New study shows highly creative people’s brains work differently from others' • Hacker News Board

Re: New study shows highly creative people’s brains work differently from others'

#111

Post by fuzzfactor » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 2:58 PM UTC

mensetmanusman wrote: post #33

I am one of these highly creative types, and I would say I do not understand my biology. After my PhD@MIT I joined the materials industry and filed over 120 patents in nine years. I definitely did not expect this to happen, and I have no idea where the ideas come from. I’ll just be doing my routine lab work and get showered with ideas occasionally. Edit: Someone below mentioned schizophrenia and its association, and…

Some people think outside the box, other times it's difficult to determine where the box was to begin with or how it got there.

>I’ll just be doing my routine lab work and get showered with ideas occasionally.

That's what you're supposed to do in the lab.

If you stick with it and get good, eventually you'll be showered with ideas continuously in the right lab.

>Main problem now is trying to filter out what to do now and what to wait for in terms of viability. Have had ideas that are definitely 10 years too soon…

You think that's a problem now?

You will have plenty of time to refine the most futuristic concepts which through time may also naturally come more within reach.

In 10 years the world will often catch up with ideas that were once a decade ahead, this is also to be expected.

Re: New study shows highly creative people’s brains work differently from others'

#112

Post by tambourine_man » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 6:16 PM UTC

isitmadeofglass wrote: post #107

tambourine_man wrote: post #79

It’s very hard for me to take results like these seriously. We don’t even have the fundamental concepts set. How does one define creativity? How do you measure it?

> How does one define creativity? How do you measure it? Different studies might define it slight differently and test it via different tests. But to suggest that we as humans don’t have a fundamental understanding of what creativity even is quite hyperbolic.

I disagree. Our lack of fundamental concept definition in this area is abysmal.

Intelligence, consciousness, agency/free will… it’s all a huge epistemological void that we are trying to recreate artificially without even knowing what it is.

Re: New study shows highly creative people’s brains work differently from others'

#113

Post by galaxyLogic » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 6:41 PM UTC

drigby wrote: post #60

galaxyLogic wrote: post #59

I find it interesting how brain works when we try to solve a problem. It is like we have to tell the brain "Here is the problem ... now come up with a solution". And then it does somehow come up with proposed solutions. But we are unaware of how it does that. It is the sub-conscious. How do we come up with thoughts? They just seem to appear out of nowhere. We don't decide what we will think next. Something guides wha…

Daniel Dennett has an interesting theory. Consciousness is a “pandemonium architecture” where clusters of neural connections (daemons) “shout” when activated. The more activations, the louder it shouts, and the higher it climbs in the unconscious, until it gains enough energy to irrupt through the threshold of consciousness.

Something like that surely. And what about dreams? When I'm about to fall asleep it is as if some kind of story starts to be told by my brain, it invents it. I just hear it and am in a different world. If I don't fall asleep because of some interruption I can remember how the dream-world was starting to take over.

Re: New study shows highly creative people’s brains work differently from others'

#114

Post by zeruch » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 4:08 AM UTC

inglor_cz wrote: post #31

robonerd wrote: post #24

I believe that everybody has the capacity to be creative, and those who think they don't are impeded not by a lack of creative spark, but rather by their own inhibitions and belief that they aren't creative. Part of this is cultural; engineers are told by society that an engineer/artist schism exists and incorporate that meme into their self-image, writing off their own ability to be creative. This becomes a self-ful…

"I believe that everybody has the capacity to be creative" Maybe, but I am almost certain that this capacity is highly unequal. Some people are like walking geysers of inspiration and you cannot suppress them culturally anymore than you can prevent the July sun from baking the sand. Others are decidedly low-voltage even when it comes to private creativity (such as decorating your own home). It is the same with muscle…

As someone who is in the 'geyser' category, I'll split the difference. Much of what determines how creatively one feels about oneself depends on how they themselves define it. Often the lens is some musical/artistic pursuit where the measurement is somewhat arbitrarily tied to someone(s) famous, which can produce a bad relative sense of self.

I have friends who artistically really have fairly mundane tendencies, but as chefs/cooks, mechanical tinkerers, etc they have all manner of (insert proper cliche here, a la "out of box") creative thinking.

But often they don't see those skills as "creative" so the domain parameters and how they are expressly defined matters a lot.

Re: New study shows highly creative people’s brains work differently from others'

#115

Post by ezekiel11 » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 4:52 AM UTC

dereg wrote: post #103

ezekiel11 wrote: post #34

One of the key indicator of creativity is how they modify their behavior after mass novelty is achieved. It's distinctively a schizoid behavior, where you shun something that becomes widely known or appreciated by "too many ppl". It's knowing esoteric facts/connections that allow neural pathways to discover unbeaten path, however its often not without risks. Many artists/actors/engineers/any line of work really remai…

This is fascinating. I relate to everything you just talked about. Both in the way that I've treated artists, by liking/appreciating them way before they were popular and dropping them once they've achieved fame, and the way that I've treated my own interests. There was a time when I achieved sudden and moderate popularity in a field, which I then blew up by deeply retreating from the spotlight. The life in the publi…

No post body was provided.

Re: New study shows highly creative people’s brains work differently from others'

#116

Post by matthewsmith2 » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 11:47 AM UTC

SeanAnderson wrote: post #83

matthewsmith2 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment reads a bit like this: I am creative. If you are not, it is because you lack the willpower. Funnily enough, it is the reverse expectation that is often placed. "If you can't concentrate, it's because you lack the willpower" etc. I lived under this burden that something was wrong with me my whole life; that I had some character flaw that made me unsuccessful at things that other people find easy. And then…

May I ask how you know your new, medicated behavior is representative of how normal human beings think? I don't consider myself to have ADD, but I have taken Adderall. It increased my ability to focus, focusing on tasks is rewarded in society, and I felt like the positive effects of it made me a better version of myself. I stopped because I didn't appreciate some of the negative side-effects. It seems common for peop…

'I wonder how you came to the conclusion you were at a competitive disadvantage compared to the norm'

Happy to answer. I've been fired four times, and have only narrowly avoided being fired a few other times. The only reason they didn't fire me in those circumstances was I had managers who didn't have the heart to let me go.

I nearly lost my marriage partly due to my undiagnosed ADD.

There is a look in people's eyes when they have utterly given up on you; when they just cannot comprehend how someone can be so incompetent at basic tasks and unable to function, yet so good at high level tasks. I've seen that look too many times.

Initially, they would love me for the creativity and strategic thinking. But then after causing fire after fire after fire through the most trivial errors from lack of concentration, you slowly, slowly see them lose faith in you.

I could go on, but you get me.

Obviously I can't know how a 'normie' sees and feels, but when I take my drug, all of a sudden I can sit down and work all day like my wife and (most of my) colleagues can, rather than being in a constant state of distraction-resistance.

With drugs, my ratio of good days to bad days has completely changed. I'm 37 years old and this is the first time I've ever gotten 18 months into a job and been in a situation where everyone still thinks I'm doing great. Normally by this time I'm getting the wooden stares.