Ideas and Creativity (2019)

He mentions the connection between creativity and 'play', which I think is spot on. We do this effortlessly as children and then it sort of gets 'bred out of us' as we get older and start developing more traditionally 'rational' skill sets and ways of thinking about the world.

This sense of play hit home for me when I was a late teen and bought a 4-track multitrack recorder in the mid-80's. I had no preconceived notion of a song I wanted to write/record. I simply plugged in my guitar and hit 'record' and laid down an idea. I may have had a few false starts but didn't sweat it. By itself it wasn't very interesting. I added a second track with the only goal of "it should work with the first track" and was surprised at how easy it was to achieve that goal. Suddenly, with the two tracks an idea began to emerge that wasn't present in the first track by itself. Rinse and repeat with the remaining 2 tracks and I had a musical idea that I never could've imagined I would have created.

I still use that same method to generate ideas today, and summon that same sense of 'play'. Of course the real work, much harder than creating, imo, is editing.

> watch toddlers playing with toys—their imaginations are boundless and they are able to imbue even the most mundane objects with a sense of wonder and magic.

This example just annoys me. I can still out-create a toddler, that isn't hard. The issue with creativity is that toddler-level creativity isn't useful. The important part of creativity is being able to apply it while achieving adult-level goals.

The article doesn't ignore that as such, but this is like saying babies can handle the concept of abstract variables so we can all be programmers. True enough, but not at all a useful observation and it'll just depress the group of people who, for whatever reason, struggle hard and yet never become programmers. There are minimum standards that toddlers do not reach.

I like this article. Yes, and:

"It gets bred out of us"

No one seems to go beyond that statement. Yet the common "everyone can be creative" ignores what people and their colleagues do with a real creative idea.

If you censor yourself too relentlessly, you won't be "creative."

And especially: if you're in a conformist environment (most businesses and schools) where "you're so weird!" is the worst insult imaginable, then you won't be "creative."

It's only a few places where the audience is willing to play with the idea, and it's only a few people who don't mind being called "weird" that really nurture creativity.

The best thing that one can do for themselves to develop the creative "muscle" is to _own_ their time.

Unfortunately, I am yet to feel even close to such a breakthrough. I think very few are fortunate to afford such kind of luxury (as the author alludes to as well). There is always something to deliver for, a deadline to meet (although many would argue deadlines are a forcing constraint); a life waiting to happen. With a tiny bit of envy, I feel very happy and inspired when someone does achieve the "flow" state.

On the subject of "tools" to spur creativity, I have always been skeptical. It feels similar to believing that there is a productivity app right around the corner that will unleash your potential. For me, the only true indicator of my productivity has been actually putting in the _time_, making any kind of progress along a chosen direction and then re-evaluating.

What are fellow readers here doing to _own_ their time?

Creativity (and imagination) are the aspects of cognition that most intrigue me in terms of the advancement of AI. Probabilistically, it's easy to be creative; you just generate many variations on a theme. But it's choosing the theme imaginatively and exploring those ramifications of the change that lead to surprise and intrigue in the mind of the audience that make a variation fruitful and compelling. The cognitive skill to choose just the right variation that leads to wonderment is ineffable. I think it exists NOWHERE in words, thus the essential cost function needed to be creative is both unstated and unintuitable (at least by a mind that lacks the ability to reason). Thus I see no way a LLM will be ever able to acquire that skill through stochastic parrotry from the available fodder -- the human narrative.

Even after the impressive advances we have seen in the fluid expression of natural language in LLMs, I remain convinced that blindly generating and testing variations in prose will NEVER create a Shakespearian sonnet. So whither superintelligence if it lacks creativity?

I've been involved in a product review at my work. The tool hits a sweet spot of identifying a real problem and demoing impressively. I have little doubt we will purchase this tool unless the beancounters simply reject the expense.

But I find myself against it. This is somewhat ideological; the tool is, at its core, a telemetry tool, and I don't believe we have the maturity to manage and leverage that data effectively. And the data and features to product enables? We already know where the problems are and have other tools to address them. It's just that everyone is always "too busy" to actually listen to the customers and do anything about it.

Pondering how to express this then, I ended up labeling the product (at first a "luxury", but realizing people want those and doesn't help my argument) a "toy," like a jewel-encrusted hammer: It's pretty, but if a plain hammer isn't solving your problem this isn't going to either. Worse, the extra time and care needed to maintain this tool, in an organization that's already "too busy", is likely going to be even less effective if not a net loss.

However, it occurred to me, knowing one of the people trying to push this tool, calling it a "toy" would only be an opportunity:

Toys can be incredibly powerful in the hands of a good imagination.

And, I agree.

And this is where I struggle. Collectively, we don't have a "good imagination." We're all too busy being busy to do anything creative and solve the problems we have. But individually there is a lot a creativity that just lacks the means to express itself. And enabling these people is why _I_ do software.

I'm still not sure this tool is the right way about it, but that fact we're even here is testament that the current technologies aren't inspiring anyone.

Define "creative."

Creativity can be expressed as impressionistic art, super realistic art, punk rock, baroque quartet, skyscraper design, or even homeless temporary shelter (anyone who has ever seen the homeless shelters at Shinjuku Station, knows what I mean). Lots of subjective opinions.

I have seen really great code, done by very repressed folks, with limited verbal skills, but unique thinking. I have seen absolutely awful, bland, crud code, written by folks that affect a really creative vibe.

I have found, for myself, that I'm most creative, later in the day, but most productive, earlier.

I would recommend that anyone who is interested in exploring these ideas read "The Act of Creation" by Arthur Koestler. He explores how things we think of as creativitity are fundamentally similar to how humour works in that they discover connections between things we previously thought of as being seperate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Act_of_Creation

Thank you Pseudomanifold! This article literally saved my life. It helped me see and initiate the motion of a burdening issue.

This is thorough contemplation. Time and time again we are reminded that no idea is wholly original in and of itself, down to the most minute aspect of its thought all the way through to its physical manifestation...Yet hubris, for many, prevails over these evidences. Ah.

Everyone thinks that because they have thoughts that they’re good at thinking. But learning to think is the foundation of knowledge. Similarly, learning to have ideas is the heart of creativity.

Link to Michael Michalko website is broken.

There are multiple senses of the word “creativity”, and this post focuses on one of them: divergent thinking. The other sense is that of constructive, goal-oriented creation, which ideas alone cannot achieve. It’s too bad we don’t have have more commonly used terms to make this distinction. I see a lot of comments here focusing on that distinction rather than the post’s central thesis.

I do have a comment on the thesis, which is:

> The purpose of this article is to challenge this assumption [that creativity is binary] and discuss aspects of ideation, i.e. the process of coming up with ideas.

I support/agree with this challenge and all of the article’s ideas. “And yet”, right?? “And yet” some people are perceived to “have something” which others do not.

Honestly, the explanation is rather simple, or at least, simply stated. It’s neurodivergence. I’d further claim that cognitive styles gravitate to certain “attractor points”. (That’s scientific lingo for: certain patterns which fit well within the environment and which reinforce themselves. Like the pattern of wheel-ruts which attract wheels, which makes them stronger. The “environment” in this case is all sorts of things, including both the brain’s biological details, and the body’s physical+social environment.)

The strongest of these attractor points, we give labels: ADHD, various species of autism, etc. And of course the “normal person” attractor - not a point, but a broad area with its little micro-attractors and, sometimes, niche wormholes leading to more divergent areas.

People tend to clump around the strongest attractor points, and sometimes get pulled into other more smaller ones. This easily explains the perception of binary other-ness, especially when you consider that deviation from the norm - in any of the many directions - is, itself, a strong, influential force in this dynamic. To the extent that we try to build society to work well enough for the majority, anyone who deviates will have different and novel experiences of those systems.

But look, people are complicated and dynamic. We sometimes work to push away from these pattern-ruts, and other times we let ourselves be pulled into them.

This article is saying: YES. You can do things that make you ideate more divergently. You can also do the work to explore your own cognitive-behavioral niche, and which pushes your idea output into more novel, “creative” realms. Play is a certain type of work, when you need to push yourself to do it.

The article also addresses this:

> Good ideas do not have to be completely novel

> A hallmark of creativity is the knowledge or intuition of picking ideas that make suitable combinations. [more worthwhile to pursue]

…which brings us back to the other sense of creativity: not just divergence, but convergence; pursuit of a vision or goal or “gut feeling” intuition. I think this is the better, fuller meaning of the word. The author describes interaction between convergence and divergence very well. In the best examples of “creative genius”, both of these forces are at play. (No pun intended but perhaps that’s revealing.) Fluid, progressive creativity is at the edge of these two forces, and a “creative” person steers the ship, aware of both convergent goals and overarching visions that can only be reached by leaving those same goals behind.

The general skill of steering is quite meta-learnable by, probably, nearly everyone with any ounce of cognitive control. It takes time and support. It’s easier in more specific contexts, more well-suited to one’s situation.

For what it’s worth, toddlers absolutely do exhibit this full version of creativity, when you consider that they are pursuing the instinctive, hard-wired goal of learning and adapting to the world.