Mindbloggling

Current ideas about cultural evolution and the creative processes that power it.

by Liane Gabora, Ph.D.

Does It Make Any Sense to Apply Quantum Mechanics to How People Think?

Go into any bookstore and you can find books on ‘quantum computation’, ‘quantum healing’, and even ‘quantum golf’. But quantum mechanics describes stuff in the microworld of subatomic particles, right? Surely it makes no sense to apply it to macroscopic stuff like computers and golf, let alone psychological stuff like thoughts, feelings, and ideas. Read More

Is Loyalty Destructive?

Elected officials are expected to behave in ways that will enhance the economic prosperity of their municipalities or nations. They are obliged to represent the concerns of those who elected them (not to mention those who pulled the strings that hoisted them to power). To do otherwise would be disloyal. Read More

How Creative Ideas Take Shape

Divergent thought is divergent not in the sense of generating multiple possibilities but in the sense of producing a promising idea that is vague or unfocused, like a diverging beam of light. Similarly, convergent thought is convergent not in the sense of selecting amongst alternatives but in the sense of bringing a vague idea into focus, like a converging beam of light. Read More

Are you the First Member of a New Species?

Think 'being different' is tough? It has happened millions of times on this planet that an organism's DNA mutated, and the organism was not the same species as either of its parents, nor anyone in the neighborhood, nor for that matter anything that ever lived before. It's bound to happen again in our lineage. Here's where to turn if you're REALLY different... Read More

How a Generation Was Misled About Natural Selection

John von Neumann, one of the most brilliant mathematicians who ever lived, worked out the algorithmic structure of natural selection. This work is the gold at the heart of a fascinating intellectual puzzle. Those who have applied Darwinism outside of biology without grasping von Neumann's basic insights have been susceptible to a host of pseudoscientific misadventures. Read More

Are Effective Leaders Creative?

The results suggest that in a fast-changing world, where diversity of ideas is beneficial, it is important to be alert to situations in which leaders pull individuals off their own creative paths. The results also suggest that a startup company may benefit more from creative leadership while an established company benefits more from conservative leadership. Read More

Should Everyone Be Creative?

It goes without saying that creativity is a good thing, and that everyone should be creative. Or does it? Sure, our capacity for self-expression, for finding practical solutions to problems of survival, and coming up with aesthetically pleasing objects that delight the senses, all stem from the creative power of the human mind. But there are drawbacks to creativity. Read More

Holistic Creativity

It seems reasonable that if knowledge is presented in compartmentalized chunks, students end up with a compartmentalized understanding of the world, while if knowledge were presented more holistically, a more integrated kind understanding may be possible. Read More

The Sadness of Potted Plants: Darwinian versus Non-Darwinian Conceptions of Humanity

A friend once told me that his earliest memory was of looking at the potted plants in the garden center of a big department store, and feeling devastated because he could sense the sadness of those plants at being separated from the earth and put into their own little containers. I lost touch with this friend long ago, but this story of his earliest memory stuck with me. Read More

The Power of 'Then': The Uniquely Human Capacity to Imagine Beyond the Present

Living in the 'Now' may help us appreciate our surroundings, forget our worries, leave our ego behind, and awaken spiritual dimensions in our lives. But we can also leave behind the ego and awaken new dimensions through fantasy and imagination, i.e. by living in the ‘Then'. When our ancestors acquired the capacity to break out of the present, it opened up for our species an entirely unprecedented and breathtakingly creative new kind of existence. Read More

Un-family-ar Values

Nothing is more ingrained in society than the notion that those who espouse family values are good, decent people. But might those who do not have children be making life choices in a way that realistically matches what they can contribute to this overpopulated world with what it really needs? Read More