Mechanisms of Change and Creativity in Nature and Culture

This Element is about change. Specifically, it's about the underlying mechanisms that cause change to happen, both in nature and in culture; what types there are, how they work, where they can be found, and when they come into play. The ultimate aim is to shed light on two barbed issues. First, what kind of system of change is culture and, second, what kind of change in that system counts as creativity; that is, what are the properties of the mechanisms of change when we explore unknown regions of the cultural realm. To that end, a novel theoretical framework is proposed that is based on the concept of a sightedness continuum. A sightedness framework for the mechanisms of change can integrate the three mechanisms causing gradual, adaptive, and cumulative change – evolution, learning, and development – into a single dimension and provide a clear view of how they cause change.