Tè
Darwiniano
Understanding creativity in
mind and brain,
and variation in biological evolution: how do we make new (and effective) complex
entities
Yaneer Bar-Yam
President of the New England Complex Systems
Institute
(Cambridge, MA, U.S.A.)
We discuss how substructure in the brain leads to modularity in the space of patterns. Creativity
follows as the formation of composites from prior experiences. This leads to the recognition of the
importance of "non-universal" architectures designed for effective performance within the context of
specific environments. The non-universal strategy is dramatically different from the universal computation
approach in both philosophy and practice. The analogous relevance of modularity to evolution and evolvability
has been recognized for many years, at least since the classic work of Herbert Simon. However, the practical
implementation of modularity has been hampered by the lack of recognition of the essential non-universality
of this approach. This non-universality should not be understood as a weakness, but rather as a fundamental
observation about the way effective complex systems can be designed. We will discuss the close analogy
between creativity in mind and brain---the creation of new concepts---and creativity in evolution---the
creation of new organisms---and what we can learn about each from the other.
Reference
Bar-Yam, Y. (1997). Dynamics of Complex
Systems, Perseus Press. Chapter 2 and Section 6.6.
"YANEER BAR-YAM is President of the New England Complex Systems Institute, Chairman of the International Conference on Complex Systems, Managing Editor of InterJournal, and author of Dynamics of Complex Systems (1997), the only textbook to address the entire field of complex systems. Bar-Yam uses complex systems concepts to understand how organizations and patterns of behavior arise, evolve, adapt, and how we can use multiscale representations to relate fine and large scale, short and long term perspectives. Applications are to the relationship of structure and function and meeting complex challenges at all scales." (http://www.necsi.org/education/exec/framebaryam.html)