The Origins of Creativity

by Pfenninger, Karl H.; Shubik, Valerie R.

• ISBN13: 9780198507154
• ISBN10: 0198507151
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-07-12
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The exploration of creativity used to be confined to the domains of psychology and philosophy. This has changed greatly in recent years with the dramatic advances of modern neuroscience and our greatly improved understanding of higher brain function. This book examines the biology of the brain and creativity not only through psychology and philosophy but also with the input of art, science and neurobiology, for the first time bringing the discoveries of modern neurobiology to bear on the subject of creativity. It addresses four themes central to our understanding of creativity: the creative experience in art and science; the mind's perception of patterns; the biological basis of imagination; and the influence of the environment of creative powers. In this fascinating and inter-disciplinary collection of essays painters and composers explore the creative processes in their arts, a mathematician points out that computer generated fractal images are often perceived as art and evoke emotional reactions, and modern neuroscience begins to explain the creator's experience and sees creative decision-making as a function that is inseparable from emotion. Not only are these essays fascinating within themselves, but they interact and collide in such a way that suddenly mathematics is bringing forth art and science becomes an argument for unexplainable emotions. Many questions and theories are explored in these pages - What is the Eureka experience, how do the brain and mind make creative decisions, and what is the role of emotion? In the end The Origins of Creativity will explore with you the possibility of creativity being a genetically encoded product of the evolution of the brain, favored by natural selection, but influenced by the environment of each individual as it unifies traditional views on creativity with today's new sciences of the mind.

Table of Contents

List of colour plates	viii
List of other illustrations	ix
The entangled bank: an introduction	xi
Eureka! Discovery versus creation
Overturning the dogma: catalytic RNA	5	(14)
Thomas R. Cech
Form from fire	19	(12)
Dale Chihuly
Meaning in art and science	31	(16)
Gunther S. Stent
Body, brain, and mind: emotion and reason
Embracing the range	47	(12)
David E. Rogers
Some notes on brain, imagination, and creativity	59	(10)
Antonio R. Damasion
With music in mind	69	(20)
Bruce Adolphe
The evolving brain	89	(12)
Karl H. Pfenninger
The adaptive mind: deprivation versus rich stimulation
The early experience	101	(16)
Janina Galler
Creators: multiple intelligences	117	(28)
Howard Gardner
Tides of Genius	145	(18)
George E. Palade
Patterns of perception
A painter's perspective	163	(14)
Francoise Gilot
Line Versus color: the brain and the language of visual arts	177	(14)
Charles F. Stevens
The fractal universe	191	(46)
Benoit B. Mandelbrot
Insights into the foundations of creativity: a synthesis	213	(24)
References and further reading	237	(10)
Biographies	247	(16)
Index	263