Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

shwin.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 372 posts

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#231

Post by bondarchuk »

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…

Isn't that exactly the result of a focus on memorization instead of understanding (yes yes at some level that also involves memory), though? To a certain type of person memorizing an arbitrary arrangement of 3 symbols is quite difficult but OTOH it's easy to remember that current goes up with voltage and down with resistance.

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#233

Post by nickpsecurity »

That thesis is way, too oversimplified and a bit misleading. It could lead you to think the real source of creativity is how much you store, facts or patterns. Put Wikipedia on a computer with a pile of heuristics (eg How to Solve It). Then, it will be more creative than humans in no time. Yet, humans with virtually no knowledge are more creative.

My first study of creativity was Cracking Creativity by Michalko. Skimming its tools, I noticed all of them were about changing how one looks at a problem or connects its pieces. Another work told me geniuses are defined by what they forget or ignore more than what they memorize. The two ideas combined into my working approach.

When I did CompSci research, I would look through the papers for the concepts they reported on. High level ones, core prerequisites, and techniques in how they are combined. From there, I could enumerate variations on each. Then, just keep combining them in straight-forward or random ways. Eventually, something emerges.

Likewise, prior work on creativity and A.I. showed reasoning by analogy was huge in humans. We find patterns in one domain that we generalize to look for patterns in another domain. Then, there’s some process of knowing when to try one or not.

These processes so far are extracting a tiny amount of information, filtering most of it, identifying heuristics in a domain, and heuristics across domains. Also, letting the mind just soak on things to do whatever it does in the middle of the night. These are collectively creativity.

Memorization is a building block of, but different from, creativity. The proof is how we’ve long had memory and reasoning in systems but they sucked at creativity. Recently, systems are extrapolating enough to be more creative but are hallucinating nonsense they definitely didn’t remember. So, they’re orthogonal.

“Creativity comes to those who have internalized the patterns of their art -- they can see the connection or novelty because it's all in their head.”

Edit: I’ll also add that, for planning and creativity, many of us use a deliberate, trial-and-error process that takes time. We don’t just “see” it from something we internalized. We work toward it using the creative process. We usually do see it when it’s finished, though.

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#234

Post by redhed »

dingnuts wrote: post #225
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. 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 w…

I also failed a lot of tests and I like to think that I am currently a good engineer. Frankly I do not see much overlap between what I was expected to do in school vs. what I do at work besides lab work and projects, which were the things I did do good in.

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#235

Post by enos_feedler »

Did this author read a single book on creativity? Or did he just make everything up?

Being creative is simply knowing what you want, knowing where you are and is the process of making choices along the way to get there. The point at which your creation comes to life is fuzzy, but this is the underlying process. As for what rules/patterns/etc that you follow to arrive where you want to go: the whole point is not presubscribe to any of these. Sometimes you draw from a known way. Sometimes you come up with an entirely knew way to take a step. The point is simply to make choices that bring you closer to what you want to make.

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#236

Post by shw1n »

stoperaticless wrote: post #216
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)

^ exactly

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#237

Post by nickpsecurity »

kiwi_kim wrote: post #65
knighthack wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely disagree with your assertion that "...rote memorization is neither necessary nor sufficient to internalize concepts." I would recommend reading the book Moonwalking with Einstein . There is a lot of discussion there on how memory is linked directly to creativity, and to understanding concepts deeply. --- A choice passage: "... If the essence of creativity is linking disparate facts and ideas, then the mo…

Great book, motivated me to then read The Art of Memory by Frances Yates. Although I'd say traditional mnemonic devices like memory palaces are basically linear information storage and recall devices. This can create issues in building a flexible web of information, because loci or the order of the path can become dependencies and you can run out of unique spots in a given space, leading to memory interference. Even…

You are very correct in my experience since mnemonics backfired on me that way. It was like my brain constricted on those but recall was good in limited situation.

Thanks for sharing your alternative. I like that you’ve included your references for each component of your method. That might help as many people as your product. I’ll look into it sometime.

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#238

Post by [deleted] »

Izkata wrote: post #102
barrkel wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you call it when you remember things so you can repeat them but you can't generalize? E.g. if you learn a poem or phrase in a foreign language, but can't reuse the words in different contexts? Or being able to recite a rule, but not automatically applying it? Is there a word for this? Similarly, we should have a word for knowing how to reuse something in a different context, but not recall its origin or its c…

> What do you call it when you remember things so you can repeat them but you can't generalize? E.g. if you learn a poem or phrase in a foreign language, but can't reuse the words in different contexts? Or being able to recite a rule, but not automatically applying it? "Rote memorization"

[deleted]

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#239

Post by kqr »

bunderbunder wrote: post #183
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…

An anecdote I once heard provided in support of this point in a lecture: there are aspects of Spanish grammar that native speakers typically don't grasp until their teenage years. I suspect that, if one were to sit down and count hours of practice so that we could do a better apples-to-apples comparison, we'd find that children learn languages at a glacial pace compared to adults. And the rest is pure selection bias.

The one thing children can learn that adults generally cannot is native pronounciation. If that is included in language proficiency, then adults take an infinite amount of time to learn!

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#240

Post by rowanG077 »

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.

Please teach me to this magical "commit to memory" skill. Up till now memorizing has always been a side effect of some other process like studying for me. I would love to be able to skip all of that.
Post reply on HN