Dawn of the Creative Mind
The Origin and Evolution of Culture and Innovation
Will be published approx. on 30. November 2026
Book
Hardback
316 pages
978-1-009-73612-1 (ISBN)
Description
In a world of constant change, where new challenges demand novel solutions, understanding creativity has never been more essential. How do we create? How did we become so creative? Given that ideas adapt and build on one another, in what sense does culture evolve? Synthesizing research from psychology, cognitive science, anthropology, archaeology, computational models, evolutionary theory, and first-person accounts, this book reveals how creativity sparks innovation, heals inner turmoil, connects minds, and fuels cultural change. It advances an ambitious, original theory of how the creative process works, and a theory of cultural evolution that can account for difficult-to-explain features, such as cross-domain transfer, and our highly cooperative nature. The text traces the lifespan of ideas from conception, to gestation, to birth, to their release into the world, where they acquire new forms, adapting to the new minds in which they take up residence.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
Worked examples or Exercises
ISBN-13
978-1-009-73612-1 (9781009736121)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
approx. 11/2026
Cambridge University Press
€40.00
Not yet published
Person
Liane Gabora is a Full Professor of Psychology at the University of British Columbia. A recipient of the American Psychological Association's Berlyne Award, she has delivered lectures worldwide and published over 200 works in scholarly journals, conference proceedings, and edited volumes. Liane is also a composer and published short story writer, and recently completed a work of fiction titled Quilandria: A Novel about Minds, Ideas, and Other Worlds.
Content
Part I. Conception and Gestation of an Idea: 1. Creativity: an interdisciplinary odyssey; 2. Minds and worldviews: the dwelling place of unborn ideas; 3. Inklings, inspirations, and insights; 4. The bearers of creative ideas; 5. Quantum cognition and ideation; Part II. Birth of an Idea: 6. Reconceptualizing divergent and convergent thought; 7. Why creativity is transformative and therapeutic; 8. Honing theory of creativity; 9. Empirical evidence for honing theory; Part III. In What Sense Does an Idea Evolve?: 10. Co-creation and cultural diffusion of ideas; 11. Culture as an evolutionary process; 12. Darwinian and quasi-Darwinian conceptions of cultural evolution; 13. Cultural evolution through self-other reorganization; Part IV. Evolution of Minds, Ideas, and Worldviews: 14. The early origins of creative culture; 15. The transition to distinctively human culture; 16. Modelling cultural discontinuity; Part V. Implications for Consciousness, AI, and Humanity's Future: 17. Implications for consciousness; 18. Implications for artificial intelligence; 19. Implications for evolving a cooperative and sustainable future.