The Origin of Ideas

Blending, Creativity, and the Human Spark

Mark Turner (Professor, Case Western Reserve University)

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English

Oxford University Press
01 March 2014

Anthropology; Psychology; Child & developmental psychology; Social, group or collective psychology; Cognition & cognitive psychology

Why are we so innovative? Where do new ideas come from? Why are human

beings so exceptionally good at innovation, leaving other species

mentally in the dust? How can we hold onto new ideas once they are

formed? This book explores the claim that the human spark, the source of

innovation and the origin of ideas, was an advance that occurred in a

particular kind of mental operation, which Turner calls blending.

Blending is our ability to take two ideas or more and create a new idea

from the ""blend."" And what is so fascinating is how human beings are

able to engage in blending almost without effort and usually

unconsciously. It appears to be second nature to us, how we live and breathe in the course of processing

information and ideas.

Human beings are profoundly different from

all other species in this ability. While many species can do what we

cannot-fly, run amazingly fast, see in the dark—only human beings can

innovate. Beginning somewhere in the Paleolithic Age, everything changed

in the course of human events. Before that, we were a bunch of large

mammals. After that, we were poised to take over the world. Turner makes

the controversial and provocative claim that what made human advances

possible was the ability to engage in the virtuosity of blending, which

is everywhere apparent in our cultural record-in our creations and

innovations-it is the origin of our ideas.

Turner's theory of blending is featured in Jonah Lehrer's bestselling book, Imagine, and

this book will be the first to lay out this theory in detail for a lay

audience and academics tackling the nature of the human brain and the

fascinating puzzle of what it means to be human.

Readership: Lay

readers of popular science, books on neuroscience and creativity;

students (even at a high-school level) in psychology, cognitive science,

anthropology

By: Mark Turner (Professor Case Western Reserve University)
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 239mm, Width: 162mm, Spine: 26mm
Weight: 536g
ISBN: 9780199988822
ISBN 10: 019998882X
Pages: 304
Publication Date: 01 March 2014
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Mark Turner, Ph.D., is Institute Professor and Professor of Cognitive Science at Case Western Reserve University. He is the founding director of the Cognitive Science Network and co-director of the Red Hen Lab. His most recent book publications are Ten Lectures on Mind and Language and two edited volumes, The Artful Mind: Cognitive Science and the Riddle of Human Creativity, from Oxford University Press, and Meaning, Form, & Body, edited with Fey Parrill and Vera Tobin, published by the Center for the Study of Language and Information. His other books and articles include Cognitive Dimensions of Social Science: The Way We Think about Politics, Economics, Law, and Society, The Literary Mind: The Origins of Thought and Language, Reading Minds: The Study of English in the Age of Cognitive Science, and Death is the Mother of Beauty. He has been a fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the National Humanities Center, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute of Advanced Study of Durham University, and the Centre for Advanced Study at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. He is a fellow of the Institute for the Science of Origins, external research professor at the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study in Cognitive Neuroscience, distinguished fellow at the New England Institute for Cognitive Science and Evolutionary Psychology, and Extraordinary Member of the Humanwissenschaftsliches Zentrum. In 1996, the Academie francaise awarded him the Prix du Rayonnement de la langue et de la litterature francaises.

Reviews for The Origin of Ideas: Blending, Creativity, and the Human Spark

Turner makes a cogent and often colorfully argued case for blending's importance as crucial to the development of new ideas and imaginative works. --Publishers Weekly Turner probes the nature of creativity. [...He applies] 'blending' to such complex topics as 'self, ' 'identity, ' and 'theory of mind' in a reader-friendly style that encompasses neurobiology, cartoons, Picasso, and Winnie-the-Pooh. Recommended. All readers. --S. Krippner, CHOICE