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Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

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Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#211

Post by coldtea »

jjk166 wrote: post #209
WalterBright wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EEs I have known that carried around a card with: V = I * R I = V / R R = V / I because they couldn't remember it were all bad at EE and bad at math. If you can't remember the pieces making up a concept, how are you going to remember the concept? > It’s disproportionately important for passing tests (And getting hired at tech companies!) I don't remember anyone who couldn't pass tests but was really a great engin…

> There are questions like max takeoff weight, fuel burn rate, max dive speeds, etc. Stuff a pilot had better know or he's a dead pilot. You don't want a pilot who is creative when it comes to max takeoff weight. Obviously there are good reasons to memorize certain things, creativity just isn't one of them.

>You don't want a pilot who is creative when it comes to max takeoff weight.

In certain combat situations, or when smuggling coke across South and Central America, you certainly do.

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#212

Post by coldtea »

nickburns wrote: post #159
kqr wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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 tongue. Ah, beautiful little displays of an attempt to understand, not merely memorize.

Understanding coming from years of exposure leading to memorizing the whole low hanging words of a language and their meaning.

They don't merely understand the words as a concept, they also remember the word sounds attached to the associated concept (and later have to remember the spelling of those words as well). All the while commiting to memory all kinds of facts about the world, starting from their name and the ABC.

Grammar might come closer to exposure-grasping a generalized concept -- then again nobody said understanding concepts is not hugely important, or is done by memorization alone: just that memorization goes hand in hand, and is hugely important in being effective in being able to use and think with not just the concepts but also the relevant facts related to them).

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#213

Post by stoperaticless »

brushfoot wrote: post #202

Friendly reminder: This blog post represents a software engineer's personal opinion on creativity, upvoted here by fellow software engineers. No studies are cited. The assertions are corroborated by the author's personal experience. Take its claims with a grain of salt.

I think we need some citations to know if what you are talking about is true /s

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#214

Post by FL33TW00D »

The acts of the mind, where in it exerts its power over simple ideas, are chiefly these three:

1. Combining several simple ideas into one compound one, and thus all complex ideas are made.

2. The second is bringing two ideas, whether simple or complex, together, and setting them by one another so as to take a view of them at once, without uniting them into one, by which it gets all its ideas of relations.

3. The third is separating them from all other ideas that accompany them in their real existence: this is called abstraction, and thus all its general ideas are made.

John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#215

Post by stoperaticless »

shw1n wrote: post #21
ambyra wrote: post #13

It’s not memorizing, it’s actually knowing and understanding the utility of different concepts. When you learn of a problem in a new field, you go through your bucket of tools and modify one to fit the new problem.

Thanks for reading! Isn't learning which tools in the bucket fits the a problem best just memorizing a heuristic? That's the point I'm attempting to make, that it's not blind memorization without context, but still memorization of a heuristic at its core

Probably you would have had more agreement, if you would have used a different word (though I’m not able to suggest that different word that captures the meaning I think you intended)

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#216

Post by stoperaticless »

lukko wrote: post #114

Wow, what a load of rubbish. I hate this kind of reductive, formulaic view of creativity. I think true creativity expands what is possible – so some kind of awareness of the current state of things is important, but rote memorisation has no real part in it. The idea that memorisation leads to creativity is actually very misleading - especially the assumption that what you are learning is 'true'. It just means you are…

Pure creativity without skill (i.e. kids) does not yield much. (Spaghetti drawing’s creative value is limited)

Skill requires practice, which is building “muscle memory” (which is approx. what is meant by “memorisation” by the author)

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#218

Post by Jensson »

WalterBright wrote: post #182
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…

The EEs I have known that carried around a card with: V = I * R I = V / R R = V / I because they couldn't remember it were all bad at EE and bad at math. If you can't remember the pieces making up a concept, how are you going to remember the concept? > It’s disproportionately important for passing tests (And getting hired at tech companies!) I don't remember anyone who couldn't pass tests but was really a great engin…

> I don't remember anyone who couldn't pass tests but was really a great engineer.

But there are plenty of people who can pass tests and are terrible engineers. When people talk about memorization they talk about remembering the words without understanding the concepts, such a person is no better off than the person carrying around a text note with the concept written down.

When you understand these concepts you will remember those formulas, but memorizing the formula doesn't make you understand it. Therefore creativity doesn't fundamentally comes from memorization, there is something else there.

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#219

Post by LoganDark »

coldtea wrote: post #210
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…

> OP and others here are stretching the definition of “memorize” to mean “anything that leads to something being retained in memory.” They "stretch" it to its dictionary definition? > 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 It still is a kind of memorization, just not a voluntary one. And such learning is stil…

> They "stretch" it to its dictionary definition?

To memorize means to commit to memory. It is an action. But memories are created by not just actions, but experiences. Experiences can create memories without you having committed them; without you having memorized anything.

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#220

Post by coldtea »

LoganDark wrote: post #219
coldtea wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> OP and others here are stretching the definition of “memorize” to mean “anything that leads to something being retained in memory.” They "stretch" it to its dictionary definition? > 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 It still is a kind of memorization, just not a voluntary one. And such learning is stil…

> They "stretch" it to its dictionary definition? To memorize means to commit to memory. It is an action. But memories are created by not just actions, but experiences. Experiences can create memories without you having committed them; without you having memorized anything.

>To memorize means to commit to memory. It is an action.

There is no action of "commiting to memory". It's not an action we do, it's a process that results in that.

The actual action we do (when we consciously try to remember something) is e.g. to study (read, repeat, and so on).

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