Comments on: Creativity and Human Culture http://www.catboant.com/2009/03/08/liane-gaboras-take-on-reinventing-the-sacred/ Thu, 15 Apr 2010 08:58:00 +0200 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: – Science http://www.catboant.com/2009/03/08/liane-gaboras-take-on-reinventing-the-sacred/comment-page-1/#comment-4272 – Science Sun, 06 Dec 2009 18:01:36 +0000 http://www.catboant.com/?p=134#comment-4272 [...] Leong Ying Liane Gabora [...] [...] Leong Ying Liane Gabora [...]

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]]> By: Stuart Kauffman http://www.catboant.com/2009/03/08/liane-gaboras-take-on-reinventing-the-sacred/comment-page-1/#comment-93 Stuart Kauffman Tue, 10 Mar 2009 04:39:27 +0000 http://www.catboant.com/?p=134#comment-93 Liane, I find your ideas about cultural evolution very rich, particularly compared to the relatively impoverished ideas of "memes" and their mutatations advocated by Richard Dawkins and Marc Feldman. These images are overly genetic. We create novel ideas by your associations, mixing old and new components, and by genuine discoveries, the non-algorithmic analogues of Darwinian exaptations. We need a theory of the partially lawless, non-prestatable, yet non-random becoming of the biosphere, economy, culture, and do not have these ideas in science yet in any clear way. I also think your vision of the "generosity" of God as the natural creativity of nature, our capacity to find even better solutions if we fail on first try, is very worth thinking about. We need our sense of the sacred and of God to orient us to face living into Gordon Kaufman's Mystery, a Mystery which we cannot fully know, with hope and courage. The Abrahamic God who loves us provides that hope. Your vision enlarges the hope that we can find in a creative nature. I would add that I suspect that as the diversity of species and complexity of features per species increases, the ease of finding mutualistic positive sum games increases, so "collaboration" emerges more readily in the biosphere, economics and culture. I'm so glad to have your thoughts included in the discussion(s) we must have. Stu Liane, I find your ideas about cultural evolution very rich, particularly compared to the relatively impoverished ideas of “memes” and their mutatations advocated by Richard Dawkins and Marc Feldman. These images are overly genetic. We create novel ideas by your associations, mixing old and new components, and by genuine discoveries, the non-algorithmic analogues of Darwinian exaptations. We need a theory of the partially lawless, non-prestatable, yet non-random becoming of the biosphere, economy, culture, and do not have these ideas in science yet in any clear way.

I also think your vision of the “generosity” of God as the natural creativity of nature, our capacity to find even better solutions if we fail on first try, is very worth thinking about. We need our sense of the sacred and of God to orient us to face living into Gordon Kaufman’s Mystery, a Mystery which we cannot fully know, with hope and courage. The Abrahamic God who loves us provides that hope. Your vision enlarges the hope that we can find in a creative nature. I would add that I suspect that as the diversity of species and complexity of features per species increases, the ease of finding mutualistic positive sum games increases, so “collaboration” emerges more readily in the biosphere, economics and culture.

I’m so glad to have your thoughts included in the discussion(s) we must have. Stu

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