Why Are Some People More Creative Than Others? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Are Some People More Creative Than Others?

#81

Post by WalterBright » Fri, Jan 19, 2018, 9:41 PM UTC

Judgmentality wrote: post #5

chillwaves wrote: post #2

Some people are better athletes than others, but anyone who trains will be better than someone who does not, regardless of any innate potential. I see creativity along the same lines. Many folks are conditioned to memorize, follow processes, follow norms and paths laid by others, it may not occur to them to seek out originality. It is another form of learned helplessness. Creating is hard, especially when judged in a…

> but anyone who trains will be better than someone who does not, regardless of any innate potential I disagree. The genetic lottery is unfair; and some people are just better than you no matter what you do, and no matter what they don't do.

There isn't that much genetic variation. Talent amounts to a few percent, the rest is hard work. You could be last place at the Olympics, and will trivially beat anybody with talent but no training.

You could be 7 foot with excellent hand-eye coordination, but with no training in basketball, a 5 foot schlub with good training will easily destroy you.

Re: Why Are Some People More Creative Than Others?

#82

Post by eachro » Fri, Jan 19, 2018, 9:44 PM UTC

pmoriarty wrote: post #72

eachro wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Child prodigies are rare by definition though. Whether or not you've heard of them, I think, is more a function of what media chooses to shine a spotlight on. On the top of my head I'd probably say Chistopher Paolini( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Paolini ) qualifies as a child prodigy author - his first book, Eragon, was published when he was 19. Granted, it was his parent publishing company, but it stil…

Bestseller lists are an even less reliable way of measuring talent than the Nobel Prize. There have been numerous articles about how flawed and subject to manipulation the NYT Bestseller List is, for instance.[1][2][3][4] Calling a 19-year-old a "child" is really stretching the definition of a "child", in my view. Compare that to chess and music prodigies, for instance, who are already performing at levels above thos…

You bring up a good point about talent. With chess, math, music, there are objective measures in how "talented" the person is. You can say person X is performing above their grade level, or person X is in the top Zth percentile of all competitors in their arena. But what is talent in something more subjective like writing or art? What does it mean to "perform at levels above most adults"? Perhaps the reason you do not see "child prodigies" in these areas is because it is hard to come to any consensus on how to gauge talent here.

On your point that he was 19 at the time of publication. Sure you can say he was not a kid when he wrote it, but the act of writing it was not something that just happened over night(and certainly not with a piece of work as long as Eragon). I would still argue that he is a prodigy in the sense that he found success as a writer much earlier than most writers usually do. And perhaps this had little to do with his writing talent. Maybe, maybe not.

Re: Why Are Some People More Creative Than Others?

#83

Post by WalterBright » Fri, Jan 19, 2018, 9:44 PM UTC

twoquestions wrote: post #9

Judgmentality wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but anyone who trains will be better than someone who does not, regardless of any innate potential I disagree. The genetic lottery is unfair; and some people are just better than you no matter what you do, and no matter what they don't do.

I can't think of an instance where this is true for normal people. I can see an untrained 250lb person beating a 100lb one-armed boxer, but outside such extreme disparities, training >> innate ability, at least in my experience.

> I can see an untrained 250lb person beating a 100lb one-armed boxer

I can't. My money would be on the trained boxer every time. The untrained one will be slow and will leave an opening right off the bat, boom, one punch and he's done.

Re: Why Are Some People More Creative Than Others?

#84

Post by wickawic » Fri, Jan 19, 2018, 9:46 PM UTC

bluedino wrote: post #59

twoquestions wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In MMA, pretty much everyone who gets into the octagon is already training as hard as they can, so in this case you're correct that innate advantages dominate outcomes. I was more thinking outside the top 1% of any particular skill, for example when you're hiring a designer or sales staff in a normal company (as in, a not-1% company, such as a refrigerator manufacturer or something). I'm willing to concede that if yo…

And at the elite level, that disparity is still huge. The NFL has 32 football teams. Any quarterback outside the top 10 or so is considered 'bad' by most people. Assuming each team has a backup quarterback, out of the 64 'best' people in the world to do that job, only the top ten are so are safe from being called 'bad at their job' on any given Sunday. There's also a story about a UFC fighter who went 0-3, and people…

You are proving the point though. Sure, there is variance among 64 out of the (say) 1000000000 people who could possibly be a quarterback. But most people could probably be in the top .1% of quarterback talent in the population if they trained hard for it.

EDIT: I think I may have uncharitably read your comment as being argumentative instead of informative.

Re: Why Are Some People More Creative Than Others?

#85

Post by WalterBright » Fri, Jan 19, 2018, 9:48 PM UTC

Judgmentality wrote: post #5

chillwaves wrote: post #2

Some people are better athletes than others, but anyone who trains will be better than someone who does not, regardless of any innate potential. I see creativity along the same lines. Many folks are conditioned to memorize, follow processes, follow norms and paths laid by others, it may not occur to them to seek out originality. It is another form of learned helplessness. Creating is hard, especially when judged in a…

> but anyone who trains will be better than someone who does not, regardless of any innate potential I disagree. The genetic lottery is unfair; and some people are just better than you no matter what you do, and no matter what they don't do.

On the other hand, most everyone is good at something. It pays to find out what you're good at, and make a career in that direction.

Me, I have no physical talents whatsoever. But I happen to have the inclination and ability to program, so that makes sense for me to do that rather than, say, boxing.

Re: Why Are Some People More Creative Than Others?

#86

Post by rifung » Fri, Jan 19, 2018, 9:50 PM UTC

mannykannot wrote: post #32

moufestaphio wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty bad example. Dude was a semi-retired PROFESSIONAL tennis player. Who had been ranked as high as 38th in the world. He obviously had a fuck ton of training, was just 'retired' when he played the game.

Given the punishing training regimen the Williams sisters follow, it is good evidence of biological limits on the boost training can give in tennis. I doubt it has much relevance for creativity.

I also wonder though how much of a difference it makes that the Williams sisters presumably only train with or to play against other women.

Let me say that I don't disagree in the advantages of genes and sex, but from my own experience competing at a moderately high level and knowing players who competed at the highest levels, you more or less train with an expectation of what your opponents will do in mind.

At least in badminton, the way men and women play the game is completely different, but I would be very surprised if it's merely due to physical differences. I don't think it's due to physical differences because the difference in style shows up across the skill level, and I imagine a professional female player who consistently did weight training should be able to achieve the same level of strength as a male who isn't nearly as serious.

Re: Why Are Some People More Creative Than Others?

#87

Post by gagege » Fri, Jan 19, 2018, 9:51 PM UTC

chillwaves wrote: post #80

dkarl wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like they don't realize that what they attribute to "talent" is attainable through practice and hard work. When I point that out and encourage them to just try, that it might be fun, they make some other excuse. That's a bit of a bait and switch, to say, why not try this simple thing just for fun, and then say all it takes is a lot of practice and hard work. Not only do you have to make a long-term commitment th…

> enjoy being bad at it You don't have to enjoy being bad, you just have to value the process of getting good more than the pain of being bad.

You just explained the reason I don't like writing fiction. I do not enjoy the process of writing more than the pain of being bad at it. I've been trying to write for years but just can not seem to enjoy it. It's a hobby that feels awfully like work, yet I keep coming back to it.

Re: Why Are Some People More Creative Than Others?

#88

Post by rifung » Fri, Jan 19, 2018, 9:52 PM UTC

indubitable wrote: post #46

noahc wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really believe this? Genetics help, sure. But it is just potential. Can you provide an example where one person was so genetically talented that they didn’t train and still were competitive at some semi-professional level?

The problem with this is that people like this then tend to train and go on to do phenomenally well with extreme ease. In the physical domain, Mike Tyson is a good example. He was 'discovered' by a detention counselor when he was 13. 2 years later he would be the junior olympic world champion for two years in a row. Then he went professional and won his first 19 fights by knockout, 12 in the first round. He then went…

Indeed Mike Tyson is probably a very poor example of this because even though he is no doubt immensely talented, he also was not only trained by but adopted by Cus D'amato, a very famous boxing coach who dedicated those final years of his life to making sure Tyson became a world champion.

Re: Why Are Some People More Creative Than Others?

#89

Post by thomastjeffery » Fri, Jan 19, 2018, 9:53 PM UTC

pmoriarty wrote: post #26

As an artist and musician, I often encourage my friends to draw something, paint something, or make some music. The reply I hear over and over again is, "oh, no, I don't have the talent" or "oh, no, I'm awful at drawing". It's like they don't realize that what they attribute to "talent" is attainable through practice and hard work. When I point that out and encourage them to just try, that it might be fun, they make…

Drawing/painting takes a lot of concerted effort.

If you have really never sat down for several hours and worked on a drawing, you immediately have several things going against you:

1. You know you won't make something particularly good the first time. Why spend several hours of concerted effort on something that won't immediately pay off?

2. You aren't an "artist". We tend to categorize people by their current skillset, and constrain ourselves to the skillsets we are comfortable with. I don't know of any good ways to teach the brain around this without simply "pushing through" it.

3. Your goal is to do it "right", but you are going to do it wrong. Thousands of times. Every stroke of a pencil is a wrong stroke. The instinct is to immediately erase.

The beauty of painting is that you can't erase. This is why I would recommend a person begin with painting rather than drawing, so that every action is additive.

4. You have to start with purpose. The purpose has to be good enough to enthrall you for several hours. If you start painting something that you don't find interesting, you know at some point, you will get bored, and you will never finish, so why not stop now?

This goes for anything creative. How can you learn to write software without software to write? How can you perform music without music to perform? How can you build something without something to build? Creation needs purpose, if nothing else.

> On the other hand, most children don't have any problem being creative. Somehow by the time we become adults we lose that, and then think we're permanently incapable.

This is one of the most important barriers for us to overcome.

We need to practice doing things wrong, and creating garbage. Unfortunately, we constantly reiterate the claim that garbage is bad, and that we should do everything perfect.

Re: Why Are Some People More Creative Than Others?

#90

Post by WalterBright » Fri, Jan 19, 2018, 9:54 PM UTC

johnfn wrote: post #50

pmoriarty wrote: post #26

As an artist and musician, I often encourage my friends to draw something, paint something, or make some music. The reply I hear over and over again is, "oh, no, I don't have the talent" or "oh, no, I'm awful at drawing". It's like they don't realize that what they attribute to "talent" is attainable through practice and hard work. When I point that out and encourage them to just try, that it might be fun, they make…

> I've come to understand that what all their excuses amount to is that they're just not interested in creating. I don't think this is true. If they were uninterested, they would simply say so, rather than making a series of excuses. What seems more likely to me is that they are (on a deep level) scared of creating. Creativity of any sort requires you to project your personality and be vulnerable in a way that people…

> If they were uninterested, they would simply say so, rather than making a series of excuses.

Haha, not my experience with people. The excuses people say are rarely the truth. People speak in euphemisms for a variety of reasons, and you've got to divine the truth from between the lines.

Q: "Wanna go to a movie friday?"

A: "Can't, I'm washing my hair that night!"

What she really meant:

"Drop dead, Walter!"