The Birth of Novelty: A Causal and Nonlinear Perspective

How does novelty arise? While modern scholarly investigations show that new complex system paths arise due to dissipative structures post-bifurcation, few consider the subjectivity of the observer and fewer describe what can be deemed as truly novel in light of a causal chain of deterministic events. By investigating the 'problem of novelty' (i.e., how something can come from nothing) and adding a subjective appraisal process for a novelty threshold as per complex systems, this paper offers an alternative view of the birthplace of novelty. The findings reveal that novelty arises in a breach of causal normality described as a causal 'breakthrough,' and in a nonlinear 'transition zone' post-bifurcation between disordering and ordering, based on quantitative and qualitative criteria. The article offers a subjective approach to nonlinear dynamical self-organization considering both 'outliers' and 'low-recurrence' in a spatio-temporal perspective to determine what separates novelty from 'newness.' Four 'preconditions of novelty' (i.e., tension, competition, instability, and diversity) are also presented to clarify favourable conditions for novelty generation.