Abstract
Human minds are founts of creative
imagination. Why?
I want to explore possible evolutionary reasons
for this capacity. Traditional explanations assume that creative
imagination is biologically adaptive or is a by-product or necessary
concomitant of other biologically useful skills such as solving
problems, attracting mates, avoiding predators and so on.
An alternative is that creative imagination might
be primarily of memetic rather than biological advantage; its
evolution being driven by the competition between memes rather than
genes. I shall briefly review meme theory and memetic drive, consider
how their application to creative imagination might be tested, and
compare this approach with other related theories such as Miller’s
theory of sexual selection. Relevant examples include scientific
eureka moments, literary and musical creativity, the contents of
daydreaming, and distracting thoughts during silent meditation.
On the memetic view, human and biological
creativity are essentially the same process. In both cases design is
driven by the evolutionary algorithm operating on a replicator,
whether that replicator is genes or memes.
