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COPY-AND-PASTE CITATION William H. Calvin, "Cerebral Circuits for Creativity: |
William H.
Calvin |
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William H. Calvin Cerebral Circuits for Creativity Bootstrapping Coherence using a Darwin Machine
The problem with creativity is not in putting together novel mixtures –
a little confusion may suffice – but in managing the incoherence. Things
often don’t hang together properly – as in our nighttime dreams, full
of people, places, and occasions that don’t fit together very well.
What sort of on-the-fly process does it take to convert such an
incoherent mix into a coherent compound, whether it be an on-target
movement program or a novel sentence to speak aloud? The bootstrapping
of new ideas works much like the immune response or the evolution of a
new animal species — except that the neocortical brain circuitry can
turn the Darwinian crank a lot faster, on the time scale
of thought and action. Few proposals achieve a Perfect Ten when judged
against our memories, but we can subconsciously try out variations,
using this Darwin Machine for copying competitions among
WILLIAM H. CALVIN, Ph.D., is a theoretical neurobiologist, the author of 12 books, mostly for general readers, about brains and evolution. A Brain for All Seasons: Human Evolution and Abrupt Climate Change, is about what sudden climate flips did to human evolution over the last 2.5 million years, how the climate lurches resonated with punctuated equilibria to pump up brain size. It won the 2002 Phi Beta Kappa book award for science. Out in March 2004 is A Brief History of the Mind: From Apes to Intellect and Beyond concerning the “Mind’s Big Bang” about 50,000 years ago. More at faculty.washington.edu/wcalvin or WilliamCalvin.com.
The Virtual Index for my books and articles, far better than my printed index in most cases: other authors' books (and who has quoted them):
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of the Mind, 2004
2000
1996
1996
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