A Triptych on the Adjacent Possible

Creativity5 to 10 Minutes
Written By Cliff Guren

This article is a triptych. The three pieces below were written as standalone posts over the last ten days, but seem like they are ultimately about the same subject: the transformative power of curiosity, exploration, and artistic expression.

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The Adjacent Possible

Sometimes I feel like my future is already written—that if I could see my life a day, a week, a month, or a year from now, it wouldn’t be all that different from today. These are the moments when I try to remind myself about the adjacent possible, “a kind of shadow future, hovering on the edges of the present state of things, a map of all the ways in which the present can reinvent itself” (Steven Johnson, Where Good Ideas Come From).

The term “the adjacent possible” was coined by the theoretical biologist Stuart Kauffman, who used it to explain how single carbon atoms recombined over a span of four billion years into the myriad life forms that inhabit our world today, and the seemingly endless stream of things humans have created that contain carbon atoms (like red licorice, the Eiffel Tower, and Airpods). Using a complex mathematical model, Kauffman asserts that life has explored only an “infinitesimal fraction” of the protein combinations possible on earth. The amazing array of life forms that we know of are in fact a tiny sampling of evolution's potential.

Not surprisingly, the concept of the adjacent possible also applies to creativity and innovation. Here’s Johnson again:

At every moment in the timeline of an expanding biosphere, there are doors that cannot be unlocked yet. In human culture, we like to think of breakthrough ideas as sudden accelerations on the timeline, where a genius jumps ahead fifty years and invents something that normal minds, trapped in the present moment, couldn’t possibly have come up with. But the truth is that technological (and scientific) advances rarely break out of the adjacent possible; the history of cultural progress is, almost without exception, a story of one door leading to another door, exploring the palace one room at a time.

The adjacent possible is the “gradual but relentless probing” of limits and openings. But recombination and adaptation aren’t running through the palace trying every door handle to see which one opens. The goal of an organism or system is to increase the diversity of what can happen next—to expand without jeopardizing or destroying itself in the process. Life follows rules as it explores the adjacent possible. These rules can also help us explore new possibilities in our creative work.

Organisms and complex systems adapt most effectively when they are “poised on the border between chaos and disorder.”* Chaos is complete randomness and confusion; disorder is closer to a breakdown or mess. Consider what we know about evolution. When the earth’s environment is stable, evolution slows down to a crawl. When there’s a significant, but not totally devastating environmental disruption, animals and plants evolve more quickly. When there’s a complete environmental collapse (such as a massive volcanic eruption), many life forms are simply wiped out. 

The same rule applies to creativity. Improvisation in music is a controlled breakdown—the musicians “disassemble” the melody in a way that opens up opportunities for exploration of the adjacent possible: musical phrases, rhythmic changes, tonal variations that expand the listener’s experience and feeling for the tune. But if the band or soloist wander too far from the melody, the music can descend into a kind of chaos—the melody stops evolving and the notes become disassociated sounds. The listener’s understanding of the internal organization of the song collapses.

Another Kauffman insight that applies to creative work is how organisms create their own constraints as a way of focusing the release of their energy. “The life cycle of a cell is simply amazing,” Kauffman notes. “It does work to construct constraints on the release of energy, which does work to construct more constraints on the release of energy, which does work to construct even more constraints on the release of energy . . . It builds structure. Cells don't just carry information. They actually build things until something astonishing happens: a cell completes a closed nexus of work tasks, and builds a copy of itself.”* This is also what artists do as they transition from the divergent phase of the creative process to the convergent phase. They make and implement decisions that continually constrain and direct their energy until they reach the ultimate expression of their idea. The constraints form a kind of scaffolding that ensures that the project moves forward, that it doesn’t stall and collapse under the weight of its ambitions. 

On those days when I can’t seem to find an open door, I’ve learned I can improve my odds. I look a little to the right and a little to the left of where I thought I needed to go to see if there’s an adjacent possibility—an opening I hadn’t noticed that changes my perspective. There usually is, and I step through the door…

* from The Adjacent Possible: a conversation with Stuart Kauffman, Edge.org

Memos for the Next Generation

Sometimes the stars just line up… I started thinking and writing about the adjacent possible ten days ago. Yesterday I came across the passage below. Read it without skipping ahead to see who wrote it:

You marvel that this matter, shuffled pell-mell at the whim of Chance, could have made a man, seeing that so much was needed for the construction of his being. But you must realize that a hundred million times this matter, on the way to human shape, has been stopped to form now a stone, now lead, now coral, now a flower, now a comet; and all because of more or fewer elements that were or were not necessary for designing a man. Little wonder if, within an infinite quantity of matter that ceaselessly changes and stirs, the few animals, vegetables, and minerals we see should happen to be made; no more wonder than getting a royal pair in a hundred casts of the dice. Indeed it is equally impossible for all this stirring not to lead to something; and yet this something will always be wondered at by some blockhead who will never realize how small a change would have made it into something else.

Notice how beautifully the passage describes Kauffman’s notion of the adjacent possible: “Little wonder if, within an infinite quantity of matter that ceaselessly changes and stirs, the few animals, vegetables, and minerals we see should happen to be made.” I also love the way the writer describes the ceaseless remixing of matter, the way matter coalesces into a form, then flows into another form: “a hundred million times this matter, on the way to human shape, has been stopped to form now a stone, now lead, now coral, now a flower, now a comet; and all because of more or fewer elements that were or were not necessary for designing a man.”

You’ll probably be shocked (as I was) to learn that this quote comes from a book published in 1657! It’s from The Other World: Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon (also known as Voyage to the Moon), one of the earliest science fiction novels, written by Cyrano de Bergerac.

I’m delighted and amused by the serendipity of all this—but not totally surprised. I came across the passage while reading Italo Calvino’s Six Memos for the Next Millennium. The book is a collection of lectures Calvino wrote on the values he cherished in literature. Sadly, he died just before he was scheduled to give the lectures at Harvard.

The six attributes Calvino highlights are:

  • Lightness

  • Quickness

  • Exactitude

  • Visibility

  • Multiplicity

  • Consistency

The passage from The Other World is in the memo on lightness. For Calvino, lightness is a value, not a defect: it’s about the “subtraction of weight,” about removing “the inertia, the opacity of the world—qualities that stick to writing from the start, unless one finds some way of evading them.” Calvino's idea of subtracting weight echoes Kauffman's insights on how organisms adapt and evolve, how they only take on the weight their existing cell structure can bear.

My moment of serendipity seems fitting in this context—skipping from book to book, exploring, savoring the pleasures of ideas and writers I admire, I found something unexpected, but not unrelated. What connects Cyrano de Bergerac, Stuart Kauffman, Steven Johnson, and Italo Calvino across a span of nearly 375 years is the adjacent possible: their curiosity, thoughtful probing of ideas, and passion for sharing what they’ve learned. This is the gift we give to future generations when we explore, create, and share.

To Chick Corea, with Gratitude

As some of you may already know, the amazing jazz pianist Chick Corea passed away earlier this month at 79. Chick’s death was a shock: his music contains so much energy and joy, it’s hard to believe he wasn’t connected to and protected by an eternal spirit.

I had the privilege of seeing Chick play many times, but there’s one performance that I’ll never forget. I took my oldest son, who was about 13, to see Chick play at Jazz Alley (a small club in Seattle). My son was studying piano, and I thought it would inspire him to see someone as creative and fun as Chick play. It was a great show… As we were walking out Chick was standing near the exit. I stopped to thank him; he talked with me for a moment, then turned to my son and talked with him, asking him about the music he liked, whether he played an instrument, and how he liked the show. Chick was clearly more interested in connecting with my son than he was with me, and I couldn’t have been more impressed or more grateful.

Several well written assessments of Chick’s career have been published following his sudden passing:

I’ve listened to Chick’s music for over 40 years. Chick released over 100 albums under his name and played on hundreds more, including two of Miles Davis’ landmark albums (In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew), and Stan Getz’s fabulous albums Sweet Rain and Captain Marvel, to name just a few of his many, many successful collaborations. Chick’s catalog is a treasure chest filled with the spoils of a lifetime spent exploring the adjacent possible.

Here are my favorite Chick Corea albums (with links to the album reviews on the All Music site):

I could have easily added another 20 albums to this list…

Finally, here are five quotes from Chick related to the issues and ideas I write about:

• It’s very difficult for me to dislike an artist. No matter what he’s creating, the fact that he’s experiencing the joy of creation makes me feel like we’re in a brotherhood of some kind… we’re in it together.

• You don’t have to be Picasso or Rembrandt to create something. The fun of it, the joy of creating, is way high above anything else to do with the art form.

• I’ve noticed that the more adventurous . . . I am, . . . the more the audience really likes it.

• My one thing is I continue to be interested and want to be a student. I don’t want to be a master. When I’m learning something, I’m in my element.

• I believe that any “awareness” of life is “spiritual” since awareness can only be a quality of the spirit, not of the material world or of matter and machines. Only a spiritual being has awareness. But if you mean “spiritual” in the sense of a kind of “celebration of Life”, then yes, I write music to celebrate life. I think most artists do, no matter how they themselves describe it. It’s the joy of creating. It’s a way of life.

Thank you, Chick, for enriching my life with your beautiful music and joyful spirit. I miss you already!

Cliff Guren
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