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Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

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Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#221

Post by muzani »

Jensson wrote: post #218
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…

> 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…

The point they are trying to make is it comes from memorizing the right things. You don't become a chess master by memorizing opening moves, you become one by memorizing strong and weak states on the board.

The ability to memorize opening moves may lead you into a stronger mid game, but it's not creativity. Creativity is searching for patterns where they can mate in three, or spotting positions where the bishop can attack two pieces at once in two moves.

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#222

Post by jacobolus »

stonemetal12 wrote: post #166
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…

Memorize means "to retain in and quickly recall from memory". Weather that is by synthetic or natural process is irrelevant. From the point of understanding how memory and recall work, yes burning your hand is an act of memorization. Sure there is a natural repetitive process that leads to base learning like L1 you mention. On the other hand no one adds or multiples enough in daily life for natural memory formation.…

By far the best way to learn arithmetic facts is to ‘naturally’ use them in service of solving more interesting or relevant problems. Someone who spends the same amount of time doing nontrivial word problems, pattern-discovery projects, playing a game or solving a puzzle involving embedded arithmetic, or just talking about numbers in a group will come out vastly better prepared both for recalling or figuring out arithmetic solutions per se and for mathematical fluency in general than someone who does narrow practice drills. Arithmetic drills are not only a total motivation killer for most people, but also just suck at aiding retention. Time spent on arithmetic drills in school is somewhere between a waste of time and an actively harmful punishment.

If anyone wants some primary school appropriate word problems, let me recommend the collections by Lenchner, e.g. https://archive.org/details/mathematicalolym0000lenc

Also try Kordemsky’s Moscow Puzzles https://archive.org/details/boris-a.-kordemsky-the-moscow-pu...

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#223

Post by sgregnt »

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…

This is different memories? the one for the formula and the one for the concept. So you can remember the meaning of the word but don't remember how to write it. So can reproduce the formula from your deep understanding, but it is quicker to check it out instead of apply the first principle every time.

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#224

Post by Jensson »

muzani wrote: post #221
Jensson wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

The point they are trying to make is it comes from memorizing the right things. You don't become a chess master by memorizing opening moves, you become one by memorizing strong and weak states on the board. The ability to memorize opening moves may lead you into a stronger mid game, but it's not creativity. Creativity is searching for patterns where they can mate in three, or spotting positions where the bishop can a…

> The point they are trying to make is it comes from memorizing the right things

No it doesn't, understanding a concept doesn't come from memorizing N facts, if it did we could easily make everyone understand math in school but we can't.

Some people understand math trivially with no effort and no work memorizing (they wont remember the formulas, but they can explain how it works and can reproduce something similar to the formulas), others don't understand even with massive amounts of effort and memorizing every formula.

> You don't become a chess master by memorizing opening moves, you become one by memorizing strong and weak states on the board.

That is just a theory, there is little behind that. Much more likely you become a chess master by training a board state evaluator in your hand that is really good at evaluating board states, not by memorizing lots of board states. Memorizing board states is deep blue, it is much worse than AlphaGo etc, so that is for sure not the best way to get good, and for sure not the way humans get good, humans get good similar to how AlphaGo gets good, not how deep blue did it.

That board state evaluator allows you to also remember board states easily, but you don't build that by memorizing board state patterns.

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#225

Post by dingnuts »

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.

This is just confirmation bias. Either you're in a field where you must have a degree, so everyone who couldn't pass tests simply never became an engineer (eg EE) and whether or not the test is a good measure is irrelevant because it nonetheless gates your sample

OR you're in software engineering and the people who struggled on tests work beside you, but they don't tell you about their past performance on tests because you have a chip on your shoulder and they don't want you to look down on them.

I failed a lot of tests in college and now I'm a great software engineer.

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#226

Post by lambda »

coldtea wrote: post #211
jjk166 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Gravity works just as well if you're in combat or smuggling coke. They don't suddenly give you the ability to takeoff under too much load

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#227

Post by marcosdumay »

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…

> If you can't remember the pieces making up a concept, how are you going to remember the concept?

This is not mere memorization. The GP's point that not everything that makes you remember this is simply "memorization", and certainly all of those things contribute differently to creativity.

> I also have some written tests for certifying pilots.

Yes, piloting is one of the tasks where you absolutely need lots of random information memorized. You should also not do a lot of "creativity" in it.

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#228

Post by lelanthran »

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…

> Heck you need 'flashcards' before you needs 'flashcards for words'. You need to memorize the alphabet first.

I've a toddler who can read 3 paragraphs of 3 sentences each, and then tell you the details of the story he read[1]. He is 4y6m, right now. He has never learned the alphabet or the names of the letters (A,B, C, D, etc). He has only learned the sounds a letter or sequence of letters make for certain patterns.

You most definitely do not need to memorise the alphabet in order to learn to read!

Teaching children the alphabet before teaching them reading makes it a lot harder for them to learn actual reading.

[1] I've seen kids as old as 7 get confused by a book with no pictures, and he sails right on through because I taught him to read (using the DISTAR alphabet), and made sure none of our daily lessons had even a single picture in it.

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#229

Post by Jensson »

Alphazero was very creative, yet it didn't memorize a single move, it just self played. Deep blue was not creative at all, but it was the chess engine that memorized the most moves, todays chess engines are much better at chess and they don't memorize many moves at all, if you dig through their internals you wont find a lot of board states there.

So no, creativity doesn't fundamentally comes from memorization, memorization is neither sufficient to become creative nor is it a requirement. You don't memorize concepts you build models around the concepts. You wont be able to reproduce the exact descriptions of concepts but you will be able to produce something similar that means basically the same thing.

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#230

Post by singleshot_ »

lelandbatey wrote: post #29
shw1n wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey thanks for reading! What I was trying to convey is that fundamentally learning is memorization, whether conscious "rote memorization" or more less-intentional committing to memory from doing an activity And that recognizing this allows us to speed up the process of learning fundamentals Which in turn enables creativity as most people see it

You state that "learning is memorization" but I don't think that is true. Of course learning involves something being persisted in one's brain, but stating that memorization and brain persistence persisting are synonyms seems like an incorrect description.

You’re right. The OP is mistaken as to the distinction between memory and memorization. I am able to be creative because, for example, I remember that a woman’s hair smelled like flowers and secrets. It would not be possible to memorize such a thing.
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