The Origins of Creativity

Bol Partner

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 brainand 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: thecreative 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 explainthe 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 forunexplainable 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'snew sciences of the mind.

Bol

'An intellectual hero ... A superb celebrator of science in all its manifestations' Ian McEwan'Darwin's great successor' Jeffrey SachsThe legendary biologist Edward O. Wilson offers his most philosophically probing work to date'Creativity is the unique and defining trait of our species; and its ultimate goal, self-understanding,' begins Edward Wilson's sweeping examination of the humanities and their relationship to the sciences. By studying fields as diverse as paleontology, evolutionary biology and neuroscience, Wilson demonstrates that human creativity began not 10,000 years ago, as we have long assumed, but over 100,000 years ago in the Paleolithic Age. Chronicling the evolution of creativity from primates to humans, Wilson shows how the humanities, in large part spurred on by the invention of language, have played a previously unexamined role in defining our species. Exploring a surprising range of creative endeavors - the instinct to create gardens; the use of metaphors and irony in speech; or the power of music and song - Wilson proposes a transformational 'Third Enlightenment' in which the blending of science and the humanities will enable us to gain a deeper understanding of the human condition, and how it ultimately originated.

Fnac

O.Edward Wilson (Auteur) - Verschenen op 27/11/2018 bij Penguin Group