Definition of Difference

What is Difference?

All creativity is intimately connected to difference. But what is difference? When we say “something is different,” we mean that it is “different from” something else that we already know and recognize. This use of the term difference makes difference a secondary quality. First, we have “something” that is known and recognized, and only then can we say that it is "different.” 

But this begs the question: how did that “something” first come about? And this is the critical question for creativity. There had to be some difference that was irreducible and incomparable to anything else. Such a difference would be a “pure difference"—a difference that continuously qualitatively differed and preceeds any “sameness.” Thus, creativity involves two forms of difference: (1) pure difference and (2) relational difference. 

Pure difference exceeds in every possible way identity, representation and knowledge, and as such, it is radically new. It is not following a model, emerging from a pre-existing idea, or copying a loose template. It is always and in all ways, qualitatively different. 

• The Creativity Paradox: How Can You Recognize What Has Never Been Seen?
• The New Cannot Be Seen or Thought
• Emerging Futures: Vol 78 - The Two Faces of Innovation
• Emerging Futures: Vol 11 - Difference Differing

See also: Change, Change-in-Degree, Change-in-kind