Quote:
Originally Posted by Mucha na Dziko
Well, your metaphor is actually implying by itself what is the more creatve/innovative process.
Creating new puzzle pieces is a far more creative process than making combinations of existing puzzle pieces. Even because of the simple fact that thanks to these new puzzle pieces you can make even more combinations. Not mentioning the art and skill needed to invent a puzzle piece that's never existed before (making combinations of puzzles is a rather derivative process – no artisan skill needed; only some free time and boredom).
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I think it depends. A new puzzle piece could look much like another. Let's say hypothetically that all popular music is made in 4/4. You make a song in 5/4, creating a new puzzle piece. Someone else hears it and thinks hey, an odd time signature! I'll make a song in 7/8.
The invention of the 5/4 time signature would have happened in a world where only 4/4 time signatures exist whereas the invention of the 7/8 would happen in a world where both 4/4 and 5/4 existed before it. Hence, I would say invention of the 5/4 time signature is a greater innovation than the 7/8 (in this example).
BUT I readily concede that the metaphor shouldn't be taken too literally. What I wanted to illustrate was that the nature of innovation itself changes over time. As previously stated, a musical meme, if such a thing could be defined, isn't necessarily easily tied to either one of these two suggested forms of innovation in any clear way and might be a blend. This doesn't invalidate the usefulness of the metaphor, but it shouldn't be expected to exactly mirror reality or imply that reality is easily measurable by those terms. I wrote that you could perhaps try to do it, but it would be a lot of work and require a lot of arbitrary assumptions about what constitutes an innovative meme, how do you determine its new-puzzleness vs. combination-ness, etc.