Mutations in Nature and Culture
Many other words, both positive and negative, spring to mind when one hears the word "mutation." In a scientific sense, one might think of the random variations that lead to evolution in species. In a sci-fi/ horror flick sense, one might think of a vicious monster that after contact with some radioactive substance became terribly disfigured. But rarely 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 creative evolution of culture.
The most 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 role of randomness is not so easy to pinpoint. On the one hand, it seems that creative ideas are generated through patterns of association:
"During 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 creativity 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 there's no keeping 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...
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...sually fatal or detrimental to the organism in which it occurs. However, mutations are creativity's greatest asset: at one time, the great removal from more traditional realist art that impressionism posed seemed detrimental to the world of painting. The result was the beautiful addition of artists like Monet and Degas to the sphere of art. Whether one chooses to include impressionism in his or her organization of art history is dependent upon the thinker, but one cannot deny that creative mutation is ultimately beneficial to culture.
Works Cited
Dennett, Daniel C. Darwin's 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
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Isaac, L. A. and Thomas L. A.(2013). Race, Ethnicity, and Health: A Public Health Reader. San Francisco, CA: A Wiley Imprint.
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Darwin, Charles. From The Origin of Species. New York: P.F. Collier and Son Corporation, 1937. 71-86; 497-506.
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