual ful for explaining the astonishing creativity “backtracking” to an earlier state (e.g., in the of human culture. There are many paral- above example, the state of having a full lels between the two. Clearly, new inven- tail) is unique to biology; if, for example, tions build on existing ones, but it isn’t just an asteroid crashes into a planet, the planet the cumulative nature of human creativity cannot revert to the state of having not had that is reminiscent of biological evolution. the asteroid crash into it.5 Cumulative change is after all rather easy to Darwin’s genius was to explain how living come by; in the days of taping music, each things adapt over time despite the fact that time a tape was copied it became cumu- new modifications keep getting discarded, latively more scratched. The creativity of by looking from the level of the individual human cultures is reminiscent of biological to the level of the population of interbreed- evolution because of the adaptive and open- ing individuals. He realized that individuals ended manner in which change accumulates. who are better equipped to survive in their New inventions don’t just build on old ones, given environment tend to leave more off- they do so in ways that meet our needs and spring (be “selected”). Thus, although their appeal to our tastes, and as in biological evo- acquired traits are discarded, their inher- lution there is no limit to how any particular ited traits (loosely speaking, the traits they invention or creative work may inspire or were born with) are more abundant in the influence other creative works. Moreover, next generation. Over generations this can culture generates phenomena observed in lead to substantial change in the distribu- biological evolution, such as drift3 and tion of traits across the population as a niches4 (Bentley et al., 2004; Gabora, 1995, whole. Natural selection was not put forth 1997). A theory that encompasses the two to explain how biological novelty origi- would put us on the road to uniting the nates. It assumes random variation of her- social sciences with the biological sciences. itable traits, and provides an explanation for population-level change in the distribution of variants. 3 Drift refers to changes in the relative frequencies of variants through random sampling from a finite We now ask: Can natural selection simi- population. It is the reason why variation is reduced larly explain the process by which creative in reproductively isolated populations such as those ideas evolve through culture? A first thing living on a small island. Drift has been shown to occur in a culture context with respect to such that can be noted is that the problem for things as baby names and dog breed preferences (Neiman, 1995; Madsen et al., 1999; Bentley et al., 2004). In a computer model of cultural evolution, 5 Although Darwin observed that this was the case, the smaller the society of artificial agents, the lower he did not know why. We now know that the rea- the cultural diversity (Gabora, 1995). son acquired traits are not inherited in biology is 4 Just as the biological evolution of rabbits created that organisms replicate using a template – a self- niches for species that eat them and parasitize their assembly code that is both actively transcribed to guts, the cultural evolution of cars created niches produce a new individual, and passively copied to for seat belts and gas stations (Gabora, 1997, 1998). ensure that the new individual can itself reproduce. P1: OJL Trim: 7in × 10in Top: 0.498in Gutter: 0.871in CUUS1027-15 cuus1027/Kaufman ISBN: 978 0 521 51366 1 May 10, 2010 20:17

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which natural selection was put forward as mission of acquired characteristics. This is a solution does not exist with respect to cul- the case in biology, as we saw with the cut- ture (Gabora, 2008). That is, there is no sense off tail example; change acquired during an in which the components of creative ideas individual’s lifetime is not generally passed cyclically accumulate and then get discarded on to its offspring. As another example, you at the interface between one generation and didn’t inherit your mother’s tattoo – some- the next. For example, unlike the chopped thing she acquired between the time she was off tail which does not get transmitted to born and the time she transmitted genetic offspring, once someone invented the spout material to the next generation. on a teapot, teapots could forever after have However, few scholars accept that there spouts. One might ask if Darwin’s solution is negligible transmission of acquired char- is nevertheless applicable; might processes acteristics in culture. The cultural equiva- outside of biology evolve through selection lent of the individual is the creative idea. even if selection was originally advanced as A new “generation” begins when this idea a solution to a paradox that is unique to is transmitted from person A to person B, biology? The problem is that since acquired and lasts until the idea is transmitted from change can accumulate orders of magni- person B to person C. Any changes to an tude faster than inherited change, if it is not idea between the time B learned it and the getting regularly discarded, it quickly over- time B expressed it are “acquired character- whelms the population-level mechanism of istics.” If B mulls the idea over or puts it into change identified by Darwin. This is par- her own terms or adapts it to her own frame- ticularly the case with respect to creative work, the process by which this idea changes ideas since they do not originate through cannot be explained by natural selection, random processes – or even processes prone because as mentioned earlier, this kind of to canceling one another out – but through ‘intragenerational’ change quickly drowns strategic or implicit, intuitive processes, out the slower intergenerational mechanism making use of the associative structure of of change identified by Darwin; it “swamps memory. the phylogenetic signal.” The Darwinian Darwinian approaches to culture posit perspective on culture therefore leads to that the basic units of this second Darwinian a view of the human condition as “meme process are discrete elements of culture that hosts,” passive imitators and transmitters of pass from one person to another intact prepackaged units of culture, which evolve except for random change akin to muta- as separate lineages. To the extent that tion that arises through copying error or these lineages “contaminate one another” – biased transmission (preferential copying of that is, to the extent that we actively and high-status individuals). Copying error and creatively transform elements of culture in biased transmission are sources of change ways that reflect our own internal models that take place at the time an idea spreads of the world, altering or combining them to from one individual to another, which suit our needs, perspectives, or aesthetic sen- creativity researchers tend to view as a sibilities – natural selection cannot explain relatively minor source of creative change cultural change. It has been argued that compared with cognitive processes such due to this “lack-of-inheritance-of-acquired- as imagining, planning, analogizing, con- characteristics” problem, not just the evo- cept combination, and so forth. The reason lution of creative ideas (Gabora, 2005)and that Darwinian theories of culture focus on the evolution of culture (Gabora, 2004, sources of change that occur when an idea 2008), but the evolution of early life itself spreads from one individual to another is not (Gabora, 2006; Vetsigian et al., 2006), and accidental; it stems from the fact that nat- even of many features of modern life (e.g. ural selection is of explanatory value only Jablonka & Lamb, 2005; Kauffman, 1993; to the extent that there is negligible trans- Newman & Muller,¨ 1999; Schwartz, 1999), P1: OJL Trim: 7in × 10in Top: 0.498in Gutter: 0.871in CUUS1027-15 cuus1027/Kaufman ISBN: 978 0 521 51366 1 May 10, 2010 20:17

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cannot be described by Darwin’s theory of life forms is autopoietic in that the whole natural selection. emerges through interactions amongst the parts. It is self-mending in the sense that, just as injury to the body spontaneously evokes 5.2 A Non-Darwinian Theory physiological changes that bring about heal- of How Creative Ideas Evolve ing, events that are problematic or surprising If creative ideas do not evolve through selec- or evoke cognitive dissonance spontaneously tion, how do they evolve? One possibil- evokes streams of thought that attempt to ity is that the evolution of creative ideas solve the problem or reconcile the disso- through culture is more akin to the evo- nance (Gabora, 2008). Thus, according to lution of the earliest biological life forms this view it is not chance, mutation-like than to present-day DNA-based life (Gab- processes that propel creativity, but the ora, 2000, 2004, 2008). Recent work sug- self-organizing, self-mending nature of a gests that early life emerged and replicated worldview. through a self-organized process referred to as autocatalysis, in which a set of molecules catalyze (speed up) the reactions that gen- 6. Why Did Creativity Evolve? erate other molecules in the set, until as a whole they self-replicate (Kauffman, 1993). We have discussed how human creativity Such a structure is said to be autopoietic, evolved, and in what sense creative ideas can or self-regenerating, because the whole is be said to evolve. We now address a funda- reconstituted through the interactions of the mental question: Why did human creativity parts (Maturana & Varela, 1980). These ear- evolve? liest precursors of life evolved not through natural selection at the level of the pop- 6.1 Creativity as Evolutionary Spandrels ulation, like present-day life, but commu- nal exchange of innovation at the individ- Some forms of creativity enhance survival ual level (Gabora, 2006; Vetsigian, Woese, and thus reproductive fitness. For exam- & Goldenfeld, 2006). Since replication of ple, the invention of weapons most likely these pre-DNA life forms occurred through evolved as a creative response to a need for regeneration of catalytic molecules rather protection from enemies and predators. For than (as with present-day life) by using a other forms of creative expression, however, genetic self-assembly code, acquired traits such as art and music, the link to survival and were inherited. In other words, their evolu- reproduction is not so clear-cut. Why do we tion was, like that of culture, Lamarckian. bother? This has led to the suggestion that world- One possibility is that art, music, humor, views evolve through culture, through the fiction, religion, and philosophy are not same non-Darwinian process as the earli- real adaptations, but evolutionary span- est forms of life evolved, and creative prod- drels: side-effects of abilities that evolved ucts such as tools and dances and architec- for other purposes (Pinker, 1997; see also tural plans are external manifestations of this Carroll, 1995; Gabora, 2003; J.C. Kaufman, process; they reflect the states of the par- Lee, Baer, & Lee, 2007; McBrearty & Brooks, ticular worldviews that generate them. The 2000). Pinker likens these forms of creativity idea is that like these early life forms, world- to cheesecake and pornography – cultural views evolve not through natural selection, inventions that stimulate our senses in novel but through self-organization and commu- ways but do not improve our biological nal exchange of innovations. One does not fitness. accumulate elements of culture transmitted The “spandrels” explanation assumes that from others like items on a grocery list, but what drives creativity is biological selection hones them into a unique tapestry of under- forces operating at the individual level, and standing, a worldview, which like these early there is some empirical support for this. P1: OJL Trim: 7in × 10in Top: 0.498in Gutter: 0.871in CUUS1027-15 cuus1027/Kaufman ISBN: 978 0 521 51366 1 May 10, 2010 20:17

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Some forms of human creativity, such as of expressing mutual love in articulate lan- art and music, indeed demonstrate the fea- guage, endeavored to charm each other with tures of a naturally selected adaptation (Dis- musical notes and rhythm” (Darwin, 1871, sanayake, 1988, 1992). First, many forms of p. 880). creativity are ubiquitous. Although styles According to the sexual-selection differ, every culture creates works of art and account, there is competition to mate with music. Second, many forms of creativity are individuals who exhibit creative traits that pleasurable for both the artist and the audi- are (in theory) metabolically expensive, ence, and evolutionarily adaptive behaviors hard to maintain, not easily counterfeited, are usually pleasurable. Third, many forms and highly sensitive to genetic mutation of human creativity require considerable because they are the most reliable indicators time and effort. The fact that creativity is of genetic fitness. In recent years, Miller costly is suggestive of a selective pressure at (1998; 2000a; 2000b; 2001; J.C. Kaufman work. et al., 2007) has developed and popularized this theory. He argues that sexual selection played a much greater role than natural 6.2 Group Bonding selection in shaping the most distinctively Even if creativity is at least in part human aspects of our minds, including driven by individual-level biological selec- storytelling, art, music, sports, dance, tion forces, other forces may also be at humor, kindness, and leadership. He con- work. Natural selection is believed to oper- tends that these creative behaviors are the ate at multiple levels, including gene-level result of complex psychological adaptations selection, individual-level survival selection, whose primary functions were to attract individual-level sexual selection, kin selec- mates, yielding reproductive rather than tion, and group selection. Although there survival benefits. Miller notes that cultural is evidence from archaeology, anthropology, displays of human creativity satisfy these and ethnography that individual-level sur- requirements. According to this account, vival selection plays a key role in human cultural displays are the result of efforts to creativity, other levels may have an impact broadcast courtship displays to recipients: as well. For example, some anthropologists “art evolved, at least originally, to attract view the function of forms of creativity sexual partners by playing upon their senses such as art and music as strengthening a and displaying one’s fitness” (Miller, 2000a, group’s social cohesion. For music in partic- p. 267). ular, Mithen (2006) presents evidence that Along similar lines, Marek Kohn and the melodious vocalizations by our earli- Steven Mithen (Kohn, 1999; Kohn & est ancestors played an important role in Mithen, 1999) propose what they refer to as creating and manipulating social relation- the “sexy-hand axe hypothesis.” According ships through their impact on emotional to this hypothesis, sexual-selection pressures states. may have caused men to produce symmet- ric hand axes as a reliable indicator of cog- nitive, behavioral, and physiological fitness. 6.3 Sexual Selection As Mithen (1996) notes, symmetrical hand Miller (2000a) argues that group-bonding axes are often attractive to the modern eye, accounts of creativity ignore the possible but require a huge investment in time and role of sexual selection in shaping creative energy to make – a burden that makes it hard behavior, and cannot account for the sexual to explain their evolution in terms of strictly attractiveness of various forms of creativity. practical, survival purposes. Since hand axes This idea has its roots in Darwin, who once may be viewed as the first aesthetic artifacts said, “It appears probable that the progen- in the archeological record, these products itors of man, either the males or females may indeed be the first evidence of sexual or both sexes, before acquiring the power selection shaping the emergence of art. P1: OJL Trim: 7in × 10in Top: 0.498in Gutter: 0.871in CUUS1027-15 cuus1027/Kaufman ISBN: 978 0 521 51366 1 May 10, 2010 20:17

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While it is conceivable that sexual selec- on us by our biology. The drive to create is tion plays some role in the evolution of often compared with the drive to procreate, ornamental or aesthetic forms of creativ- and evolutionary forces may be at the gene- ity, such as art, music, dance, and humor, sis of both. In other words, we may be tin- it is less conceivable that it plays a role in kered with by two evolutionary forces, one the evolution of forms of creativity with that prompts us to act in ways that foster the direct survival benefits, such as technolog- proliferation of our biological lineage, and ical advances (Feist, 2001). Moreover, to one that prompts us to act in ways that fos- make the argument convincing it would ter the proliferation of our cultural lineage. be necessary to show that creative people For example, it has been suggested that we are indeed considered more attractive, and exhibit a cultural form of altruism, such that have greater reproductive success. Although we are kind not only to those with whom we there is some evidence that intelligent and share genes but with whom we share ideas creative individuals are considered more and values (Gabora, 1997). By contributing attractive and have more sexual partners to the well-being of those who share our (Buss, 1989; Griskevicius, Cialdini, & Ken- cultural makeup, we aid the proliferation of rick, 2006; Nettle & Clegg, 2006; Prokosch our “cultural selves.” Similarly, when we are et al., 2009), there is also evidence that cre- in the throes of creative obsession, it may be ative people tend to be less likely to marry that cultural forces are compelling us to give and, when they do, have fewer children all we have to our ideas, much as biological (Harrison, Moore, & Rucker, 1985), a fac- forces compel us to provide for our children. tor that surely also impacts their reproduc- Note that all of the theories discussed so tive success. Moreover time spent on cre- far in this section attempt to explain why ative projects may be time taken away from humans are creative at all, but even with mating and child rearing. these same pressures operating we would Mithen (2006) presents evidence that the not be particularly creative if we did not musicality of our ancestors and relatives did live in a richly fascinating world that affords in fact have considerable survival value as a creativity. Rosch (1975) provides evidence means of communicating emotions, inten- that we form concepts in such a way as to tions, information, and facilitating cooper- internally mirror the correlational structure ation, and thus sexual selection may well of the external world. Similarly, much cre- not be the sole or primary selective pressure ativity is inspired by the goal of understand- for musicality. Additionally, he notes that ing, explaining, and mastering the world we although it may appear at first blush that cre- live in. Thus the beauty and intricacy of ative men have more short-term sexual part- our ideas, and how they unfold over time, ners because of their creativity, their attrac- reflects in part the beauty and intricacy of tiveness may be more the combination of our world, not just the world we actually good looks, style, and an antiestablishment live in, but the potential worlds suggested by persona. the world we live in, and the fact that as our Perhaps the most reasonable conclusion is internal models of the world – our world- that sexual selection may have helped ramp views – change, so does this halo of poten- up the evolution of creativity, exaggerating tial worlds. Indeed one could say that human certain forms, or making them not so purely creativity evolves by compelling susceptible functional but also ornamental. individuals (those whose minds are poised to solve particular creatively challenging prob- lems or engage in creative tasks) to tem- 6.4 Non-biological Explanations porarily put aside concerns associated with for Creativity survival of the “biological self,” and to reach If culture constitutes a second form of evo- into this “halo of possibility,” rework familiar lution, it may also exert pressures on us that narratives, or juxtapose familiar objects and differ from, or even counter, those exerted reconceptualize their interrelationships, and P1: OJL Trim: 7in × 10in Top: 0.498in Gutter: 0.871in CUUS1027-15 cuus1027/Kaufman ISBN: 978 0 521 51366 1 May 10, 2010 20:17

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thereby hone a more nuanced “cultural self.” ishing of creativity between 60,000 and In sum, the creative process is compelling 30,000 years ago in the Middle/Upper Pale- and our creative achievements unfold with olithic, which is associated with the begin- breathtaking speed and complexity in part nings of art, science, politics, religion, and because we are fortunate enough to live in probably syntactical language. The time lag a world that offers infinite possibilities for suggests that behavioral modernity arose exploring not just the realm of “what is” but owing not to new brain parts or increased the realm of “what could be.” memory but a more sophisticated way of using memory. This may have involved the onset of symbolic thinking, cognitive flu- 7. Conclusions idity, and the capacity to shift between convergent and divergent or explicit and This chapter addressed a number of ques- implicit modes of thought. Also, the emer- tions that lie at the foundation of who we gence of metacognition enabled our ances- are and what makes human life meaning- tors to reflect on and even override their own ful. Why does no other species remotely nature. approach the degree of cultural complex- This chapter also reviewed efforts to ity of humans? How did humans become so understand the role of creativity in not just good at generating ideas and adapting them biological but also cultural evolution. Some to new situations? Why are humans driven have investigated the intriguing possibility to create? Do creative ideas evolve in the that the cultural evolution of ideas and same sense as biological life – through natu- inventions occurs through a Darwinian pro- ral selection – or by some other means? cess akin to natural selection. A problem We began with a brief tour of the his- faced by Darwinian approaches is that nat- tory of Homo sapiens, starting six million ural selection is inapplicable to the extent years ago when we began diverging from that there is inheritance of acquired traits, our ancestral apes. The earliest signs of cre- and so such an approach is inappropriate ativity are simple stone tools, thought to be to the extent that individuals actively shape made by Homo habilis, just over two million ideas and adapt them to their own needs years ago. Though primitive, they marked and aesthetic tastes. They can account for a momentous breakthrough: the arrival of creative change that occurs during trans- a species that would eventually refashion to mission (e.g., owing to biased transmis- its liking an entire planet. With the arrival of sion or copying error), but not for change Homo erectus roughly 1.8 million years ago, that occurs because of thinking through there was a dramatic enlargement in cranial how something could work. Nevertheless, capacity coinciding with solid evidence of ideas clearly exhibit phenomena observed creative thinking: task-specific stone hand in biological evolution, such as adaptation, axes, complex stable seasonal habitats, and niches, and drift. If they do not evolve signs of coordinated, long-distance hunt- through selection, how might they evolve? ing. It has been proposed that the larger It was noted that the self-organized, self- brain allowed items encoded in memory regenerating autocatalytic structures widely to be more fine grained, which facilitated believed to be the earliest forms of life the forging of creative connections between did not evolve through natural selection them, and paved the way for self-triggered either, but through communal exchange of thought, rehearsal and refinement of skills, innovations. It has been proposed that what and thus the ability mentally to go beyond evolves through culture is individuals’ inter- “what is” to “what could be.” nal models of the world, or worldviews, and Another rapid increase in cranial capac- that like early life they are self-organized and ity occurred between 600,000 and 150,000 self-regenerating. Worldviews evolve not years ago. It preceded by some hundreds through ‘survival of the fittest’ but through of thousands of years the sudden flour- ‘transformation of all’ (the fit and the P1: OJL Trim: 7in × 10in Top: 0.498in Gutter: 0.871in CUUS1027-15 cuus1027/Kaufman ISBN: 978 0 521 51366 1 May 10, 2010 20:17

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