From: George Dvorsky (sentdev@hotmail.com)
Date: Wed Jan 08 2003 - 13:01:51 MST
>From: "Nathanael Allison" <jubungalord@hotmail.com>
>Are creative thoughts just random occurances?
No, they are determined by a number of factors, and are limited by the
constraints of the physical environment; we cannot be creative about
something that the environment doesn't influence us to create. In other
words, we literally cannot think out of the box.
>If so than memes are just random occurances?
No, they are not random. They are mostly the result of rational cognition
and observations. But like natural selection, the propogation of memes are
subject to non-random influences (eg. a good idea, or a meme that appeals to
an individual who is prone to want to pass that idea along the chain).
>Assuming that all humans have creative ability and are creative is there a
>possible measurment of creativity?
>It seems that certain people have more ability to connect seperate thoughts
>together? Isn't this what we assume intelligence is?
The measure of creativity would essentially be a metric that gauges the
quality and efficiency of a person's (or group's) ability to construct
things that lack a hard precursor. Thus, to a degree, I would associate a
certain amount of creativity with intelligence.
>(My dominant societies theory may have just been a natural random occurance
>of creative thought? or was it a reaction to some enviromental stimulus?)
I think your thesis is an interesting one, and I strongly suggest you look
up Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies."
He comes up with a number of theories that explain why some societies do
better than others, including geography, access to resources, and most
importantly, access to data. He shows quite convincingly that the most
successful and creative societies in history were those that interacted
regularly and openly with neighboring societies and exchanged information
and technologies.
George
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