Creativity

While there are those that continue to assert that cultural variation is driven by the embedded homunculus in each of us, the more we know about the way in which change occurs, the more we see ourselves as part of the natural world, and thus explicable in the same terms. This realization doesn’t imply that we only change only in a genetic fashion but that cultural change can be accounted for as an additional aspect of the an overarching general framework.  One way we can see that is in our creativity. The homunculus believers hold that creativity comes from some inner genius who magically instantiates ideas out of the ether. More careful study of the process reveals a cultural inheritance basis in which patterns observed in one area are applied to a new one.  Isaac Asimov seems to have recognized this in his essay 55 years ago:

http://www.salon.com/2014/10/22/never_before_published_isaac_asimov_essay_reveals_the_secret_to_true_creativity

“Obviously, then, what is needed is not only people with a good background in a particular field, but also people capable of making a connection between item 1 and item 2 which might not ordinarily seem connected.”

“Making the cross-connection requires a certain daring. It must, for any cross-connection that does not require daring is performed at once by many and develops not as a ‘new idea,’ but as a mere ‘corollary of an old idea.’”

Science

Given that it is the beginning of the semester and I am teaching World Prehistory, a relatively speaking “introductory” class on archaeology, I spend some time talking about science, how science works and why scientific understandings of the world have the properties that they do. I generally want students to understand how to distinguish between pseudo-scientific statements (and much of what passes for archaeology) from scientific explanations of the archaeological record.  Richard Feynman, of course, has said all of this previously and with a much snappier suit. 

Here’s his lecture on the topic of science:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=EYPapE-3FRw 

At the High Table once again

While Mark was down here in Long Beach we decided to finally invest some energy and money into getting the giant pile of RCD videos digitized and on DVDs. This pile of videos, a product of our mid-90s effort to document Dunnell's classes for posterity, represents several of his most influential classes: Archy 497, 498, 479 and 575. Perhaps of interest to only a small few, the videos capture the essence of what was amazing about graduate school in the University of Washington during this time: a somewhat cantankerous man logically constructing archaeology from first principles to sweeping explanations. Although initially baffling, the lessons learned from those classes provided immense metalevel and philosophical understanding of the practice of science and its conceptual framework. Although there are those who really disliked the class, there are probably few that weren't impacted by it in a deep way. Those were amazing classes. Well, to mark the movement of RCD into the digital world, I am happy to announce web versions of Dunnell. I'll try to get more up as they are finished. But for now, treat yourself to the first two lectures of Archy 497: Formal Theory. http://darwin.anth.csulb.edu/rcd/497/Lectures.html