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Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

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Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#251

Post by Jensson »

shw1n wrote: post #42
drewcoo wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But how do you know how to apply this acquired knowledge in this new context? That question has a false precondition baked in. If you know how, it's not creative. > It's some form of pattern matching right -- which imo is just a less obvious form of memorization No. Sensing and matching patterns does not imply memorization. Everything you're saying is completely loaded. Did you just discover memorization? Because t…

But you must have knowledge of the basic units of your chosen art to apply that to the new situation right? E.g. if you're an artist, at the very least you need the knowledge of how to draw a line From other comments here it seems the definition of "memorization" seems to be where disagreements are Maybe this is a better explanation: once I started trying to make whatI just learned is called "tacit knowledge" more ex…

> E.g. if you're an artist, at the very least you need the knowledge of how to draw a line

But no artist memorize how to draw a line. They learn how to draw a line, but learning isn't the same thing as memorizing.

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#252

Post by tshaddox »

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.…

> 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.

I think in common usage the word "memorize" very strongly implies that it's the lossless storage and retrieval of some highly specified sequence of information. No amount of studying American Civil War history would be referred to as "memorizing the Gettysburg Address" unless you could recite the speech word for word.

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#253

Post by lukko »

shw1n wrote: post #236
stoperaticless wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Huh, muscle memory implies motor programs that are subconscious and stored in the cerebellum - this is very different to creativity. It may enable you to make something new, but that is not a prerequisite. The value of spaghetti drawings is subjective, and actually to be able to make such disinhibited drawings with similar qualities as an adult is very difficult and requires unlearning. Picasso knew this very well.

The safe and very systematic approaches the author describes are defensive, too rigid and avoid what creativity really is - a leap into the unknown.

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#254

Post by ethlala »

I think this is right, and one implication is that 99.9% of the self-help content you passively consume on the internet will have no impact on your life, because (barring deliberate learning / repetition), you won't remember it in the high-leverage moments when it might have made a difference.

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#255

Post by shw1n »

ethlala wrote: post #254

I think this is right, and one implication is that 99.9% of the self-help content you passively consume on the internet will have no impact on your life, because (barring deliberate learning / repetition), you won't remember it in the high-leverage moments when it might have made a difference.

Thanks for reading!

This brings up an interesting point -- while I think many people read and forget self-help books without ever improving their lives, the way they can mostly help people (imo) is by:

1) identifying a heuristic 2) making memorization easier through stories

The stories, analogies, acronyms they teach all just make memorizing/remembering/learning their heuristic easier

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#256

Post by LoganDark »

coldtea wrote: post #220
LoganDark wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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).

> There is no action of "commiting to memory".

Mental notes are a pretty commonly known concept; not that I'm claiming everyone can make them easily, or at all, but they don't typically require focused studying. I'd consider them an example of committing something to memory intentionally. Sure, studying is another way of committing things to memory. You can read something repeatedly and completely ignore it just as much as you can read something repeatedly with the intention of remembering it. You can also make mental remarks without them becoming mental notes. But it is certainly possible to create a memory on purpose. It's just that studying an entire subject requires you to train your understanding quite a bit in order to build a good memory of it, as opposed to memorizing a single simple idea or lesson that you already intuitively understand.

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#257

Post by groby_b »

flir wrote: post #195
groby_b wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, why do you think Picasso didn't have deep knowledge? He studied both at the School of Fine Arts in Barcelona & the Royal Academy of San Fernando in Madrid, for ~5 years before moving to Paris. Borges was incredibly talented, but it's worth keeping in mind his dad was a writer too. Good art very much relies on being exposed to lots of other good art first. I don't know that rote memorization is the best way to a…

Sorry, I must have expressed myself badly. I'm picking examples of people I think did/do have deep knowledge of their chosen mediums. I don't think it's possible to have "good taste" without exposure to lots of examples, because I believe taste it culturally bound. Whether you do it explicity via a system, or on a more ad hoc basis, I think most artists need it. It might be interesting to look at film, where the proc…

Ah, misread you then, thanks for clarifying.

I don't think film will look very different here - early film work was very much informed by theatrical tastes at the time, and then started to diverge as people figured out what else they could say in the language of film.

Fundamentally, all art exists in a cultural context. If you've ever taken an art history course, you've been hit over the head with that info a few times ;) And that means furthering/changing taste in a given field means being aware enough of the existing rules to deliberately choose which ones you're breaking, and why.

There are some (very few) artists who didn't have a formal grounding, but I'd argue that even they were steeped enough in cultural context to be informed by it. Even famous autodidacts like Grandma Moses did develop a love for art based on being exposed to a bunch of it.

(Fully recognizing that it's a somewhat tautological argument because it's kind of impossible to grow up in a society without being somewhat exposed to its predominant art forms)

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#258

Post by Jensson »

ethlala wrote: post #254

I think this is right, and one implication is that 99.9% of the self-help content you passively consume on the internet will have no impact on your life, because (barring deliberate learning / repetition), you won't remember it in the high-leverage moments when it might have made a difference.

> you won't remember it in the high-leverage moments when it might have made a difference

But how would you learn to remember the right advice in the right context? The act of remembering something when you need it requires you to do more than just memorize it, you have to properly learn when the thing is actually useful and train your mind to recall this advice in those situations.

It is much better to know that an advice exist and learn when to look it up than to memorize the advice without the ability to realize when you would need it.

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#259

Post by LoganDark »

rowanG077 wrote: post #240
LoganDark wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

You can't create a memory of something you don't already have in your head. Studying puts stuff into your head for you to remember. Memory usually comes naturally after that happens, but it usually cannot come before, unless you happen to have perfect recall and memorize the image of whatever you are reading.

A good example of committing something to memory on demand is making a mental note. I don't know if everyone has this ability, but it's a pretty commonly known concept. You don't have to study the subject of the note in order to remember it; it's often something simple like "do this tomorrow" that you already understand, so it's easy to memorize.

Re: Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization?

#260

Post by [deleted] »

flir wrote: post #195
groby_b wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, why do you think Picasso didn't have deep knowledge? He studied both at the School of Fine Arts in Barcelona & the Royal Academy of San Fernando in Madrid, for ~5 years before moving to Paris. Borges was incredibly talented, but it's worth keeping in mind his dad was a writer too. Good art very much relies on being exposed to lots of other good art first. I don't know that rote memorization is the best way to a…

Sorry, I must have expressed myself badly. I'm picking examples of people I think did/do have deep knowledge of their chosen mediums. I don't think it's possible to have "good taste" without exposure to lots of examples, because I believe taste it culturally bound. Whether you do it explicity via a system, or on a more ad hoc basis, I think most artists need it. It might be interesting to look at film, where the proc…

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