Why Is Man Creative?

[Seil]

So I was talking with me Bio prof. about kissing last February, and she talked about the evolutionary benefits of certain behaviors. For instance, we groom ourselves to keep away small pests and the diseases they could carry. We fight for resources.

A lot of things can be credited to evolution - why we do this, why we do that... But why are we creative? Why do we write poetry, sing songs or paint paintings? What evolutionary benefit does this serve? Why do we do it?

[Sithdarth]

Tools. At some point evolution stumbled onto the fact that a mind that can create things is infinitely more versatile than even the best most adaptable body. A mind that can make tools can overcome just about anything given the time to invent and generally much more quickly than physical evolution. The ability to think more and more abstractly and thus devise more and more complex tools is a giant evolutionary advantage. Everything that we do that is creative is in some way at its base a tool. Language and art are meant to convey meaning and keep records for example. They are social tools. Oh and we aren't the only creative ones just the best at it.

[Geminex]

Originally Posted by Sithdarth

Tools. At some point evolution stumbled onto the fact that a mind that can create things is infinitely more versatile than even the best most adaptable body. A mind that can make tools can overcome just about anything given the time to invent and generally much more quickly than physical evolution. The ability to think more and more abstractly and thus devise more and more complex tools is a giant evolutionary advantage. Everything that we do that is creative is in some way at its base a tool. Language and art are meant to convey meaning and keep records for example. They are social tools. Oh and we aren't the only creative ones just the best at it.

This is interesting... but how would you define "creative" in the first place? Because what you're describing here is the result of us evolving larger, more intelligent brains. And while it makes sense that the ability to recognize patterns would develop in parallel to the ability to replicate those patterns, the fact that the most intelligent members of human society aren't always hugely creative, and vice versa, doesn't really support that.

[Toast]

Originally Posted by Geminex

This is interesting... but how would you define "creative" in the first place? ... the fact that the most intelligent members of human society aren't always hugely creative, and vice versa, doesn't really support that.

Whether people are always hugely creative or not really does hinge on the definition of creativity you're using. If your definition of creative has to include a product (a physical object that is created) then you're probably right. If that product then has to have an impact and be widely recognized within its domain (genre) then you're even more right. That's a very narrow way to view creativity, although it apparently is a very common theoretical view.

If creativity is a process of building new information out of known facts and observations, then we're doing it all the time. Of course, that can readily be argued to be too broad a definition as well.

One might argue that our need to be creative and express ourselves evolved as a way to reduce stress and solve more complex problems we might face. One might also suggest it is a biproduct of our species evolving more advanced brains.

I think this is the most likely reason why creativity developed. Could you imagine how utterly boring the world would be without fiction? I've always thought that man's first dabbling with spirituality was just fiction that caught on.

[Sithdarth]

The actual problem is that we developed these huge brains before we started exploiting tool use heavily and before they were seemingly useful.

Yeah see you've fallen for the same fallacy almost all of us fall for. Size is almost entirely unimportant in terms of capability. I mean yeah sure bigger helps but true brain power comes from structure. For example, even bees have a bullshit detector. This scientist did an experiment where he took bees out in a boat with pollen in it and when they went back to the hive and told the other bees there was food in the middle of a lake not a single one believed it. There was a parrot that could do math. There are several species that can recognize themselves in a mirror. There are monkeys that can use currency and other monkeys that can tell the difference between a picture of an apple and an apple instantly from a distant. (That last one even human babies have trouble with for awhile.)

Our brain might have been big but it wasn't wired for the kind of abstract creative thinking we do now until tool use became an integral part of our survival. That is when we moved onto the plains, started walking on two legs, and started stealing meat from predators. Our hands where free all the time to hold and make better tools and we needed better organization just to stay alive in the open. Thus those of us with brains wired for more and more creativity survived. Plus the extra energy from the meat really helped power a more active brain. Which is why we beat out some of the other early plains primates that were largely vegetarian but otherwise quite like us.

As for modern humans; everyone is creative in the sense that everyone can think of abstract things that don't exist. (Except maybe those with Autism.) Some people are just better at it than others. Of course even back when we first developed creativity there must have been people much better at it than other people. The only difference is back then they had a better chance of living and producing offspring than the less creative and now that isn't really a problem. Evolutionarily speaking people with very little creativity aren't as well adapted for survival. (Which would probably include me as I am no artist. Although I can be creative with problem solving so who knows.)

[POS Industries]

Originally Posted by Sithdarth

As for modern humans; everyone is creative in the sense that everyone can think of abstract things that don't exist. (Except maybe those with Autism.)

Might depend on how severe a case of autism we're talking about.

[POS Industries]

Really, any given episode of According To Jim potentially shatters the idea that mankind is inherently creative.

But all kidding aside (OR WAS I?), such endeavors arguably aren't exclusive to our species, though it may still be mainly a primate thing.

EDIT: Because of tools, yep. There we go. Thank you, Sith.

[mauve]

One might argue that our need to be creative and express ourselves evolved as a way to reduce stress and solve more complex problems we might face. One might also suggest it is a biproduct of our species evolving more advanced brains.

Humans aren't the only species to exhibit creativity, although this can be contested based upon your definition of "creativity." True, we may be the only species to create art and music (I'm not counting zoo animals that people teach how to "paint"), but more intelligent animals have demonstrated very clever ways of solving problems that aren't directly related to evolution. Take the example of the crows in Japan who learned to drop nuts into crosswalks to let passing cars crack the shells. The nuts aren't their only food source-- finding ways to crack them open wasn't something they needed to do to survive. Extra freaky: Look at the example of the aquarium dolphins who taught themselves to blow bubble rings. They serve no real purpose: the dolphins blow the bubbles and then push them around with their noses for no reason other than entertaining themselves.

[POS Industries]

Originally Posted by Mauve Mage

(I'm not counting zoo animals that people teach how to "paint")

Let's not kid ourselves here. You could put up a painting by Koko the Gorilla in the middle of a Jackson Pollock exhibit and no one would be the wiser.

[greed]

Originally Posted by Mauve Mage

Take the example of the crows in Japan who learned to drop nuts into crosswalks to let passing cars crack the shells. The nuts aren't their only food source-- finding ways to crack them open wasn't something they needed to do to survive.

I once saw a crow lever some food out of a crack in a tree trunk it couldn't reach with it's beak using a stick. The scary part? After the stick didn't work by itself, it placed a pebble underneath to use as a fulcrum. That worked. I've also seen them dunk corn chips in water to make them soft enough to eat. And apparently the ones in Queensland Australia have figured out that the eyes of cane toads aren't poisonous, so they eat the eyes and leave the rest alone. Those things are smart.

People like to talk about how smart parrots are, but crows are pretty scary when it comes to logic.