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Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

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Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#171

Post by Izkata »

gwervc wrote: post #139
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. 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…

> Also good luck learning to read Chinese or Japanese without rote learning a few hundred characters. Even native speakers learn them by repetition.

I've tried this for years with Japanese kanji and never really got very far. Just didn't work well, they largely were just a big blob of lines.

Then I found an Android app (Kanji Study) that mixes this in with informational screens that break down kanji into radicals and puts them alongside a bunch of multi-kanji words and uses them in sentences so we can see them in context, and it's actually been working.

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#172

Post by watwut »

gwervc wrote: post #139
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. 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…

Vocabulary flashcards are not all that efficient way to start being able to read/listen/speak. They teach you translation rather then meaning directly, you don't get context or the "context" is super repetitive sentence and so on.

And plus, general recommendation is to learn words elsewhere and just put them into anki to not forget.

Some people like it, but it is not the only or the most recommended way to learn speak and write.

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#173

Post by watwut »

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…

You should be aware that people are able to become fluent without ever using flashcards.

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#174

Post by watwut »

dash2 wrote: post #116

The most striking comment was this: > Growing up with Indian parents in California, I was exposed to both. My mom would write daily Kumon sheets out by hand for me to do, and teach me from Indian textbooks from the same grade (which were much more advanced than the US equivalents). The result was me breezing through the US school system without much thought. Ukrainian refugees I know are finding the same things in th…

Why do you assume Ukrainian math is memorization based? They actually do a lot of problem solving, they are not doing rote memorization.

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#175

Post by knallfrosch »

Creativity is actually defined by this transformation of finding connections between raw data that you already have to know.

Consider use cases for a rock.

Boring would be using it as a paperweight or throwing it through a window.

Novel but uncreative would be throwing it at the sun, or painting it red. Novel, but kind of useless.

But what about using a rock to play rock paper scissors? Planting it in the soil and watching it grow? That's kind of novel, by way of subverting rock's rules (it doesn't grow, unlike plants) or transforming the concept of 'rock' itself — a real rock isn't needed for rock paper scissors.

So only connections between known concepts are creative. Others might be novel, but useless.

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#177

Post by watwut »

flir wrote: post #140
tikhonj wrote: post #11

"a flash of inspiration connecting internalized concepts" Well, okay, but rote memorization is neither necessary nor sufficient to internalize concepts. One of the reasons people make fun of the author's approach to creativity is that systematic memorization fundamentally can't teach taste —so the systematic approach reeks of awkward, try-hard, low-brow, tasteless art. More broadly, memorization doesn't help much wit…

> One of the reasons people make fun of the author's approach to creativity is that systematic memorization fundamentally can't teach taste—so the systematic approach reeks of awkward, try-hard, low-brow, tasteless art. Well... can you think of an artist who didn't have a deep knowledge of their art-form before they pushed it forward? Three that jump out for me, in no particular order, are Picasso, Borges and Jack Wh…

I think that argument is that these artists did not memorized rules or previous pictures and then applied them. They did put a lot of effort into learning, but that is different claim. If you define "memorization" as "any learning of anything", then the word is kind of useless.

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#178

Post by bunderbunder »

gwervc wrote: post #139
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. 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…

> Drilling vocabulary flashcard is the most efficient way to start being able to read/listen/speak

This isn't actually a settled matter. I did a literature dive a while back and found that drilling vocabulary flashcards shows the highest benefit on artificial recall tasks (like multiple choice tests), and over relatively short time scales (days to weeks). Studies that looked at longer time scales (months to years) and more organic tasks generally showed mixed results. Which I generally interpret as a sign that the literature in question is highly susceptible to the file drawer effect.

And that in turn suggests that the magnitude of flashcarding's value for this kind of thing has a lot to do with your goals. In a nutshell, are you more interested on the science on how to develop communicative proficiency over the long run, or are you more interested on the science on how to get a good grade in class?

I'm studying Chinese right now, and I do use flashcards, but it's not because I believe it's the best way, per se. It's because it's a convenient option for reviewing characters and words that don't appear often in the reading material I have. When they do appear often in my reading material, I find (anecdotally) that it takes a lot fewer organic repetitions to get the character or word to stick in my head than it does with flashcard repetitions.

It's also worth mentioning there's no particular reason to assume Chinese and Japanese schools are any less likely than schools elsewhere in the world to cling to inefficient pedagogical techniques out of a sense of tradition. So one can't necessarily assume that the way they are doing it is the way they ought to be doing it.

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#179

Post by CuriouslyC »

Barrin92 wrote: post #100
corimaith wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their art and entertainment in many cases are rebellions and critiques from mainstream norms. The funny thing is that if you have a rigid conformist society, the rejects are going to double down on the "weird" much more than a well adjusted creative would.

>Their art and entertainment in many cases are rebellions and critiques from mainstream norms No, that's just the art that Western readers notice because that's the only thing they recognize as art in the first place. Calligraphy (in China traditionally considered the most important form of visual art) for example has an astonishing tradition in East Asia, also notably related to the topic of the thread, memorization…

Are you seriously going to hold up calligraphy as an example of extreme Asian creativity? The art of writing letters with subtle flourish? It's literally an art of understatement, and embodies all the characteristics that I stated are reasons east Asians are culturally biased towards being less innovative.

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#180

Post by CuriouslyC »

watwut wrote: post #109
Barrin92 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Their art and entertainment in many cases are rebellions and critiques from mainstream norms No, that's just the art that Western readers notice because that's the only thing they recognize as art in the first place. Calligraphy (in China traditionally considered the most important form of visual art) for example has an astonishing tradition in East Asia, also notably related to the topic of the thread, memorization…

I found asian genres to be way more diverse and creative then western entertainment even when they dont criticize anything. Western entertainment tend to produce the same story, in like, two genres, again and again and again and again. Most of the time you can predict the movie storyline down to minute - and people will argue that it is the only correct way.

The people arguing that is the only correct way are the capitalists putting their money on the line, and that comes from a perspective of being risk averse, which is why "corporate art" in America is in such a shambles. Independent video and music are in a great state though.
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