Creativity and the Adjacent Possible | chris monaghan dot org

Collectively, these four forms of the possible (i.e. new node, new edge, changed node, changed edge) in network science are studied under the notion of the adjacent possible (Björneborn, 2020). The term “adjacent possible” refers to the fact that what is possible is what is adjacent to what exists. What is impossible is what is not adjacent to what

As a condition of innovation, Johnson (2010) argues, “the adjacent possible is 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” (p. 31)

While frontiers are about expanding the current boundaries of your life, the adjacent possible is about the untapped opportunities nearby, ready to be discovered.

Without curiosity, the space of the adjacent possible would exist but remain unplumbed and inactive. Curiosity then opens up adjacent possibilities, whether that means new nodes and edges or the reformulation of existing nodes and edges (and ultimately of the network itself).

If knowledge is a network and curiosity is its growth principle, and if the adjacent possible is indeed hovering over the edges of knowledge systems as they currently exist, then curiosity is at least one of, if not the primary, epistemic access point to that field of adjacent epistemic possibilities. Crucially, that field of adjacent epistemic pos

If mutation and error and serendipity unlock new doors in the biosphere’s adjacent possible, exaptations help us explore the new possibilities that lurk behind those doors.