Mutations in Nature and Culture Essay -- Exploratory Essays Research P

Mutations in spirit and market-gardeningMany other words, both positive and negative, spring to chief when one hears the word mutation. In a scientific sense, one office think of the random magnetic declinations that lead to evolution in species. In a sci-fi/ horror flick sense, one might think of a venomous monster that after contact with some radioactive substance became frightfully disfigured. But r bely do we associate mutations with ideas pervasive to our culture. Daniel Dennett suggests that memes undergo a certain kind of mutation that is inherent to the original evolution of culture.The some important distinction to be made between mutation as it applies to biological evolution, and how it applies to creative evolution is the function of randomness. In nature, random variation is the cause of mutation, and therefore the appearance of different traits. In the generation of ideas, the social occasion of randomness is not so easy to pinpoint. On the one hand, it seems that creative ideas are generated through patterns of associationDuring creative thought, memes potentially relevant to a solution would evoke or activate one another, altering or strategically (though not necessarily consciously) manipulating them... (Gabora 1)Yet, there is no predictability to these associations, and furthermore, The very creativeness and activity of human minds as temporary homes for memes seems to guarantee that lines of descent are hopelessly muddled, and that phenotypes (the body designs of memes) change so fast that theres no safekeeping track... (Dennett 355) So perhaps what we would call randomness as it plays out in the evolution of species is really taken over by an element of disorganization in creative forces. Dennett cites Stephen J... ...sually fatal or detrimental to the organism in which it occurs. However, mutations are creativitys greatest asset at one time, the great remotion from more traditional realist art that impressionism posed seemed det rimental to the world of painting. The go forth was the beautiful addition of artists like Monet and Degas to the sphere of art. Whether one chooses to involve impressionism in his or her organization of art history is dependent upon the thinker, besides one cannot deny that creative mutation is ultimately beneficial to culture. whole shebang CitedDennett, Daniel C. Darwins Dangerous Idea Evolution and the Meanings of Life. New York Touchstone, 1996.Gabora, Liane. The Origin and Evolution of Culture and Creativity. Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission, 1. 1997. Available http//jom-emit.cfpm.org/1997/vol1/gabora_l.html