Drive for Creativity

TL;DR

This paper hypothesizes that the evolution of internal representations in animals and humans facilitated creativity, driven by the knowledge instinct, with implications for understanding decision making, language, and music.

Contribution

It proposes a new evolutionary framework linking internal representations and the knowledge instinct to creativity and cognitive development.

Findings

Creativity evolved alongside internal representations in animals and humans.

Higher levels of the knowledge instinct are associated with the drive for creativity.

The paper suggests experimental directions to test these hypotheses.

Abstract

We advance a hypothesis that creativity has evolved with evolution of internal representations, possibly from amniotes to primates, and further in human cultural evolution. Representations separated sensing from acting and gave "internal room" for creativity. To see (or perform any sensing), creatures with internal representations had to modify these representations to fit sensor signals. Therefore the knowledge instinct, KI, the drive to fit representations to the world, had to evolve along with internal representations. Until primates, it remained simple, without language internal representations could not evolve from perceptions to abstract representations, and abstract thoughts were not possible. We consider creative vs. non-creative decision making, and compare KI with Kahneman-Tversky's heuristic thinking. We identify higher, conscious levels of KI with the drive for creativity (DC) and discuss the roles of language and music, brain mechanisms involved, and experimental directions for testing the advanced hypotheses.