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psyckers's review
4.0
An interesting book that weaves the aspects of Humanities with the Sciences to work out how a persons thoughts, dreams, creativity, history etc is what it is today.
Journeying from Paleolithic holmiids in the African savanna through to Astronauts in Space; connections between how we perceive the world can be found between us and even other animals from the small ant through to the Great Blue Whale.
This book proves that Sciences alone cannot fully understand how creativity works and why people believe the things they do, but with a grasp of humanities, how stories have formed over thousands of years.
True to his profession, the author entomologist knowledge is worked through this book. Yet instead of being used as knowledge factual, its used to tell the story how animal societies can be just as rich with creativity as our own societies.
Journeying from Paleolithic holmiids in the African savanna through to Astronauts in Space; connections between how we perceive the world can be found between us and even other animals from the small ant through to the Great Blue Whale.
This book proves that Sciences alone cannot fully understand how creativity works and why people believe the things they do, but with a grasp of humanities, how stories have formed over thousands of years.
True to his profession, the author entomologist knowledge is worked through this book. Yet instead of being used as knowledge factual, its used to tell the story how animal societies can be just as rich with creativity as our own societies.
uuuultraviolennnnt's review
challenging
informative
medium-paced
3.25
I love that people like Edward Wilson have taken the time to delve into the humanitarian aspects of Biology, as it is everso present in its students. The roots and connections between creative expression and evolution are in fact abundant.
cathydavies's review
4.0
A fascinating read about human evolution and what this means for science and the humanities. It seemed to be a particularly western view of creativity, which was frustrating at times.
Creativity was defined as searching for originality and great creativity is known by our emotional response to it.
Nature and its influence on human creativity. Also the importance of language.
Not quite what I was expecting.
Creativity was defined as searching for originality and great creativity is known by our emotional response to it.
Nature and its influence on human creativity. Also the importance of language.
Not quite what I was expecting.
maar_deen's review
4.0
I’ve always seen creativity as the most valuable trait that humans possess. Unfortunately, biases led to a widening schism between sciences and humanities, which is also quite limiting when we subconsciously categorize humans and put labels on their personalities – more into sciences can’t get mixed with more into creative things. In “The Origins of Creativity” Edward O. Wilson is trying to show the deep connection between science and creativity, which – given his perspective – don’t only intertwine, but actually have the same roots, in our unlimited curiosity. And these origins are buried deep in our evolutionary path, the first evidence of creativity lasting from over one hundred thousand years ago.
The author defines the human conscience as combined – being able to understand both the outer world and the forces that govern the universe (this being the essence of sciences) and the inner reality, consisting of all things the human mind can imagine (meaning humanities). Even if he supports humanities and tries to interpret them using a scientific approach, Wilson states that they are not complete, limited to our human nature. True, but even if we were to expand this field to what all other species felt and experienced, they would still be limited. Some species have senses that we don’t, such as echolocation, infrared and ultraviolet vision or electric and magnetic sense. But even so, any kind of life that evolved in a certain environment (the earth, in this case) would have evolved with respect to that reference system, so we can’t talk about an objective experience.
There are many other subjects covered in this book, and even though he doesn't come with a direct answer about the origins of creativity, he talks about the common origin arts and sciences have, which is really interesting. More about it on my blog
The author defines the human conscience as combined – being able to understand both the outer world and the forces that govern the universe (this being the essence of sciences) and the inner reality, consisting of all things the human mind can imagine (meaning humanities). Even if he supports humanities and tries to interpret them using a scientific approach, Wilson states that they are not complete, limited to our human nature. True, but even if we were to expand this field to what all other species felt and experienced, they would still be limited. Some species have senses that we don’t, such as echolocation, infrared and ultraviolet vision or electric and magnetic sense. But even so, any kind of life that evolved in a certain environment (the earth, in this case) would have evolved with respect to that reference system, so we can’t talk about an objective experience.
There are many other subjects covered in this book, and even though he doesn't come with a direct answer about the origins of creativity, he talks about the common origin arts and sciences have, which is really interesting. More about it on my blog