origins of creativity (Edward Wilson)

 Edward O. Wilson, The origins of creativity, 2017

p.5

   The full explaination of any biological phenomenon, including creativity in both science and the humanities, engages three level of thoughts.

First, for any conceivable living entity or process ── a bird taking flight, a lily growing toward the sun, your reading of this sentence ── the first inquiry must be,  What is it?  

Provide the structure and functions that define the phenomenon.  If it involves music or theater, perform it.  

The second level is the question, How was it put together?  What made it come into existence?  What were the events that resulted in the conditions of its origin, whether ten seconds or a thousand years ago?  

The third and final level is,  Why do the phenomenon and its preconditions exist in the first place?  Why not a different mode of evolution not present on this planet that might have produced a different kind of thinking brain? 

   Scientists study living phenomena at all three of these levels.  As a rule, they choose entities and processes that engage the what, how, and why in whatever details and dimension that lies within their reach. 

   Biologists, however, perhaps even more than other scientists, feel it necessary to seek cause and effect at all three levels.  The causes that bring about a living phenonmenon, such as the flight of a bird or our perception of a flower's colors, are called  proximate causes.  

pp.5─6

The events that guided  the evolution of the phenonmenon to its present state are called ultimate  causes.   Proximate causes are the  what  and how of a full explanation.  Ultimate causes are the  why. 

Edward O. Wilson, The origins of creativity, 2017

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πόλλ' οἶδ' ἀλώπηξ,ἀλλ' ἐχῖνος ἓν μέγα πόλλ' οἶδ' ἀλώπηξ,ἀλλ' ἐχῖνος ἓν μέγα