Creativity: Linchpin in the Quest for a Viable Theory of Cultural Evolution

TL;DR

This paper explores how neural and conceptual models of creativity influence theories of cultural evolution, proposing a non-Darwinian framework centered on creativity as key to understanding cultural change.

Contribution

It introduces a novel perspective on cultural evolution, emphasizing creativity and neural-level insight models over traditional Darwinian selectionist approaches.

Findings

Creativity models challenge Darwinian views of cultural evolution.

Associative memory and concept interaction models support non-Darwinian frameworks.

A creativity-centered theory could unify behavioral sciences.

Abstract

This paper outlines the implications of neural-level accounts of insight, and models of the conceptual interactions that underlie creativity, for a theory of cultural evolution. Since elements of human culture exhibit cumulative, adaptive, open-ended change, it seems reasonable to view culture as an evolutionary process, one fueled by creativity. Associative memory models of creativity and mathematical models of how concepts combine and transform through interaction with a context, support a view of creativity that is incompatible with a Darwinian (selectionist) framework for cultural evolution, but compatible with a non-Darwinian (Self-Other Reorganization) framework. A theory of cultural evolution in which creativity is centre stage could provide the kind of integrative framework for the behavioral sciences that Darwin provided for the life sciences.