Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

Post by tonmoy » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 3:48 PM UTC

rickydroll wrote: post #148

groby_b wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the caveat that I haven't looked in a while, the rot seemed very anglo-specific. Coming over from Germany almost three decades ago, it was amazing how much US text books just didn't cover. There were a few developments in Germany that pointed in the same direction, but there a large gap at the time. Meanwhile, even back then, eastern Europe certainly had even higher standards. (I replaced a lot of math textbooks…

The influence of religious and conservative types has weakened US textbooks. Do a deep dive into how Texas can dictate what is presented in schoolbooks nationwide.

Post by nvln » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 3:51 PM UTC

ants_everywhere wrote: post #133

nvln wrote: post #130

There is deliberate practice for skill-building. There is exploratory "making" that fuels originality. There is inspiration hunting and incremental tweaking to get to creative mutation. There is high productivity that triggers eventual ingenuity. I find the article hyperbolic in its thesis and execution especially when it comes to the final hand-wavy bit about how there is more per-capita creativity in non-rote learn…

I've thought a lot about education, and my personal take is that in the US we way undervalue drilling (by which I mainly mean building up familiarity and muscle memory) and way overvalue understanding. I've been collecting quotes about these topics for a few years. One relevant to creativity and drilling is Bob Dylan's > If you sang "John Henry" as many times as me.... you'd have written "How many roads must a man wa…

Post by parmenidean » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 4:07 PM UTC

kqr wrote: post #135

parmenidean wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really enjoyed both blog posts, thank you for sharing! And I have to say, your explanation of the subexponential distribution property was remarkably clear for someone without a background in statistics :) Would you mind sharing the flashcards you generated to build this intuition? I've been using Anki for a while and really trying to focus now on improving my prompt writing; would love to see how you managed it fo…

As much as I would like to, I think getting to that understanding required at least 500 flashcards on general statistical and probability concepts, ranging from fundamentals to extreme value theory. Most of those are only barely relevant at face value, but still contribute to understanding. It's not that I set out to understand this specific thing but that I had studied statistics with flashcard support for a year an…

Post by chaps » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 4:09 PM UTC

linearrust wrote: post #136

zharknado wrote: post #132

OP and others here are stretching the definition of “memorize” to mean “anything that leads to something being retained in memory.” I reject this idea. The trauma of burning your hand on a hot pan creates a memory you won’t soon forget, but almost no one would understand it as an act of memorization. Memorization to me refers to a set of cargo-culty “learning” practices wherein we believe that by using language to dr…

> It’s the difference between drilling vocabulary flashcards and actually reading, listening, or talking to someone. You need the 'flashcards' before you can read, listen or talk. Go try reading a book where you don't know most of the words. Heck you need 'flashcards' before you needs 'flashcards for words'. You need to memorize the alphabet first. Try reading a text where you haven't learned the writing system. > Yo…

Post by nickburns » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 4:16 PM UTC

kqr wrote: post #158

gwervc wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s the difference between drilling vocabulary flashcards and actually reading, listening, or talking to someone. Those are not opposite activities. Drilling vocabulary flashcard is the most efficient way to start being able to read/listen/speak; and it's not even clear from research that output (speaking and writing) is useful at all for learning. Also good luck learning to read Chinese or Japanese without rote l…

> That's a bad argument: the life of a toddler is vastly different than an adult. Also it takes a surprisingly long time for children to learn language. I used to think it sorta-kinda happened over a year or two, but having children myself revealed how wrong I was. I have written up a fairly hefty dictionary of words they mispronounce or even just invent on their own because they don't know the one in their native to…