Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-x4r87 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-29T15:49:28.136Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The allure of the unknown in a tamed, mapped, and homogenized world

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 November 2022

Liane Gabora Open the ORCID record for Liane Gabora [Opens in a new window]  and
Isabel Gomez
Liane Gabora
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology (Okanagan Campus), University of British Columbia, Kelowna, BCV1V 1V7, Canada liane.gabora@ubc.ca; https://people.ok.ubc.ca/lgabora/ mislabel.gomez@ubc.ca
Isabel Gomez
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology (Okanagan Campus), University of British Columbia, Kelowna, BCV1V 1V7, Canada liane.gabora@ubc.ca; https://people.ok.ubc.ca/lgabora/ mislabel.gomez@ubc.ca
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

As the physical world becomes tamed and mapped out, opportunities to experience the unknown become rarer; imaginary worlds provide a much-needed sense of potentiality. Potentiality is central to the Self-Other Re-organization theory of cultural evolution, which postulates that creativity fuels cumulative cultural change. We point to evidence that fear affects, not the magnitude of exploration, but how cautiously it proceeds.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 45 , 2022 , e282
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aerts, D., Aerts, S., & Gabora, L. (2009). Experimental evidence for quantum structure in cognition. In Bruza, P., Lawless, W., van Rijsbergen, K. & Sofge, D. (Eds.) Lecture notes in computer science: Quantum interaction (pp. 59–79). Springer.Google Scholar
Aerts, D., Broekaert, J., Gabora, L., & Sozzo, S. (2016). Generalizing prototype theory: A formal quantum framework. Frontiers in Psychology (Section: Cognition), 7(418). doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00418Google ScholarPubMed
Carbert, N., Gabora, L., Schwartz, J., & Ranjan, A. (2014). Cognitive states of potentiality in art-making. In Kozbelt, A., Locher, P. & Tinio, P. (Eds.), Proceedings of the IAEA congress on empirical aesthetics (pp. 121–126). International Association of Empirical Aesthetics Press.Google Scholar
Dreu, C. K. D., Nijstad, B. A., & Baas, M. (2011). Behavioral activation links to creativity because of increased cognitive flexibility. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2(1), 72–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Forgeard, M. (2013). Perceiving benefits after adversity: The relationship between self-reported posttraumatic growth and creativity. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, Arts 7, 245–264.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gabora, L. (1998). Weaving, bending, patching, mending the fabric of reality: A cognitive science perspective on worldview inconsistency. Foundations of Science, 3(2), 395–428.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gabora, L. (2019). Creativity: Linchpin in the quest for a viable theory of cultural evolution. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 27, 77–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gabora, L., & Colgan, P. (1990). A model of the mechanisms underlying exploratory behavior. In Wilson, S. & Mayer, J. A. (Eds.), Proceedings of first international conference on the simulation of adaptive behavior (pp. 475–484). MIT Press.Google Scholar
Gabora, L., & Saab, A. (2011). Creative interference and states of potentiality in analogy problem solving. In Carlson, L., Hőlscher, C. & Shipley, T. F. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 33rd annual meeting of the cognitive science society (pp. 3506–3511). Cognitive Science Society.Google Scholar
Gabora, L., & Steel, M. (2020a). A model of the transition to behavioral and cognitive modernity using reflexively autocatalytic networks. Journal of the Royal Society Interface, 17(171), 1720200545. http://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2020.0545CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gabora, L., & Steel, M. (2020b). Modeling a cognitive transition at the origin of cultural evolution using autocatalytic networks. Cognitive Science, 44(9), e12878. https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.12878CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gabora, L., & Steel, M. (2021). An evolutionary process without variation and selection. Journal of the Royal Society Interface, 18(180). 20210334. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2021.0334CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gabora, L., & Steel, M. (2017). Autocatalytic networks in cognition and the origin of culture. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 431, 87–95.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gabora, L., & Tseng, S. (2017). The social benefits of balancing creativity and imitation: Evidence from an agent-based model. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 11(4), 457–473.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kauffman, S. A. (2019). A world beyond physics: The emergence and evolution of life. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Koppl, R., Kauffman, S., Felin, T., & Longo, G. (2015). Economics for a creative world. Journal of Institutional Economics, 11(1), 1–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Riley, S., & Gabora, L. (2012). Evidence that threatening situations enhance creativity. In Miyake, N., Peebles, D. & Cooper, R. P. (Eds.) Proceedings of the 34th annual meeting of the cognitive science society (pp. 2234–2239). Cognitive Science Society.Google Scholar
Ritter, S. M., Damian, R. I., Simonton, D. K., van Baaren, R. B., Strick, M., Derks, J., & Dijksterhuis, A. (2012). Diversifying experiences enhance cognitive flexibility. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(4), 961–964.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scotney, V., Schwartz, J., Carbert, C., Adam Saab, A., & Gabora, L. (2020). The form of a ‘half-baked’ creative idea: Empirical explorations into the structure of ill-defined mental representations. Acta Psychologica, 202, 102983. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2019.102981Google Scholar
Smith, C., Gabora, L., & Gardner-O'Kearny, W. (2018). The extended evolutionary synthesis facilitates evolutionary models of culture change. Cliodynamics: The Journal of Quantitative History and Cultural Evolution, 9(2), 84–107.Google Scholar
Watson, K. (2011). Gallows humor in medicine. Hastings Center Report, 41(5), 37–45.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Weston, A., & Imas, J. M. (2018) Creativity: Transformation of adversity. In Martin, L. & Wilson, N. (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of creativity at work (pp. 287–307). Palgrave Macmillan, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77350-6_14.Google Scholar